No Olympic Medal-Part II

Look here for Part I

Human Rights in China: No Olympic Medal

Since 2001 when China won the bid for the Olympic Games, the Chinese authorities have said that this would have a positive impact on human rights. Nothing is however so far away from reality. Despite Beijing’s promises, there has not been any progress on any of the issues that have been raised in the 2006-2007 European Parliament resolutions and the Olympics have been used to crush dissenting voices inside China."

Since 2001, China has failed:

Human rights, democracy and rule of law

Ø to have productive human rights dialogues with the EU;

Ø to ratify the ICCPR and implement its provisions;

Ø to abide by its commitments to respect and guarantee human rights as it was mentioned in a provision included in its constitution in March 2004;

Ø to introduce universal suffrage in Hong Kong as guaranteed by the Basic Law and a multi-party system in the rest of China;

Ø to respect the independence and to curb the corruption of the judiciary;

Ø to stop political imprisonments, ill-treatment and torture in detention places, the widespread use of forced labor;

Ø to stop the crackdowns on human rights defenders and lawyers defending the rights of the Chinese citizens;

Ø to impose strict provisions and controls so as to curb the illegal trade in organs of executed people and of Falun Gong practitioners;

Ø to revise its one-child policy which leads in practice to forced abortions and sterilizations and the abandonment of girls on a massive scale;

Ø to abolish the death penalty;

International labor law

Ø to end the exploitation of Chinese workers, including children, making Olympic merchandise;

Ø to end labor rights violations in products bearing Olympic brands;

Freedom of speech

Ø to put an end to restrictions and censorship imposed on freedom of speech and of the media, including the Internet and Google;

Ø to stop branding Chinese journalists reporting on public order incidents (87,000 in 2006, compared to 10,000 in 1994) and public discontent as “hostile forces”;

Ø to stop harassing and trying to silence foreign journalists by sentencing to prison terms;

Freedom of religion and belief

Ø to accord the right of legal existence to more than five religions;

Ø to terminate the ban on Falun Gong;

Ø to put an end to the allegiance of the state-legalized religious communities to the ideology of the Communist Party and to its ongoing interference in their internal affairs; in particular regarding the training, selection, appointment and political indoctrination of religious ministers;

Ø to put an end to the imprisonment of Catholic bishops and Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns because of their allegiance to their respective spiritual leaders, to condemnations of pastors, ordinary believers and Falun Gong practitioners;

Ø to achieve any concrete result in its dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church about the authority of the Pope on the Chinese Catholic Church, its autonomy and the appointment of its bishops;

Ø to issue a standing invitation to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Asma Jahangir and to all the other thematic procedures of the U.N. Human Rights Council to carry out visits in China;

Tibetan issues

Ø to achieve any concrete result in its dialogue with the Envoys of the Dalai Lama concerning ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, economic and political issues in Tibet;

Ø to preserve the identity of the Tibetan population by organizing mass transfers of Chinese citizens from other ethnic origin to Tibet;

Ø to release Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Panchen Lama of Tibet appointed by the Dalai Lama, who was abducted by the Chinese against his will and the will of his parents when he was six years old and still remains missing;

Ø to leave the management of the selection of the Dalaï Lama under his control but has confiscated it through a new regulation dated 18 July 2007;

Ø to release Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns allegedly involved in separatist activities;

Uighur issues

Ø to take into consideration the concerns of the Muslim Uighurs about a number of ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, economic and political issues in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR);

Ø to preserve the identity of the Uighur population by organizing mass transfers of Chinese citizens from other ethnic origin into the XUAR;

Ø to release Muslim Uighurs allegedly involved in terrorism and separatism;

Ø to release Ablikim Abdureyim, the son of prominent Uighur human rights defender Rebiya Kadeer, sentenced in April 2007 to 9 years in prison;

North Korean refugees

Ø to stop the forced repatriation of asylum seekers from North Korea and to grant access to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR);

Ø to take into consideration the 2004 Resolution of the UN Commission on Human Rights expressing deep concern about “sanctions on citizens of DPRK (North Korea) who have been repatriated from abroad, such as treating their departure as treason leading to punishments of internment, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or the death penalty, and infanticide in prison and labor camps” (E/CN.4/2004/L.21).

China’s external policy

Ø to stop supporting the repressive regime of Myanmar and the genocidal regime of Sudan;

Ø to stop threatening Taiwan, since it has on the contrary increased its threat by stationing more than 800 missiles pointed at this country;

Ø to allow Taiwan (23 million citizens) to apply for UN & WHO membership.

I agree with this diagnostic of the human rights situation in China and I support the Chinese human rights defenders in their fight for democracy

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