Taiwan must not copy China in human rights (1)

Editorial, Taiwan News, 2008-11-27 -

Taiwan citizens should pay close attention to the “concluding observations” issued Saturday by the Geneva-based United Nations Committee Against Torture after its fourth periodic review of the People’s Republic of China’s implementation of the U.N. Covenant Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, especially in light of alarming trends in our own country since the restoration of Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) rule in May.

Even though the PRC government signed the U.N. Covenant Against Torture in 1998, the UNCAT found that China remains a country in which there is “routine and widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of suspects in police custody, especially to extract confessions or information to be used in criminal proceedings.”

Moreover, the U.N. committee listed numerous major obstacles impeding implementation of the Covenant, including systematic harassment and even detention and torture of defense lawyers and human rights defenders.

The committee took special note of Article 306 in the PRC Criminal Law and Article 39 of the PRC Code of Criminal Procedures which “allow prosecutors to arrest lawyers on grounds of ‘perjury’ or ‘false testimony’” and noted such “legal” powers permit prosecutors to intimidate lawyers or legal workers attempting to collect evidence in rights cases and cited cases involving two human rights lawyers, namely Teng Biao and Gao Zhisheng.

Moreover, the UNCAT noted that human rights defenders in the PRC are subject to even worse treatment, as shown by the cases of Hu Jia who was arrested last December and sentenced to three years in prison in April for “inciting rebellion against the state” for participating in efforts to protect the human rights and secure the treatment of AIDS victims and a violent beating given by unknown assailants to human rights activist Li Heping in September 2007.

The U.N. committee therefore called on Beijing “to abolish any legal provisions which undermine the independence of lawyers and should investigate all attacks against lawyers and petitioners, with a view to prosecution as appropriate” and “take immediate action to investigate acts of intimidation and other ways of impeding the independent work of lawyers.”

The response by the Chinese Communist Party-ruled PRC to this and numerous other UNCAT recommendations was predictable.

PRC Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang called the UNCAT document “untrue and slanderous” and declared that his government cherished human rights and opposed torture. (to be cont’d)

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- from Taiwan News: Taiwan must not copy PRC in human rights