[Italy] Zenit: China's Empty Gestures On Human Rights Agreement Signed, But Repression Worsens

January 27, 2001

BEIJING, JAN. 27, 2001 (ZENIT.org).- While economic development continues apace in China, political and religious freedoms still suffer. The matter of human rights has often caused conflict with the international community. This week, in what some observers say is an attempt to improve its chances to host the 2008 Olympics, China announced it will probably ratify the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The formal adoption of the pact, signed by China in 1997, has been a goal of the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups, according to The New York Times on Jan. 23. It seems that senior government officials expressed their intention to ratify the covenant to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

A spokeswoman for Annan told the Associated Press that officials had said that the covenant "might be or would be ratified during the first quarter by the Parliament, and possibly in March." China has already signed, but not ratified, both the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. No announcement has been made as to when China may ratify the second covenant.

Not much of an agreement

The ratification has been the subject of prolonged negotiations between China and the United Nations. In November the Chinese government signed a memorandum of understanding signed with Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, on the matter of human rights. The agreement, observed The Asian Wall Street Journal on Nov. 21, appeared to be a watered-down version of a more objective-specific document Robinson tried but failed to get Beijing to sign in March.

The earlier version committed Beijing to participation in programs aimed at the promotion and protection of human rights and the harmonization of China's national laws with international human rights standards. But in the new version, those goals were dramatically diluted. Human rights groups criticized the agreement, saying it lacked the substance to bring about any meaningful reforms, Agence France-Presse reported Nov. 21.

The Economist in its Nov. 25 issue was also skeptical about the value of the document, noting that it took only a single day after the signing for a core disagreement between the two sides to surface publicly. The magazine reported that Chinese officials, including President Jiang Zemin, remarked that each country has its own history and culture and must likewise have its own approach to questions of human rights. "The world should be a colorful one," Jiang insisted.

And, in fact, repression in China has actually worsened in the last two years, The New York Times reported Nov. 27. Thousands of followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have been sent to labor camps without trial, hundreds of democracy campaigners have been jailed, and censorship of political thought has tightened up.

The same day that the ratification of the U.N. document was announced, the European Union expressed its concern about human rights abuses in China. "The European Union remains much concerned at the lack of progress in a number of (human rights) areas," the union said in a declaration published on the Web site of its current president, Sweden, according to a Reuters report last Tuesday. The statement was approved by European Union foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.

The concerns included "continuing widespread restrictions on freedom of assembly, expression and association, the violations of freedom of religion and belief, the situation of minorities, including in Tibet, and the frequent and extensive recourse to the death penalty."

Falun Gong conflict intensifies

This week also saw another protest by the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Reuters said five followers of the banned movement set themselves ablaze in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Tuesday in a group suicide attempt. The official Xinhua news agency said one woman died of her injuries. [Editor's note: the suicide has nothing to do with Falun Gong. See http://clearwisdom.net/eng/2001/Jan/23/VSF012301_3.html .]

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Reuters noted how last year thousands of believers descended on the plaza, and television pictures captured shocking scenes of police pummeling and kicking elderly [group] members and dragging women away by their hair.

Tiananmen Square has been the stage for almost daily protests by Falun Gong adherents since the group was banned in July 1999 as an "evil cult." The suppression of the Falun Gong was sparked by a demonstration, held April 25, 1999, by more than 10,000 followers who gathered outside the Chinese Communist Party headquarters in Beijing, demanding the right to practice their meditation and breathing exercises. It was the largest demonstration in the capital since 1989, when democracy protesters were massacred on Tiananmen Square.

An analysis published Jan. 24 by the Financial Times commented that the self-immolation was a reminder of the inability of China's Communist authorities to crush the group. Protests continue, in spite of the fact that over the past 18 months tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained, scores have been dispatched to "reform through labor," and several are believed to have been killed in police custody. Some human rights groups accuse authorities of numerous deaths -- at least 77 -- according to a Dec. 26 report in The Wall Street Journal.

Churches destroyed

Repression against Christians has also intensified in recent months. In Zhejiang province about 1,200 temples and churches have been destroyed or closed down since December 1999, Agence France-Presse reported Dec. 13, citing the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

And an Dec. 29 article in the Los Angeles Times by Elliot Abrams, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, reported how in the eastern province of Zhejiang, officials boast that they have destroyed, confiscated or shut down 450 Catholic and Protestant churches and Taoist and Buddhist temples. A Hong Kong-based human rights observer puts the number at closer to 3,000.

Abrams noted how the targets of these demolitions are congregations that have operated openly for years but refuse to register with the authorities, lest they be forced to join the state's puppet religious organizations. To do so means, among other things, turning over membership lists to the authorities and accepting state-dictated theology and censorship of sermons. Catholics, for example, are pressured to deny the authority of the Pope, a step most refuse to take.

That China will ratify one of the U.N. covenants already signed is a step forward, but it remains to be seen whether it will lead to more respect for fundamental human rights. In the past many have argued that China's economic development and integration into the international community would result in a loosening of restrictions on civil and religious activities. The world is still waiting for that to happen.