Report: Human rights situation in U.S. continued to deteriorate in 2023

The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China on Wednesday released a report on human rights violations in the United States in 2023, revealing that the human rights situation in the United States continued to deteriorate in the last year.

"In the United States, human rights are becoming increasingly polarized. While a ruling minority holds political, economic and social dominance, the majority of ordinary people are increasingly marginalized, with their basic rights and freedoms being disregarded," said the report, adding that a staggering 76 percent of Americans believe that their nation is heading in the wrong direction.

Civil and political rights have become empty talk as gun violence spills over

Political infighting, government dysfunction and governance failure in the United States have failed to protect civil and political rights. Meanwhile, bipartisan consensus on gun control remains elusive, contributing to a continued surge in mass shootings. 

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were at least 654 mass shootings in the United States in 2023. Gun violence is responsible for nearly 43,000 deaths, an average of 117 per day. 

According to a survey report released on the website of the Pew Research Center on June 28, 2023, gun violence is widely recognized as a major and growing national problem, with 58 percent of respondents in favor of stricter gun control laws and more than 60 percent of American adults believing that gun violence is a major national problem in the United States today.

Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, called gun violence an "unacceptable national menace" and urged the U.S. government to reform gun policy. A spike in gun-related injuries and deaths in the United States raises serious concerns for the UN Human Rights Committee.

"However, American politicians ignore the international community and the domestic public's call for gun control, only for money and political self-interest so that the proliferation of guns in the United States cannot be effectively controlled for a long time," said the new report.

In her article "U.S. gun violence: Capitalism is the culprit," Al Jazeera columnist Belen Fernandez argues that the United States "is entirely predicated on putting profits over people." The Buffalo supermarket shooting, the Uvalde Elementary School shooting, the Highland Park parade shooting and other mass shootings have defined American life. U.S. gun manufacturing giant Smith & Wesson Brands earned at least $125 million in 2021 alone from the sale of assault-style rifles, the weapons often used in mass shootings.

The report also said Political infighting has intensified as parties manipulate elections through gerrymandering, leading to a "Speaker crisis" twice in the House of Representatives. These actions further diminish the government's credibility, with only 16 percent of Americans trusting the federal government.

The chronic disease of racism

Ethnic minorities in the United States face systematic racial discrimination as the chronic disease of racism persists. African Americans are three times more likely to be killed by police than whites and 4.5 times more likely to be incarcerated. Nearly three-quarters of Chinese Americans had experienced racial discrimination in the past year, and 55 percent feared that hate crimes or harassment would jeopardize their personal safety. Native Americans have lived in a constant state of cultural oppression, with their religious beliefs and traditional practices ruthlessly stifled. Racist ideology is spreading virulently in the United States and spilling across borders, according to the report.

The Associated Press reported on August 29, 2023, that a white man wearing a mask gunned down three African Americans in Jacksonville, Florida. The shooter, who had posted racist writings, killed himself. On the same day, the USA Today website reported that after a number of shootings targeting African Americans, African Americans became increasingly panicked. Representative Bennie Thompson, who served as former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said racial attacks, including the shooting in Jacksonville, were part of a growing trend of violence against Black communities.

According to hate crime data released by the FBI in October 2023, there were 3,424 hate crimes against African Americans in the United States in 2022. A report released by the office of the Attorney General of the State of California Department of Justice on June 27, 2023, showed that hate crimes targeting Black people increased 27.1 percent from 513 in 2021 to 652 in 2022.

A Pew Research Center survey released on November 30, 2023, showed that nearly 60 percent of Asian Americans said they had faced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity. A survey released by the Associated Press found that 51 percent of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders believed that racism was an "extremely" or "very serious" problem in the United States.

An article published on March 23, 2023, in Science magazine describes the persecution of Chinese scientists under the "China Initiative." Of the 246 people investigated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), 103 lost their jobs and more than one-fifth were banned from applying for new NIH funding for four years, dealing a major blow to their academic careers. Eighty-one percent of these 246 scientists were Asian. A survey of nearly 1,400 Chinese-Americans in tenured or tenure-track positions at U.S. universities by Princeton, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that 72 percent reported feeling insecure and 42 percent were afraid to conduct research in the United States.

In recent years, the U.S. government has continued generalizing the so-called national security concept, politicizing and weaponizing academic research, and fabricating various excuses to block international people-to-people, cultural, science and technology exchanges, and cooperation. The China Science Daily reported on January 11, 2024, that a number of Chinese students were subjected to unreasonable and inhumane treatment at U.S. Customs and were unable to complete their studies as scheduled. 

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Full text: Report on Human Rights Violations in U.S. in 2023