North Korea Strikes Back With Human Rights Report of Its Own
In response to a scathing United Nations report on human rights violations in the country, North Korea has released its own human rights report, targeting the United States. Its main points, via the North Korean state news agency KCNA:
Under the citizenship act, racialism is getting more severe in the U.S. The gaps between the minorities and the whites are very wide in the exercise of such rights to work and elect. The U.S. true colors as a kingdom of racial discrimination was fully revealed by last year's case that the Florida Court gave a verdict of not guilty to a white policeman who shot to death an innocent black boy.
That's why 52 percent of the Americans have said that racism still exists in the country while 46 percent contended that all sorts of discrimination would be everlasting.
The U.S. is a living hell as elementary rights to existence are ruthlessly violated.
At present, an average of 300,000 people a week are registered as unemployed, but any proper measure has not been taken.
The housing price soared 11.5 percent last year than 2012 and 13.2 percent in January this year than 2013, leaving many people homeless.
The number of impoverished people increased to 46.5 millions last year, and one sixth of the citizens and 20-odd percent of the children are in the grip of famine in New York City.
All sorts of crimes rampant in the U.S. pose a serious threat to the people's rights to existence and their inviolable rights.
The U.S. government has monitored every movement of its citizens and foreigners, with many cameras and tapping devices and even drones involved, under the pretext of "national security".
Meanwhile, bills on easing arms control were adopted in various states of the country, boosting murderous crimes. As a result, the U.S. has witnessed an increasing number of gun-related crimes in all parts of the country and even its military bases this year. In this regard, the United Nations on April 10 put the U.S. on the top of the world list of homicide rates.
The U.S. also has 2.2 millions of prisoners at present, the highest number in the world. For lack of prisons on the part of the government, individuals are providing detention facilities to make money.
A Russian TV said that in the U.S. the wealthy classes are now keen on the investment in providing private prisons for their high profit and so more people will be imprisoned…
Its chief executive, Obama, indulges himself in luxury almost every day, squandering hundred millions of dollars on his foreign trip in disregard of his people's wretched life.
The Washington Post relays these same points from the KCNA, noting that most of these are criticisms based on issues many Americans care about and contends that "the only truly debatable part is on gun crime." Despite North Korea's assertions, the violent crime rate has declined in recent years.
But I'd say a few more of the points above are highly debatable too. I don't know of any "citizenship act" exacerbating racialism. (Voter ID laws don't count—I showed my ID to vote in New Jersey, which doesn't have a voter ID law, for years. In fact, the first time I remember not showing my ID was in 2012, when voter ID laws had become the new outrage).
While the Washington Post suggests the latter part of the first point is about Trayvon Martin, in that case the shooter, George Zimmerman, was not a policemen. Other policemen, white and black, have gotten away with killing unarmed (and non-threatening) individuals, black and white. As someone who's covered a lot of police abuse stories, I would suggest that while racism plays a role in some of the cases, the fundamental issue in police abuse is not racism but a lack of accountability among and an abundance of deference to police forces and other classes of government employees, especially the armed ones. In general I don't think police officers who end up killing innocent people do so because of race, they do it because their peers have gotten away with it almost every time.
The third point, about the U.S. being a living hell, is, admittedly, not debatable. It's just plain false by any metric you choose. The sixth point sounds false too, and certainly needs a citation, from the North Koreans or the Post. Neither did the U.S. actually end up at the top of a U.N. list of homicide rates. As the Post notes, that spot was taken by Honduras.