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China 'omits serious rights abuses' in UN report
Beijing (AFP) Feb 5, 2009 China failed to mention serious rights abuses in areas such as its Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region in a key report to the United Nations, Amnesty International said Thursday. Beijing "omits reference to the on-going crisis in Tibet, the severe crackdown on Uighurs in China's western Xinjiang... region, and the on-going persecution of various religious practitioners," Amnesty International said in a statement emailed to AFP. China submitted the report to the United Nations ahead of its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Monday -- a study of a nation's human rights record that all 192 member states of the UN have to go through every four years. But the Asian giant defended its rights record Thursday, saying it respected and protected human rights. "For many years China has made a lot of efforts to improve Chinese human rights and made remarkable progress, and in the future we will continue," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters. Roseann Rife, Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty, acknowledged that China had made progress in some areas, including advances related to its legal system. But she said the report failed to list some of the country's most pressing rights issues. "Ignoring severe violations of human rights in the country undermines the goals and spirit of the UN UPR process," she said. Rights groups accuse China of political and religious repression of Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang -- a claim denied by the government. A January report in the official China Tibet News, for example, said authorities had launched a clampdown in Tibet's capital Lhasa, investigating thousands of people and detaining 81. Activist groups accused the Chinese government of using the clampdown to intimidate Tibetans in the build-up to Tibetan New Year, which begins on February 25, and the 50th anniversary of an uprising in Tibet on March 10. Amnesty urged the Chinese government to promote the dissemination of its report within the country, as well as other reports submitted to the United Nations on China by NGOs. "For the UPR to be a truly effective mechanism, the real test will be in the concrete actions the Chinese authorities take to improve human rights on the ground," said Rife. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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98-year-old man faces court in China for money scam: state media
Beijing (AFP) Feb 5, 2009A 98-year-old man has become the oldest person to face trial in China's capital after being charged over an alleged scam to cheat an academic out of over 100,000 dollars, state media reported. |
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