Syria, China criticize American human rights report

Each of China and Syria criticized the American violations in the field of human rights in their reaction to similar accusations addressed by Washington to the two countries and to other countries in the annual report of its foreign department which considered that Israel had honored human rights.

The seventh annual Chinese report indicated the continued American pressures on al-Jazeera TV and on the media in general and what it described the American attempts to silence the voices which have different opinions with it, recalling a report by the British Daily Mirror report on a plan to bombard al-Jazeera TV.

In the same context Damascus criticized the report of the US Department Of State noting that Washington is mistaken "when it makes itself a patron for human rights" while it violates these very rights in more than one place in the world.

In a statement, the Syrian foreign ministry indicated the scandals "in Guantanamo and Abu Ghreib and what Washington has hailed and kept silence over of human rights violations of the Palestinians."

The US State Department had accused China in its annual report that it "continues to commit heavy violations," noting that there is an escalated trend in China aiming at harassing and detaining persons presumed to defy the authorities.

The report also criticized the Chinese authorities over imposing tough restrictions on the written, and audo-visual media and monitoring the Internet.

On Syria, the report said that the "Syrian government refused international calls to honor basic rights of its people and ending its interference in the affairs of its neighbors" deploring Damascus support for Hizbullah and Hamas and Palestinian groups which oppose Israel.

Commenting on the American human rights report, the US under secretary of state Barry Lunchrooms denied in a press conference that his country had pursued a "doubled standard policy" in its report but he refrained from answering a question on Saudi Arabia banning of women to vote under the pretext of his rejection to make a comparison among countries.

The report also criticized human rights in other countries apart from Peking and Damascus in various parts of the world, while it ignored the American violations in Iraq and Guantanamo, and simultaneously commending the "Israeli government which in general honored human rights of its citizens."