BEIJING, May 4 -- A commentary carried by the Monday edition of the People's Daily slammed some U.S. politicians for smearing China's fight against the COVID-19 epidemic with false accusations of so-called "human rights abuse."
The U.S. move is aimed at covering up their own fault for not putting people's lives first and failing to contain the epidemic in the United States, said the commentary under the byline of Zhong Sheng.
Sparing no effort to save lives is deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche, which has been fully demonstrated in China's all-out efforts to battle the novel coronavirus, it said.
However, seven U.S. senators recently sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maliciously slandering China for "engaging in its most egregious human rights abuse" during the epidemic.
The groundless criticism was not echoed by others. John Ross, former director of Economic and Business Policy of London, said that China has "a real understanding of human rights" and "the key human right is to stay alive."
The right to life is among the most basic human rights enshrined in the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" of the United Nations.
The so-called "human rights abuse" fabricated by some ill-intentioned U.S. politicians constitutes an affront to Chinese people's anti-virus fight, the article said.
Noting that the Chinese government has been placing people's lives and health as the top priority, the article gave a clear illustration of how the country went all out to save every COVID-19 patient, regardless of the cost.
It also pointed out that China has taken solid actions to assist other countries and regions in beating the coronavirus and made great contributions to international human rights endeavors.
Starting Jan. 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries including the United States of the pneumonia outbreak of unknown cause and response measures on a regular basis. The United States, however, squandered two months that could have been used to prepare for the response measures, the article said.
To curb the spread of the virus, Chinese people had voluntarily stayed at home and governments at all levels in China had taken resolute and effective measures in the anti-virus fight. In contrast, after the numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities surged in the United States, departments of the U.S. government were bickering over appropriations for coronavirus containment.
No wonder American media reports called the U.S. government's response to the crisis "disastrous," the article said.
A self-proclaimed "global human rights defender," the United States is, in fact, notorious in its own human rights record.
As COVID-19 continues to take a heavy toll globally, the United States announced that it would halt funding to the WHO, a move denounced by medical journal The Lancet as "a crime against humanity," the article said, adding that the U.S. sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have severely impeded the epidemic control efforts in these countries.
"What kind of 'human rights' is this?" the article asked.
Without life or health, human rights cannot be, it said, urging certain U.S. politicians to stop chanting empty slogans and start caring for the lives of U.S. citizens.