Beijing-backed research group slams United States’ record on human rights
- Washington has ‘neither the will nor the ability’ to solve its own racial discrimination problems, China Society for Human Rights Studies says
- Damning article comes after US officials repeat calls for better treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang, cool heads in Hong Kong
A state-backed Chinese research network on Friday published a damning indictment of the United States’ record on human rights, accusing it of widespread racial discrimination in an apparent response to Washington’s recent comments on Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
“For all its self-styled positioning as a defender of human rights, the United States has neither the will nor the ability to solve the severe problem of racial discrimination within its own territory,” the China Society for Human Rights Studies said in an article published on its website.
“This exposes the institutional and structural defects of the United States.”
The human rights situation in the US was deteriorating, the article said, adding that America was failing to live up to the commitments it had made to the United Nations on non-discrimination, arbitrary detention and immigration.
It made specific reference to the hundreds of police shootings of African-Americans that occur each year in the US, citing figures from Mapping Police Violence, which maintains a database of people killed by law enforcement officers in the country.
It also cited several UN reports critical of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, referencing the alleged abuses at immigration detention centres.