US Takes Flak Over Human Rights Record

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday denounced the human rights record of the US, citing maltreatment of children, breach of privacy, police brutality, secret jails and freedom of expression issues.

The ministry presented the report to the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, which will hold hearings on the human rights issue this coming Monday.

In a sneak preview for RIA Novosti, a Duma source privy to the document quoted it as saying that hundreds of thousands of children in the United States are mistreated and that resulted in 1,600 deaths in 2010 alone.

It makes special mention of the maltreatment of children adopted from Russia.

Citing US NGOs, Russian diplomats note that “about one police officer in 100 has been involved in criminal abuses, including sexual harassment, indecent behavior or rape.”

On prisons, it says that “the US remains the country with the largest prison population in the world – 2.2 million.”

Another issue is secret CIA prisons, in particular in Poland, Afghanistan, Iraq, Thailand, Morocco, Romania and Lithuania, the report said.

The report also criticizes US legislation permitting “special services” to monitor all private electronic correspondence without a court order.

In 2011, they filed more than 1.3 million requests for information on mobile users.

“Between 2004 and 2007 the number of electronic messages monitored by US special services rose by 3,000 percent,” the report says.

 

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