A Chinese human rights expert said on Friday that the human rights report issued by the United States on May 17 reflected the hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, as it made no mention of its own problems, including the systematic mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners that shocked the world.

Dong Yunhu, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, said the US report was issued at a time when the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US troops drew worldwide condemnation.

The mistreatment ruined mankind's dignity, trampled the international human rights conventions and international humanitarian laws, and it constituted systematic and gross violation of human rights, the expert said in an article toward the US report.

The US report became the laughing stock of the world and it just exposed US' hypocritical nature on human right issue before the world people.

The US report, entitled "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2003-2004," summarizes in 270 pages US actions in 101 countries to promote freedom and to end abuses. The US State Department had postponed its publication for 12 days after the abuse scandal triggered a global uproar.

The abuse of prisoners by US soldiers is by no means confined to Abu Ghraib prison or Iraq, but to other prisons under the control of United States, according to Dong's article.

During the war in Afghanistan, US troops abused and humiliated Taliban prisoners, it said.

The article quoted a May 9 Reuters report that US soldiers were ordered to extort confessions through cruel torture at Abu Ghraib Prison, indicating the most humiliating abuse was designed specially by the US military intelligence department to crush the will of the prisoners.

The article also cited a report published by the Washington Post saying the abuse at the Iraqi prison is a product of the US irrational interrogating system as the US Department of Defense and Department of Justice approved in April of 2003 the use of 20 harsh interrogation methods at the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba.

Dong went on to say the mistreatment and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers is a reflection of the inherent human rights "sin" in United States itself, and an inevitable outcome of the United States' long-term exertion of hegemony and power politics in the world.

Racial prejudice is deep-rooted in the United States, and racial prejudices against Arabs has become rampant in the United States after the Sept.11 terror attacks.

The New York Times, one of the leading newspapers in the United States, reported in its May 8 edition that abuses of prisoners similar to that in Iraq often occur in the United States.

On the unjustified US criticism of China's situation of human rights, Dong said the unfounded criticism exhibited the political bias and ulterior motives of the United States.

Dong listed China's unprecedented progress in human rights in the past year, including the inclusion of the protection of human rights and legitimate private properties into its Constitution.

The US unwarranted attacks on China's situation of human rights have been driven by its ideological bias and politics to promote hegemony, Dong said.

The United States does not want to see the stable development of a Socialist China, nor the rise of a China that advocates peace and development, he said.

Human rights has been used as a tool by the United States to alter China's political system and the development orientation, the author said.

The US report reflects typical of the unilateralism and double standard the United States pursued in the human rights sector, the article noted.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2004)