Activists rally against financial institutions' support of private prisons and immigrant detention centers, as part of a May Day protest near Wall Street in New York City on May 1, 2018. Photo: AFP

China on Wednesday published a report revealing truth and facts about the arbitrary detention the US conducts at home and abroad, and Chinese Foreign Ministry said the report ripped apart the disguise of the US in terms of the said issue. 

Arbitrary detention occurs when an individual is arrested and detained by a government without due process and without the legal protections of a fair trial, or when an individual is detained without any legal basis for deprivation of liberty. Arbitrary detention, in essence, is unlawful detention, according to the report released by the Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday.

Freedom from arbitrary detention is a fundamental individual right stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of the United Nations, and an important provision in international human rights treaties. Though an important contributor in the drafting of the UDHR and one of the first countries to ratify international human rights treaties, the US has carried out arbitrary detention in total disregard of its domestic legal provisions and international treaty obligations, causing serious physical and mental harm to people involved, the report noted. 

With powerful facts and figures, it ripped apart the US's disguise and revealed the truth that the US wantonly abuses arbitrary detention at home and abroad, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a routine press conference on Wednesday.

The report listed solid examples of the US' arbitrary detention at home and abroad.

In terms of arbitrary detention of immigrants at home, the report said that while US federal law requires that minors should not be held in border detention longer than 72 hours, over 2,000 children have been detained in a border detention center for more than three days, 39 of them over 15 days. In February 2022 alone, more than 9,400 unaccompanied child immigrants were detained by US border law enforcement and some 4,000 of them were held in border custody for more than 72 hours, the report revealed.  

In the overseas, the US has set up numerous "black jails" in countries including Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, establishing a global network of secret prisons. A "Cost of War" report published in early 2022 by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University reveals that after the 9/11 attacks, at least 54 countries and regions have participated in the US black sites network, which has detained hundreds of thousands of people, including Muslims, women and minors. 

Under the excuse of the so-called War on Terror, the US has set up black sites in many other countries, covertly detained alleged terrorist suspects, and extracted confessions with torture and other ill-treatment.

The fact that the US has arbitrarily detained illegal immigrants at home and set up a large number of "black sites" abroad to create cases of arbitrary detention reflects its deep-seated hegemonic and unilateralist thinking and violent political culture, the report noted. 

The arbitrarily detention of the US undermines the spirit of international rules and laws. It has no qualification at all to blame others in relevant issues, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The groundless accusations made by the US of other countries' so-called arbitrary detention are nothing but geopolitical tricks, which disrupt normal communication among countries and regions in the international community and threaten international security order, Li noted.    

The arbitrary detention the US conducts at home and abroad has laid bare its hypocrisy and double standards with regard to human rights, said the report.

It called on the US to face up to and reflect upon its own serious human rights violations, stop politicizing human rights issues, and stop undermining the human rights of people of other countries.