CIA torture report: China and North Korea condemn 'hypocritical' US for human rights violations
China and North Korea have both accused the US of hypocrisy following the release of the CIA torture report outlining the extent of the agency's "enhanced interrogation techniques".
North Korea, often on the receiving end of condemnation from the US over the way it treats its citizens, is now urging the UN's Security Council (UNSC) to show disdain towards the US for its "inhuman" torture methods.
Kim Jong-un's regime said if the council continues to discuss North Korea's human rights record while "shutting its eyes" to the violations committed by one of its leading members, then this would "prove [its] miserable position that it has turned into a tool for US arbitrary practices just as everybody can hear everywhere.
"If (the Security Council) wants to discuss the human rights issue, it should ... call into question the human rights abuses rampant in the US," a foreign ministry spokesman told the country's official KCNA news agency.
North Korea also cited the recent killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner as another "despicable" stain against the US's human rights record.
Even before the damning report by the Senate Intelligence Committee was released, China said the US government should "clean up its own backyard first" and respect the rights of other countries to resolve their human rights issues by themselves.
China's state news agency Xinhua published an editorial, prior to the report's release, which stated that the failure to indict officer Darren Wilson showed the US's "deeply-rooted racism". Xinhua also flagged up the NSA surveillance scandal as an example of where the US has drawn "international concern".
"America is neither a suitable role model nor a qualified judge on human rights issues in other countries, as it pertains to be," it said.
"Yet, despite this, people rarely hear the US talking about its own problems, preferring to be vocal on the issues it sees in other countries, including China."
Following the release of the report, China joined human rights groups in demanding action be taken over the CIA's use of torture against terror suspects.
"China has consistently opposed torture," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei.
"We think the US should reflect on that and correct related practices, to earnestly abide by and honour the regulations of international conventions."
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