Report: U.S., Chinese human rights records worsening

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In its 40th annual report, Amnesty International on Wednesday said the U.S. and Chinese records on human rights are worsening.

Along with criticizing the U.S. death penalty, William Schulz of Amnesty International USA said Washington's overall human rights record has been worsening for the past several years.

He alleged various abuses in prisons, police and military training, and in world leadership.

"It's no wonder that the United States was ousted from the United Nations human rights commission," Schulz said during a Washington news conference. "That defeat was precipitated in part by waning U.S. influence and by double standards, by the practice of exceptionalism -- the notion that we can make one set of rules but don't have to abide by them, a practice that has occurred in several administrations and Congresses in the last few years.

Read the 2001 report

"The United States is the leading manufacturer of instruments that can be used for torture -- electro-shock instruments, serrated handcuffs, leg irons," he said.

Schulz also cited deteriorating human rights conditions in China -- the world leader in state-sanctioned executions -- despite increased trade with the West.

"There are about 230,000 people in prison without trial in China, and there are hundreds of people being tortured in (Chinese-ruled) Tibet," Schulz said. "What is certainly true is that there's no evidence that the trade ties have resulted in a significant improvement in China."

The report, which documents the group's activities during 2000, says Amnesty launched a concerted new effort to eradicate torture around the world.

"AI's global survey into patterns of torture revealed that the most common victims of torture and ill-treatment are convicted criminals and criminal suspects," the report said. "In some countries, beatings of criminal suspects are so routine that they are not recognized as torture, even by the victims themselves. Criminal suspects often come from the poorest or most marginalized sectors of society. Discrimination against such groups often contributes to the lack of action against their torture or ill-treatment."

The London-based group said governments must not back away from protecting rights even as globalization puts more power in the hands of others, such as international corporations and financial institutions.

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"States have to confront their cowardice, their cover-ups and their efforts to shirk responsibilities," the group said in a statement. "They have the power, despite external constraints, to deliver human rights if they have the political will."

Amnesty also continued its campaign against use of the death penalty in judicial systems around the globe.

"In 2000 at least 1,457 people were executed in 28 countries. At least 3,058 people were sentenced to death in 65 countries," the report said. "These figures include only cases known to AI; the true figures were certainly higher."

Amnesty said most of the world's executions last year were carried out in just a few nations. "In 2000, 88 percent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the U.S.A."

Appearing on "CNN Live at Daybreak," Amnesty International Senior Deputy Executive Director Curt Goering said political killings, occurring in 61 nations, increased in 2000. "This is a situation where governments don't even arrest the individuals," Goering said. "They identify and target them for elimination and kill them on the street, their places of business and sometimes at their homes."

The report cited 149 nations for various human rights violations, and it said so-called prisoners of conscience were detained in 63 countries. But the report also said incidents documented in 30 nations of unexplained disappearances of people declined by 20 percent.

The human rights group, which was once described by former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini as a "lackey of satanic powers," has dealt with the cases of 47,000 "prisoners of conscience."

It was formed in 1961 by British lawyer Peter Benenson, who got the idea a year earlier after seeing a newspaper report about two Portuguese students in Lisbon during the Salazar dictatorship.

Author Jonathan Power, who has written a history of Amnesty International, told Reuters: "They had been arrested and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for raising their glasses in a toast to freedom."

Today, Amnesty International says its membership is more than a million worldwide, with supporters in at least 160 countries.

Of the 47,000 cases of human-rights violations it has dealt with, more than 45,000 are now closed, the group says.