Human Rights Hypocrisy

U.S. Raps China, Some Allies in Human Rights Report (Mon March 31, 2003 07:21 PM ET - Reuters) By Arshad Mohammed

…”The United States sharply criticized China and some allies in the U.S.-led “war on terrorism” for violating human rights in its annual survey of other countries’ treatment of their own citizens.

The State Department document, deeply resented by some foreign governments, assesses the performance of every country in the world except the United States on protecting rights such as freedom of religion, speech and political expression…” (emphasis mine)

There is no one overseeing US Human Rights violations or preparing a report on it? Are we exempt from the same criticism we apply to other countries? Do we think that there are no Human Rights violations occurring in the US or by US authorities here and elsewhere?

What about all those detainees who have been denied due process? What about all those deportations of people who were never even accused of a crime? And what about all those being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at the behest of the United States? Add to that the Human Rights violations against Native Americans in a number of both well-known and unpublicized cases. As I recall, I (personally) wrote a letter of appeal to the UN Human Rights Commission a few years ago on behalf of the Dineh People (vs. the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs & Peabody Coal Co.), asking them to look into Human Rights violations right here in the US.

I think that before we pass judgment on other countries, we should make damned sure we aren’t being hypocrites first. Otherwise, it just makes us look like stupid fools to the rest of the world.

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