‘Human Rights Defenders’ Set New Record for Human Rights Violations

Recently the State Council Information Office released its Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020. The COVID- 19 epidemic* wrought havoc around the world in 2020 and posed a major threat to human life.* The coronavirus knows no borders, and epidemics do not distinguish among races. Overcoming viruses requires every country around the to help each other, to unite, and to cooperate. But the United States, which has always considered itself exceptional and superior, has not only seen its own epidemic spiral out of control, but in addition, has experienced political disorder, racial conflict and social division. It has set a new record of human rights violations.

American politicians are very complacent about being a beacon of Liberty and serving as the guardians of human rights. Yet in reality, there has been a sustained, systematic, and widespread pattern of human rights violations in the United States. On June 17, 2020, the U.N. Human Rights Council considered human rights issues in the United States at the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council held in Geneva. This was the first time in the history of the U.N. Human Rights Council that an urgent debate was called on the question of human rights in the United States. Successive incidents sufficiently showed how bad the human rights situation is for the defenders of human rights.

Is it worth talking about human rights when a country wages an unprovoked war against a sovereign nation? U.S. politicians have talked about human rights on various occasions. Ironically, however, it was previously reported in The Guardian that an American soldier in Afghanistan broke into three homes in two villages, shot and killed 16 Afghan villagers as they slept, wounding five and burning the bodies. The victims included nine children and three women. America continues to insist it values individual rights and freedom, yet it wages an unprovoked war against a sovereign country and massacres civilians. Do such acts warrant human rights consideration?

We all come from the same roots, so why are we so keen to harm each other? The U.S. not only wages unprovoked wars against sovereign states but is unkind to its own people. Figures show that in 2020, U.S. police officers killed 1,127 people. African Americans make up only 13% of the total population of the United States, but accounted for 28% of the people shot by police, and they are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people. In the course of the COVID-19 epidemic, the United States, the wealthiest, most developed and most medically advanced nation in the world, has allowed more than 500,000 Americans to lose their lives. It is ironic for America to do this and then talk about human rights.

It would be appropriate to describe the United States as a criminal who shouts “Stop, thief!” to distract from its own misdeeds. The U.S. has always boasted of being a beacon of human civilization and claimed to act as the “moral policeman” of the international community. This is the same noble guardian of human rights which promotes isolationism, unilateralism and bullying, and threatens international institutions at a moment when global unity is needed the most in the fight against the epidemic. In fact, the U.S., which boasts of being a model of democracy, has become the biggest troublemaker when it comes to global security and stability by frequently using the banner of what it calls human rights to criticize and oppress other countries.

Human rights are not a shield, and must not be used as a tool to pressure other countries. According to real-time statistics from Johns Hopkins University, as of March 26, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases in the United States had exceeded 30.2 million, while the number of deaths had reached 548,000. Both figures continue to be the highest in the world. In the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, protecting life is the right thing to do. I would advise the U.S. to discard its hypocritical facade and devote more attention to protecting the lives and health of its people. Otherwise the U.S. will only deceive itself and others. In the end, these shameless politicians are destined to shoot themselves in the foot and will be ruthlessly rejected by history.

*Translator's note: The author makes consistent reference to an “epidemic” although the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020.