China report slams U.S. on human rights record

BEIJING, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- China published a report critical of the United States' human rights record Friday, responding to criticism of China in a U.S. State Department report.

China's report said there were serious human rights problems in the U.S. last year and the situation was deteriorating in many areas, the official state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

Acting as "the world judge of human rights," the report said, the U.S. government "made arbitrary attacks and irresponsible remarks" in its reports on human rights developments in nearly 200 countries and regions, the Chinese report said.

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department released its "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013," which, among other things, was critical of China for its lack of judicial independence that has fueled a state-directed crackdown on activists and suppression of political dissent and public advocacy.

The Chinese report said the U.S. government spies on its own citizens to a "massive and unrestrained" degree, calling the National Security Agency's cellphone and Internet monitoring "a blatant violation of international law [that] seriously infringes human rights."

The Chinese report also took the U.S. government to task for the use of unmanned drones for airstrikes that have caused civilian casualties, failure to act on a series of U.N. conventions on human rights, the imposition of solitary confinement in prisons, gun violence, high unemployment and homelessness.

Xinhua said Friday's document was the 15th annual report released by China in response to the State Department reports.