China has denounced US criticisms of its human rights record, accusing the US of double standards and suggesting Washington reflect on its own problems, official websites said yesterday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) said the Chinese government has expressed its "strong opposition" to the US criticisms.
"As the year is drawing to an end, we suggest the US side should take a clear consideration of the situation and make self-reflection on its own human rights problems," Qin said.
"The US government is well advised to give up its double standard on human rights and readjust the mistaken practices of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries on the pretext of human rights issues," he said.
The US State Department issued a statement on Saturday listing China as one of the countries where it said the struggle for human rights continues.
"From Cuba to China, Belarus to Burma, Uzbekistan to Zimbabwe, and Iran to North Korea, courageous human rights activists remain harassed and imprisoned," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement.
Human rights remains one of the strongest differences between Beijing and Washington despite improved relations over the past few years.
Qin said the US has "severe problems of violating human rights."
It highlighted a decision by a team of UN human rights experts in November to cancel a visit to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay because Washington did not allow them free access to detainees there.
Qin also cited UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour's statement last week that the reported US practice of secretly detaining terrorist suspects was eroding the global ban on torture.
Arbour implied the US may be violating the global ban through cruel, degrading and other inhumane treatment of prisoners for the purpose of obtaining intelligence, and raised concerns about turning over prisoners to countries where they may face torture.
Defending China's record, Qin said Beijing has scored "remarkable achievements."
China has frequently stated that it considers raising the living standards of its vast population to be a higher human rights priority than providing individual freedoms.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RSS