Amid the boiling condemnation over the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US troops, the United States released Monday an annual report on its efforts to improve human rights, which Chinese experts considered the most "satiric" human rights issue since the human society entered the "civilized" 21st century.

"While trumpeting the US endeavor in helping other countries improve human rights, the report mentions no word about its own abuse of Iraqi prisoners," said Lin Bocheng, vice president of the China Foundation for Human Rights Development.

"Posed as a 'world human rights guard', the United States has made itself a scoundrel as its forces ruthlessly ravaged prisoners' dignity and trampled their basic human rights in Iraq, which has tarnished civilization and is despised by the whole international community. The release of the record, therefore, only serves to satirize its human rights 'promotion' around the world," Lin said.

Entitled "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2003-2004", the report summarizes in 270 pages actions in 101 countries to promote freedom and to end abuses, including torture, the very crime American soldiers are accused of in Iraq. The US State Department had postponed its publication for 12 days due to the abuse scandal disclosed since the end of April.

Lin regarded the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers as an inevitable outcome of the United States' long-term exertion of hegemony and power politics in the world. "The US' persistence in publishing the record despite all the condemnation over the recent scandal once again exposed its hegemony," he said.

Feng Zhuoran, a professor with the Beijing-based Capital Normal University and also a human rights expert, pointed out that to postpone the publication of the record couldn't help the United States evade reproaches from the international community and would bring the opposite results it had wished.

Feng Jiancang, director of the human rights research office with the Ministry of Justice, warned it was wasting time to weaken the negative influences of the abuse scandal via issuing the human rights record.

"The dirty mistreatments by US soldiers sound horrific and have constituted crimes by violating international human rights conventions and international humanitarian laws. One or two records full of distortions and camouflages cannot erase the shame from its human rights history," Feng Jiancang said.

Liu Wenzong, a professor with the Chinese Foreign Affairs University, said the United States shouldn't turn a blind eye to its own human rights problems.

"Measuring and slandering human rights conditions of other countries with the United States' own criteria, the record, published under the still lingering outcry over the abuse scandal,clearly exposes the country's hypocrisy and double standards in human rights," Liu said.

In addition, Lin Bocheng also pointed out that the United States was the only country to publish human rights records every year to denounce or press other countries in human rights issues.

"Its real attempts to interfere in and even to trample on human rights and internal affairs of other countries, under the excuse of promoting 'democracy and human rights', will never be accepted by the international community. The facts also prove that it is not qualified for the role of 'world human rights judge' at all," Lin said.

Chinese people condemn US report on human rights

"The United States has always pursued a double standard in the human rights field," said Dong Bo, a student majoring in computer science in Xi'an Jiaotong University in the provincial capital of Shaanxi, northwest China.

"On the one hand, it trampled on human rights in Iraq, and on the other hand, it criticizes human rights conditions in other countries including China in the name of promoting human rights, freedom and democracy," Dong said.

The exposure of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers had revealed that serious infringements on human rights exist in the United States, Dong said.

The US State Department released its annual human rights report on Monday after an earlier postponement amid a global anger over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers. The report had been initially scheduled to release on May 5, but had to be postponed after pictures of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners triggered an international uproar.

"The mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers was an inevitable outcome of the United States' long-term exertion of hegemony and power politics in the world," said Dong Yunhu, vice-chairman and secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies.

Zhang Rui, who works with the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, said, "Abuse of Iraqi prisoners was not an accidental issue, but are flection of US long-term existing human rights problems. It is surely a disaster to the United States which advertises itself as a 'world human rights guard'."

The United States has always wanted to impose its own ideology on other countries, said Zhai Gang, a worker with a Beijing-based film and television development company "However, what kind of democracy and what of kind of human rights needed in a country is decided by the development situation in the country, just like a family chooses their own lifestyle, so nobody has the right to interfere with other people's affairs," Zhai said.

The United States' random encroachment of human rights in other countries fully exposed the hypocritical nature of the so-called democracy and freedom it has pursued and the hypocritical nature of its human rights reports, said He Yuping, a doctorate student of Beijing University.