Pressure China on human rights post-Olympics: Amnesty
Posted by chinaview on May 29, 2008
AFP, May. 28, 2008-
LONDON (AFP) — The world needs to maintain pressure on China for human rights reform after the Beijing Olympics, the head of Amnesty International said, as the group published its annual report Wednesday.
Irene Khan said China’s growing weight as a world power means it can no longer ignore human rights both at home and abroad, after Western criticism of its involvement in hotspots like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and North Korea.
Abuses, including the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, use of the death penalty, censorship, restrictions on assembly and repression of minorities are still commonplace in China, the report said.
Severe restrictions remain on freedom of religion, freedom, and association in Tibet while peaceful expressions of support for the Tibetan spiritual and political leader the Dalai Lama were “harshly punished”, it added.
“I think it will be important to maintain the pressure on and engagement with China post-Olympics. That will be a real challenge as it slips off the (news) agenda,” Khan said in an interview to mark the report’s publication.
Amnesty’s secretary-general said the group had detected “some improvement” in 2007 in Chinese civil society and on the death penalty — where there are moves to hold trials and appeals in public — and for access by foreign media.
Chinese moves to support African Union and United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur and its help in Myanmar, after a military crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners last year, were “glimmers of hope”, she added.
But she said Beijing still had a way to go and should realise that, even on a business level, promoting stability in places like Zimbabwe, North Korea, Myanmar and Darfur could be in their own interests.
“In the longer term, we hope China will begin to realise the value of human rights,” she added.
Amnesty gave a bleak assessment of the state of the world’s human rights in 2007, 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed……. (more details from AFP)
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