Thread: Human Rights in China

Actions, let the action to do the talking.

BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao has vowed the Chinese people will, as always, work together with the international community to promote healthy development of the human rights cause in the world.

300 Chinese activists sign public call for rights

By HENRY SANDERSON – 3 days ago

BEIJING (AP) — Hundreds of Chinese activists issued an unusually open call Tuesday for greater freedoms and an end to China's one-party rule, and advocates said police detained two of the signatories before the statement was even issued.

The online statement — called the '08 Charter and signed by a group of more than 300 lawyers, writers, scholars and artists — represents a new public call for change in a country where criticizing the ruling Communist Party often brings swift punishment.

The statement proposed 19 measures to improve rights in China, including promoting an independent legal system, calling for freedom of association, and ending the monopoly of one-party rule. It was issued to coincide with Wednesday's 60th anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that inspired many later human rights treaties.

China signed the U.N. treaty but has not ratified it, meaning it is not bound by it.

"This charter promotes the same ideas and values that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts, such as freedom of the press, freedom of association, independent justice, freedom of religion and environmental protection," said lawyer Mo Shaoping, who signed the statement.

"It has nothing that goes against China's constitution," he said.

However, one activist, Zhang Zhuhua, said police showed up at his house Monday night and detained him for questioning, holding him for 12 hours before releasing him Tuesday morning.

"They said I was involved in drafting the '08 Charter and warned me not to do it anymore. They searched my home and took my computer, books and bank cards," Zhang said.

Also detained Monday was Liu Xiaobo, an outspoken writer and political critic who had previously been jailed for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Zhang said.

Liu, 53, is a former Beijing Normal University professor who spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, which ended when the government called in the military — killing hundreds, perhaps thousands.

It was unclear Tuesday if Liu had also been released. His cell phone was turned off, and his home number rang busy.

Chinese police did not respond to questions on the detentions made by phone and fax.

Nicholas Bequelin of New York-based Human Rights Watch said the '08 Charter was significant because it brings many diverse, prominent figures in China under a common agenda to promote human rights.

He said the charter gives concrete proposals and focuses on the legal protection of human rights rather than blaming the Communist Party. Still, he expected police to investigate those who signed it.

China does not want domestic opposition to its human rights record because it harms efforts to defend its record internationally, he said.

"The Chinese government really insists that human rights concerns are an external agenda imposed by Western countries and Western governments, but this gives the lie to this thesis," he said.

In an interview with the official Xinhua News Agency, Wang Chen, the director of the State Council Information Office, said China has seen great improvements in human rights over 30 years of social reform, but acknowledged there were "still many problems and difficulties in the development of human rights."

He said such problems include social inequalities, weaknesses in the country's political structure and a lack of awareness by all levels of government.

However, Wang also chided critics of China's human rights record, saying in particular that the U.S. State Department's criticism was "unfounded" and that the U.N. charter does not allow the international body to intervene in "matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."

sometimes I wonder why the Chinese government is so stupid.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7785248.stm

China 'bans BBC Chinese website'
Screen-grab of BBC Chinese webpage
Authorities in Beijing unblocked the BBC's Chinese language site in July

China appears to have banned a number of foreign websites, including the BBC's Chinese language news site and Voice of America in Chinese.

The sites had been unblocked after journalists attending the Beijing Olympics complained that the government was censoring sites deemed sensitive.

The BBC expressed disappointment at the apparent reinstatement of the ban.

But a Chinese government spokesman told journalists that some sites contained content that violated Chinese law.

Among the other sites blocked are Asiaweek, Reporters Without Borders and some Hong Kong and Taiwan sites.

China imposes strict controls on the dissemination of information through the web, employing teams of people to remove sensitive content, police bloggers and remove access to certain sites.

'Two Chinas'

In a news conference, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao refused to confirm that the government was behind the censorship.

But he said some websites violated Chinese law.


It has been a source of great regret that audiences in China are unable to access BBCChinese.com as the rest of the world can
The BBC
"For instance, if a website refers to 'two Chinas' or refers to mainland China and Taiwan as two independent regions, we believe that violates China's anti-secession law, as well as other laws," he said, according to Reuters news agency.

He urged the websites to "comply with China's concerns and not do things contrary to Chinese law".

Mr Liu would not comment on why websites had been temporarily unblocked during the Olympic Games, or comment on the legal process followed to approve the blocking of sites.

In a statement, the BBC said it was disappointed that Chinese-speaking audiences in China were denied access to BBCChinese.com.

It said that except during the 2008 Games, the website had been blocked since its inception nearly a decade ago, and Mandarin radio broadcasts had been "subject to persistent frequency interference for decades".

"It has been a source of great regret that audiences in China are unable to access BBCChinese.com as the rest of the world can," the statement said.

Tough year ahead

Just before the Olympics, foreign journalists complained that they could not access a host of websites which carried news or comment that Beijing deemed sensitive.

Man at magazine stand in Beijing
The spread of information is tightly controlled in China
The Olympics led to an improvement in China's controls of the foreign media, and not all the advances have been rolled back, reports the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing.

But the country is expected to face a tough year ahead - the dramatic slowing of economic growth and rising unemployment are expected to fuel social unrest, he says.

It is also the 20th anniversary of the brutal suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, and 50 years since China took direct control of Tibet.

More censorship and increased internal security are expected in 2009, our correspondent adds.

hudechao, see my above post about words vs actions.

China hammers dissent despite looming UN review

By AUDRA ANG – 9 hours ago

BEIJING (AP) — Days before China's human rights record comes under scrutiny before a key U.N. panel, the government's grip on dissent seems as firm as ever.

