Amnesty International: China failing to keep human rights promises

Amnesty Internationial has released their latest report on human rights in China. The report confirms that China has continued to abuse human rights, deny citizens fair trials, use the death penalty with abandon, and repress information on the internet and in the media.

Amnesty International also makes a list of recommendations for the International Olympic Committee on what to demand of China in the leadup to the Beijing Games.

Amnesty International reminds the IOC of its own expectation that human rights in China would improve as a result of Beijing being awarded the Olympics and of its encouragement to international human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, to monitor such progress. (58) In line with these commitments, Amnesty International urges the IOC to exert influence on the Chinese authorities to secure the above reforms before August 2008. In particular, Amnesty International urges the IOC and the Olympic movement to put pressure on the Chinese authorities to:

o release all prisoners of conscience, including the individuals highlighted in this report;

o accelerate and build on efforts towards abolishing the death penalty in line with the above recommendations;

o abandon plans to use “Re-education through Labour” to “clean-up” Beijing in the run-up to the Olympics and to abolish the system altogether;

o give international human rights organizations unfettered access to China for research purposes so that they can better monitor China’s progress in human rights and discuss issues of concern with Chinese officials and human rights defenders;

o implement legal reforms to ensure protection of human rights defenders in China, including reforms to the Criminal Law as detailed above;

o repeal all laws and regulations aimed at restricting the free and legitimate flow of information online.

The whole report is incredibly damning and I recommend it for anyone interested in understanding the full scope of China’s human rights abuses.