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(2) Civil and Political Rights
"In the United States, civil and political rights of citizens are severely restricted and violated by the government."
Citing Amnesty International (AI), the Chicago Defender, a New York Police Department report, the Oregonian, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and other sources, China reported nationwide instances of police violence, including lawless killings, beatings, Taser gun abuse, and more, including against children - concluding that "Abuse of power is common among US law enforcers."
In his 1990 book "Protectors of Privilege," Frank Donner called Chicago (this writer's home) "The National Capital of Police Repression," mostly against poor blacks and Latinos. He documented:
"wide-open, no-holds-barred style surveillance. Chicago-style official vigilantism guerrilla warfare against substantial sectors of the city's population," calling it "flamboyantly illegal institutionalized aggression." Unfortunately, what Chicago experiences, happens nationwide, in large and small cities and rural communities, making America repressively harsh against its least advantaged, most vulnerable people.
It shows up in poor neighborhoods and a shameful gulag, China citing Department of Justice (DOJ) and other data revealing some of the following statistics and more of its own, including as many as 2.4 million imprisoned Americans at yearend 2008 (by far, the world's largest prison population plus thousands of others abroad). They include inmates in federal and state facilities, local jails, Indian, juvenile, and military ones, US territories, and numbers held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In addition, another 7.3 million are under correctional supervision, and 13 million pass through US jails annually. Half of them are for non-violent offenses. Half of those are drug-related. In 1980, 40,000 drug offenders were in prison. Today, it's over 500,000, the result of the "war on drugs," that's part of the war on civil liberties and human rights.
China says "the basic rights of (US) prisoners" aren't protected, evidenced by rampant sexual abuse and thousands of rapes annually in federal confinement. "Chaotic management of (US) prisons also (causes) widespread diseases among inmates," including thousands of confirmed HIV/AIDs cases.
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