BEIJING, China – The U.S. State Department removed China from a list of top 10 human rights violators, according to its annual human rights report. But instead of placing it among the world’s worst offenders, it shifted China’s listing to: “authoritarian countries that are undergoing economic reform and have experienced rapid social change but have not undertaken democratic political reform and continue to deny their citizens basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The delisting of China upsets many rights activists, saying that China’s crackdown on dissent is getting worse as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in August. In the past week, Chinese police crackdowned monks’ demonstrations in Lhasa, which is the capital of the remote mountainous region of Tibet. Human rights activist Hu Jia, detained after organizing a petition stating that Chinese wanted “human rights, not the Olympics,” was informed that his trial on charges of subverting state power could begin as early as this month. A prominent human rights lawyer, Teng Biao, was abducted by the Beijing Public Security Bureau and then released two days later. Migrant construction workers building the “new Beijing” are routinely exploited by being denied proper wages, under dangerous conditions with neither accident insurance nor access to medical and other social services.
State Department officials in Washington avoided questions about why China was dropped from the worst-offenders list, where it has appeared in each of the previous two years. Jonathan Farrar, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said that China’s “human rights record remains poor” and that the report gives a “very frank appraisal” on the status of human rights in the country.
For more information, please see:
Christian Science Monitor – China’s human rights rating upgraded by U.S. State Dept. – 13 March 2008
International Herald Tribune – U.S. drops China from list of top 10 violators of rights – 12 March 2008
Washington Post – U.S. Delisting of China Upsets Rights Activists – 13 March 2008
