China hits back, accuses US of rights abuses

BEIJING, Mar 8 (Reuters) China accused the United States of hypocrisy today in its annual response to Washington's criticism of Beijing's human rights record, saying it had no right to blacken the name of other countries.

''As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in the United States,'' said the report, carried by the official Xinhua news agency.

China hopes its report will ''help people have a better understanding of the situation in the United States and promote the international cause of human rights''.

It did not mention US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's admission this week that the United States did have its own human rights problems.

The report took aim at a variety of issues, including civilian deaths in Iraq, child poverty, racism, mistreatment of prisoners and the place of US women in the workplace.

It said naming and shaming other countries in an annual report on human rights practices amounted to waging the Cold War of the second half of the 20th century and was ''typical of Cold War mentality''.

''We urge the U.S. government to acknowledge its own human rights problems and stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of human rights,'' said the lengthy report.

''SHOCKING INJUSTICE'' Cases of abuses were sourced to Western media reports, US government statistics and even groups like Amnesty International that normally themselves face Chinese opprobrium for their criticism of Beijing's human rights record.

''Injustice of the judiciary is quite shocking,'' the Chinese report states. ''In some cases, defendants were sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding.

''Abuses in US prisons are also common. The United States is the only country in the world that allows the use of police dogs to terrify prisoners,'' it added.

Yet China has come in for censure itself from the United Nations, whose special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said that the practice remained widespread in the country.

Summary trials behind closed door of activists have also brought international condemnation.

China maintains the issue of human rights is about sovereignty -- non-interference in the affairs of other countries, a line taken by other countries often in the line of fire for human rights abuses, like Myanmar.

Reuters BDP DB1016