“U.S. troops committed crimes and human rights abuses wherever they stay," China

BEIJING, April 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - China lashed out Thursday at growing U.S. unilateralism describing it as the root of human rights violations around the world, especially during the war in Afghanistan and the current Iraqi war.

In retaliation to a State Department global human rights report this week that criticized China for its gross violations, the State Council, China's cabinet, issued a report to slam the U.S. rights record, according to Agence France Presse (AFP).

The preamble to the report said, "with the United States pretending to be the 'world's judge of human rights'... it is necessary to make known to the world the human rights violations in the United States."

It added that the United States is a "democracy of the rich," steeped in rising crime, police brutality, racism, poverty and bumbling gun laws and maintaining double standards on human rights as it wages wars around the world, reported AFP.

"The United States is following unilateralism in international affairs and has frequently committed blunt violations of human rights in other countries," said the long-winded eight-part report carried by Xinhua news agency.

On the Iraq war, the United States "has openly violated the purpose and principles of the UN Charter, has caused casualties of innocent Iraqi civilians and serious humanitarian disasters."

During the 2002 war in Afghanistan the Americans dropped "nearly a quarter million cluster bomb lets" causing more than 3,000 civilian casualties, it said.

"Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops are stationed overseas, and such troops have committed crimes and human rights abuses wherever they stay."

The report also blasted a loss in civil rights and a rise in racism in the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

"By the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, approximately 60 percent of Muslims had experienced in person or witnessed acts of discrimination against Muslims including public harassment, physical assault and property damage," it said.