Tuesday, December 09, 2008

FEDER: Double standards on China

Don Feder, Wednesday, December 10, 2008

WT: With much self-congratulatory back-slapping today, Dec. 10, the United Nations will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The Declaration is a noble document to which many U.N. members pay lip-service, and routinely violate.

In the aftermath of World War II - with memories of genocide and other atrocities still fresh - the delegates from 48 nations who gathered in Paris in 1948 were anxious to affirm the universality of human rights.

Thus, the UDHR's preamble affirms that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

It goes on to affirm: "the right to life, liberty and security of person," freedom from cruel or degrading punishment, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, the right to a fair hearing by an "independent and impartial tribunal," freedom of conscience and expression, freedom of religion, and the right to protest.

The document also proclaims "the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government" - said will expressed in "periodic and genuine elections."

While all this looks great on paper, the operation of the United Nations makes a mockery of UDHR. Nowhere is this more starkly revealed than in its treatment of China and Taiwan. These neighbors across the Taiwan Straits provide their own vivid contrast in the area of human rights.

After two decades of political reform, Taiwan is one of the freest countries in Asia. The first multiparty legislative elections occurred in 1991-92. Since 1996, Taiwan has had four presidential elections and two orderly transfers of power between the major parties.

Its people enjoy freedom of expression and worship, the right to fair trial by an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, the right to peacefully protest and freedom from arbitrary arrest, to the same degree as citizens of the more mature democracies.

The People's Republic of China is to human rights what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to world peace. The Communist Party has a monopoly on political power, which it will do anything to maintain.

Freedom of protest? Think Tiananmen Square. Freedom from arbitrary arrest? Ask the Falun Gong practitioners consigned to China's brutal penal system. Freedom of religion? Consider the fate of the home church movement.

OLYMPIC WATCH: Human Rights in China and Beijing 2008

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