AP: Human Rights Groups Lobby EU Leaders At China Trade Talks [Excerpt]

September 5, 2001

BRUSSELS (AP)--European Union leaders faced appeals to press Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on human rights during the annual E.U.-China summit Wednesday, [...]

[...] Human rights organizations lobbied the E.U. not to let the drive to improve trade push human rights off the agenda.

"China appears to have taken a new and deliberate step backwards," Dick Oosting, director of Amnesty International's E.U. office wrote in a letter to E.U. leaders.

Oosting said China's increased use of the death penalty, the crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation sect, forced repatriations of North Korean refugees, tightened restrictions on the media and continued reports of torture, "show a disturbing pattern of disregard for international human rights standards."