BEIJING, March 8: China on Thursday blasted the United States for trampling on Iraq’s sovereignty, using its campaign against terrorism as an excuse to carry out torture and violate the rights of its citizens.

The charges came in a report titled the “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006,” China’s response to US criticism of Beijing’s human rights record in a report released on Tuesday by the US State Department.

“As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in the United States,'” the report said.

“We urge the US government to acknowledge its own human rights problems and stop interfering in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of human rights,” it said.

The report, the eighth year China has answered the State Department’s annual report on human rights around the world, was released by the State Council, China’s cabinet, through the Xinhua News Agency.

It said the United States has used its strong military power to trespass on the sovereignty of other countries and violate human rights.

The Chinese report cites US news stories estimating that over 655,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq since war started in March 2003, and repeats charges of atrocities carried out by US forces there.

It said the United States has “a flagrant record” of violating the Geneva Convention by systematically abusing prisoners in Iraq and in Afghanistan, citing severe mistreatment of prisoners in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison as one example.

The report said the international image of the United States had been hurt by these rights violations that flaunted the banner of “safeguarding human rights'”.

China also said the United States had a poor domestic human rights record, with its citizens suffering “increasing civil rights infringements” as the US government put average Americans under intense surveillance as part of terrorism investigations since the Sept 11 attacks.

It cited US reports that said nearly three-quarters of the terrorism suspects seized by the United States in the five years following the attacks have not been put on trial due to lack of evidence.

The report also criticised the United States for not protecting its citizens’ economic and social rights, saying that according to the US Census Bureau 37 million people lived in poverty in the United States in 2005, or about one in eight Americans.—AP