This is the second consecutive year that the Information Office of the State Council has released an article on the US human rights record.

The article said that the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000 issued by the US State Department denounced more than 190 countries, including China, for their human rights conditions and falsely accused these countries of certain abuses.

At the same time, the US report on human rights around the world said nothing about America's own human rights situation, the article said.

Citing a number of examples, the six-part article dispelled the myth of "American Democracy," giving a blow-by-blow account of human rights violations in the US, such as escalating violence, unfair judicial practices, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, widespread gender discrimination and racial discrimination, ill-treatment of children and minorities, as well as its arbitrary interference in the human rights issues of other countries.

The article said that by elevating itself to a "model of democracy," the United States continuously hawks "American-style democracy" to other countries. Under the pretext of safeguarding this kind of democracy, the United States continues to make rash criticisms of other countries and interferes in their internal affairs.

Nevertheless, the article noted, well-informed people know that the so-called democracy has been nothing more than a fairy tale since the United States was founded more than 200 years ago.

5,000 Children Shot Dead Annually in US: article

EDS-Recast with correction in 1st paragraph The article said that the United States, one of five countries that sentence juveniles to the death penalty, has the highest number of juveniles sentenced to death in the world. In the 25 US states which give death penalty to juveniles, four states set the lowest age for the death sentence at 17, while 21 states set 16 as the bottom line age or have no age limit at all.

By October 2000, 83 juvenile criminals who were under 18 when their crimes were committed were waiting to be executed.

The US Justice Department released a report on February 27, 2000, showing that from 1985 to 1997, the number of inmates under 18 incarcerated in prisons meant to accommodate adults increased by over 100 percent, from 3,400 to 7,400, and 90 percent of them were high school dropouts.

To date, more than 100,000 children are in juvenile prisons and are ill treated, the article said.

The article noted that as many as 50,000 women and children are smuggled from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe to the United States every year. They are often forced to become prostitutes or end up as poorly treated workers and servants. Some of the smuggled children are as young as nine.

The article said that although as many as 100,000 women and children were smuggled to the country in the last two years, only 250 of them are listed as victims of relevant cases for public prosecution by the US government.

Worsening polarization:

The end of the 20th century witnessed the most prosperous economic period in the history of the United States, with the economic growth rate rising continuously for 118 months by the end of 2000.

However, the gap between the rich and poor was further widened.

The richest Americans, who make up one percent of the US population, own 40 percent of the total property of the country, while over 32 million citizens, or 12.7 percent of the total population, live under the poverty line.

The incidence of poverty is higher than in the 1970s, and higher than in most other developed countries.

The average working time of US citizens was 1,957 hours annually, longer than in other developed countries.

A newly published book in the United States said that some female cashiers and workers on production lines have to wear protective undergarments because they are not permitted to take time to go to the toilet.

About 30 million US citizens had no social security eight years ago, and the figure has increased to the current 46 million, and one out of every six US citizens has no medical insurance.

One in five high school graduates cannot read his or her diploma; 85 percent of unwed mothers are illiterate; 70 percent of Americans arrested are illiterate; 21 million Americans cannot read.

More than 5,000 children die in shoot-out every year:

Women in the US are paid an average of 26 percent less than their male colleagues.

Since 1980, the number of prisoners in the United States has tripled, while that of the female prisoners has quadrupled.

As many as 50,000 women and children are smuggled from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe to the United States every year.

They are often forced to become prostitutes or ill-treated workers and servants. Children as young as nine are among those smuggled.

The human trafficking and the sex slave trade have become the third most profitable illegal trade in the United States, following drugs and arms smuggling.

Incomplete statistics show that crime rings in the United States earn seven billion US dollars from human trafficking annually.

As many as 5,000 American children are shot dead annually.

The percentage of gunshot victims under age 14 is 21 times that of 25 other industrialized countries.

Some 1.5 million children, or two percent of the country's total, have one or both parents in prison.

Since 1990, 14 juveniles have been executed for their crimes.

In the first seven months of 2000, four juvenile criminals were executed, more than the figure of other countries combined in the past seven years.

In October 2000, 83 juvenile criminals, who were under 18 when their crimes were committed, were waiting to be executed.

According to an investigation conducted by the UNICEF, the poverty rate of the children in the United States ranks second among the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

To date, a total of 13 million children live in poverty, three million more than the figure of 1979.

In the United States, at least 290,000 children are working in factories, mines and farms where working conditions are dangerous.

Children working on farms often have to work 20 hours a day and run the risk of pesticide poisoning, injury and permanent disability. They account for eight percent of the country's total child workers, while job-related deaths make up 40 percent of the country's total occupational death toll.

Racial Discrimination:

Nearly 2 million aboriginals are living on streets of big cities in the United States and 40 percent of them don't have sufficient food.

The unemployment rate of African Americans is double that of whites.

Ninety-eight percent of judges in the United States are white people.

Nearly half of the 2 million U.S. inmates are black, another 16 percent are Latin American.

One out of every three young black people is confined in detention systems or on parole.

In the past 200 years of US history, a total of 18,000 people were sentenced to death, only 38 of whom were white, accounting for 0.2 percent of the total.

US arms exports accounts for more than a third of the world:

The US military expenditure and ammunition exports rank first in the world. The country's military expenses account for one-third of the world's total and exports of ammunitions amount to 36 percent of the global total. Its military spending budget for 2001 increased by 12.6 billion U.S. dollars over the 200 billion US dollars for 2000.

Incomplete statistics show that the United States has waged wars in foreign countries and regions more than 40 times in the 1990s. The country uses cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells, which are banned by international law, and new arms of mass destruction in foreign countries, causing death and injuries to local people, and also producing a disastrous effect on the eco-environment in those countries, according to the article.

(Xinhua 02/27/2001)