China must live up to the human rights promises: Amnesty

Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 4:28 p.m.

Irene Zubaida Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International/Photo: AFP

London: Amnesty International
(AI) in its 2008 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”‘.

“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,” the rights group’s secretary general
Irene Khan said in an interview to AFP to mark the report’s
publication.

Earlier on 10 March, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has appealed
to the international community to explore ways of investing their
collective energies in producing a continuous positive change inside
China even after the Olympics have come to an end. His Holiness also
stated that China should prove herself a good host by upholding the
principles of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, equality and
friendship.

The annual Amnesty report said China must live up to the human
rights promises it made around the Olympic Games and allow free speech
and freedom of the press and end “re-education through labour.

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
mentioned.

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”, Irene Khan said.

“In the longer term, we hope China will begin to realise the value of human rights,” she added.

“Injustice, inequality and impunity are the hallmarks of our
world today. Governments must act now to close the yawning gap between
promise and performance,” she said in the report’s foreword.

“2007 was characterised by the impotence of Western governments
and the ambivalence or reluctance of emerging powers to tackle some of
the world’s worst human rights crises, ranging from entrenched
conflicts to growing inequalities which are leaving millions of people
behind,” she said.

Amnesty International cautioned that the biggest threat to the
future of human rights is the absence of a shared vision and collective
leadership.

“2008 presents an unprecedented opportunity for new leaders
coming to power and countries emerging on the world stage to set a new
direction and reject the myopic policies and practices that in recent
years have made the world a more dangerous and divided place,” she
said.

She also said, “Governments today must show the same degree of
vision, courage and commitment that led the United Nations to adopt the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights sixty years ago.”

“There is a growing demand from people for justice, freedom and equality.”

“Restless and angry, people will not be silenced, and leaders ignore them at their own peril,” she added.

Amnesty International’s Report 2008, shows that sixty years
after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the
United Nations, people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81
countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not
allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries.

–Report compiled from Amnesty International’s Report 2008 and AFP