Government critics have been rounded up and some imprisoned on vaguely defined state security charges. Corruption whistle blowers have been bundled away, while discussion of sensitive political and social topics on the Internet remains tightly policed.

On Friday, officers stationed outside a government building in Beijing took away at least eight people — members of a loosely organized group of 30 who had traveled to Beijing from around the country, seeking redress for a variety of problems, almost all centered around local corruption.

One member of the group, Li Fengxian, a gray-haired woman from the central province of Henan, held up a sign with the character for "injustice" painted on it.

Li, 65, said she has spent years fighting officials in her village who she claimed give away a poverty allowance allotted to her family to other officials.

The police response underscores the government's determination to keep control over a fast-changing society — even in the face of a U.N. meeting to examine China's human rights record.

The review by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which begins Monday, is part of a new process that evaluates member countries in an effort to prompt improvements and address violations. The council, which replaced the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, has no enforcement powers, but is supposed to act as the world's moral conscience on human rights.

Following the review, the three-nation working group composed of Canada, India, and Nigeria will submit a report of their findings.

The stakes are high for China, one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, which wants to be seen as a responsible player in the international community. At the same time, the Communist leadership is worried about its grip on power slipping as the economic downturn and rising unemployment threaten to aggravate social unrest.

Authorities are especially sensitive this year, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests and the subsequent military crackdown. On Thursday, four months before the anniversary, two events commemorating a milestone modern Chinese art exhibition whose iconoclastic spirit fed into the rebellious mood of the times were shut down.

Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said this week that China was looking forward to "constructive dialogue" at the U.N. panel.

"It is normal that countries would have differences of opinion on human rights issues and we hope, on the basis of dialogue, to narrow our differences and expand our consensus," Jiang said. Beijing hopes its record will be considered "fairly and objectively," she said.

The council will review a report submitted by China that emphasizes the government's interpretation of human rights largely as a matter of improved economic conditions. Standards of living are rising, it says, while constant progress is being made in education, health, political participation and the legal system.

"The Chinese people, who once lacked basic necessities, are now enjoying relative prosperity," the document says.

Rights groups have labeled it a whitewash.

"China's rights record remains a matter of grave concern," said Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"No country has a perfect human rights record, but the problem with China is that it jails people who expose violations, maintains absolute censorship over state media and prevents victims of human rights abuses from finding justice," he said.

The government showed its hard line in its response to a petition released in December calling for civil rights and political reforms. Many of its authors and signatories have been detained or harassed.

Other forms of intimidation and abuse are more mundane, such as the treatment of petitioners seeking redress from officials in Beijing.

On Friday, the group gathered in front of the Cabinet's information office was watched closely by more than a dozen officers and several squad cars. Eight members of the group were eventually driven off by police. It was unclear what happened to them.

Telephones at Beijing's main public security bureau rang unanswered Friday.

Despite such knee-jerk reactions, the government does seem to recognize the need for greater responsiveness, say some China watchers.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a China politics expert at Hong Kong Baptist University, said Chinese citizens who are better educated and expect more of their government are becoming more assertive in the face of repression.

"It's a small step," Cabestan said. "We hope eventually things will change."

Originally Posted by xinhui

sometimes I wonder why the Chinese government is so stupid.

Because it's used to do things this way.

BEIJING, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Human rights groups Friday criticized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for saying human rights issues should not deter U.S.-Chinese cooperation.

Clinton told reporters covering her tour of Asian nations that human rights violations by China should not stand in the way of cooperation between the two powers on financial, environmental and security crises, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported.

Clinton said "we pretty much know what they are going to say" on human rights issues and it "might be better … to agree to disagree."

"We have to continue to press them," she said, but such pressure "can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises."

Human Rights Watch issued a statement Friday saying Clinton's remarks "send the wrong message to the Chinese government." The rights organization said progress in the financial, environmental and security matters "is inseparable from securing progress in human rights."

"Secretary Clinton's remarks point to a diplomatic strategy that has worked well for the Chinese government -- segregating human rights issues into a dead-end 'dialogue of the deaf,'" Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said.

Amnesty International said Clinton's statements suggest "human rights will not be a priority in her diplomatic engagement with China," the Post reported. The organization urged Clinton to "publicly declare that human rights are central to U.S.-China relations before she leaves Beijing."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/02/...2551235177564/

This has just been issued.

China plans 'human rights action'

Apr 14, 2009 [BBC] China has released a human rights action plan, following international criticism of its rights record.

The two-year plan promises the communist government will do more to prevent illegal detention and torture, and to protect minorities and women.

It also states that a primary goal remains ensuring Chinese people have the right to make money.

Amnesty International welcomed the plan but noted a number of "important omissions".

"While respecting the universal principles of human rights, the Chinese government in the light of the basic realities of China, gives priority to the protection of the people's rights to subsistence and development," said an introduction to the document released by the official Xinhua news agency.

Action plan

The action plan was promised by China when it appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this year.

It sets specific goals, which analysts said was a new departure for the Chinese government.

It also promises to "raise the level of ensuring people's civil and political rights" through improving democracy and the rule of law.

The 54-page document outlines, among other things, that the corporal punishment, abuse, and insulting of detainees or the extraction of confessions by torture will be strictly prohibited.

Use of the death penalty will be strictly controlled and prudently applied, it said, and the right to a fair trial guaranteed.

It makes sweeping promises that journalists and bloggers will be allowed to collect information freely, in accordance with the law, and the government will be more transparent. ....