Human rights in the People's Republic of China/Temporary

The situation of human rights in the People's Republic of China has been criticized by various sources, particularly Western countries and some international organizations, as being poor in many respects. Past human rights issues include the the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, when 200-3000 civilians were killed and thousands more were injured. The PRC argues that the notion of human rights should include economic standards of living and measures of health and economic prosperity.

The situation

Multiple sources, including the U.S. State Department's annual People's Republic of China human rights reports, as well as studies from other groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the PRC's abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms.

In March, 2004, an amendment was made to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, stating "The State respects and preserves human rights." As with other Chinese guarantees of individual liberties in the Constitution, the wording suggests that such liberties are already observed and respected, rather than explicitly prohibiting the government from infringing on such rights (as the United States Constitution does). It was hoped in the West that this heralded a change in attitude from the Communist Party of China, but subsequent violations of human rights and previously established civil rights demonstrated that the amendment had not changed government policy regarding public freedom.

Perspective of the PRC government

The PRC government argues that the notion of human rights should include such as economic standards of living and measures of health and economic prosperity.

Unofficially, many Chinese officials hold the unstated belief that as a developing country, China cannot afford the same level of human rights as developed countries. They argue that many Western countries abused human rights (through slavery, child labor and colonial exploit) as they rose to prosperity. Many Chinese people agree with their government that organized religion is a threat to the country and social stability. Some point to the Taiping Rebellion, which was rooted deeply in religion (though praised by the communist government as a patriotic, anti-imperialist movement), which cost millions of lives. Common mistrust of groups seen as "cults" is perhaps an enduring legacy of this conflict, or perhaps the result of generations of government propaganda.

Views from the United States government

In 2003, the United States claimed that despite some positive momentum in that year, and greater signs that the People's Republic of China was willing to engage with the U.S. and others on this topic, there was still serious backsliding. The PRC government has acknowledged in principle the importance of protection of human rights and has purported to take steps to bring its human rights practices into conformity with international norms. Among these steps are signature of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in October 1997 (ratified in March 2001) and signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1998 (not yet ratified). In 2002, the PRC released a significant number of political and religious prisoners, and agreed to interact with United Nations experts on torture, arbitrary detention and religion. However, international human rights groups claim that there has been virtually no movement on these promises, with more people being arrested for similar offences subsequently. Such groups maintain that the PRC still has a long way to go in instituting the kind of fundamental systemic change that will protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens.

Legal system

The Chinese government recognises that there are problems with the current legal system, such as:

• A lack of laws in general, not just ones to protect civil rights.
• A lack of due process.
• Conflicts of law.

Other serious problems include the lack of judicial independence, especially as judges are appointed by the State and the judiciary as a whole does not have its own budget. These problems have led to corruption and the abuse of administrative power. However while the government acknowledges the need for reform, it has yet to agree upon a method to RESOLVE these problems.

Capital punishment

China has the highest number of death penalties in 2005, with 1,770 people executed. Between 1994 and 1999, according to the UN Secretary-General, China, which has the world's largest population of 1.3 billion people, was ranked 7th in terms of the number of executions carried out in comparison to overall population, behind Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan. Amnesty International claims that official figures are much smaller than the real number, stating that in China the statistics are considered State secrets. Amnesty stated that according to various reports, in 2005 3,400 people were executed. In March of that year, a senior member of the National People’s Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year.

There is concern from NGOs and several foreign governments over the number of crimes punishable by death, 68 in all, including some white collar crimes such as embezzlement and tax fraud. India has a similar population to China (1.1 billion), yet rarely uses the death penalty. Furthermore, the inconsistent and sometimes corrupt nature of the legal system in mainland China bring into question the fair application of capital punishment there.

In January 2007, China's state media announced that all death penalty cases will be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. Since 1983, China's highest court did not review all cases. This marks a return to China's pre-1983 policy.1

Organ harvesting and extrajudicial execution

In recent years, there have been allegations that executed prisoners have had their organs harvested for transplants, which were sold to both Chinese and foreign nationals.

China's deputy health minister has officially admitted, after previous denials, that organs were harvested from executed prisoners and that regulations were needed to "standardise" the practice. An American who flew to Shanghai to have such a transplant performed on his wife, said the prisoners had to give their consent before their organs could be removed.

In July 2006, David Kilgour, a former Canadian Cabinet minister and a human rights lawyer, and David Matas, also a human rights lawyer, released a report about allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Far from getting consent in all cases, the report claimed, China was secretly mass-murdering Falun Gong practitioners, in order to harvest their organs for lucrative sale to wealthy patients - often foreigners. After being killed and having their organs removed, the report alleged, the victim's body would be incinerated to destroy the evidence. This report has been the subject of controversy and has been disputed by fellow anti-Chinese government activist Harry Wu. Beijing denies the allegations without addressing their content.

Ethnic minorities

There are 55 recognized ethnic minorities in China. Article 4 of the Chinese constitution states "All nationalities in the People's Republic of China are equal", and the government has made efforts to improve ethnic education and increased ethnic representation in local government. The government maintains that it runs affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, though the benefits of these are disputed. Also minorities are exempt from China's One-child policy.

Also, the government has encouraged significant numbers of people of Han nationality to move into ethnic areas, especially after the China Western Development plan was adopted. The government argues that this was designed to boost the underdeveloped western regions, but has also been perceived by some as an effort to "water down" the ethnic minority population and make such regions less inclined towards separatism.

The government is harsh toward those that argue for independence or political autonomy, mainly Tibetans and Uigurs in rural provinces in the west of China. Five Chinese Uighur detainees from Guantanamo were released in June, 2007, but the United States refused to return them to China citing the People's Republic of China's "past treatment of the Uigur minority".In present day, some claim that the PRC is keeping a strong military force on these parts of the country in an effort to suppress separatist sentiment, as well as keeping the strong security of the border, due to past frictions with India and Russia.

Tibet

The Dalai Lama originally pushed for independence for Tibet, but he changed his position when it was clear that this was not a realistic objective. Instead he has called for full autonomy. Negotiation between Dalai Lama and the Chinese government has been difficult, and although contact has taken place between representatives, nothing has been agreed. Commentators have said that Chinese officials may be waiting for the Dalai Lama to die, as they believe Tibetans will not be a problem afterwards. Yet they also say that this may result in Tibetan political sentiment becoming more dangerous and violent, as the Dalai Lama has consistently argued for peaceful protests against Chinese rule.

Political freedom

The PRC is known for its intolerance of organized dissent towards the government. Dissident groups are routinely arrested and imprisoned, often for long periods of time and without trial. One of the most famous dissident is Zhang Zhixin for standing up against the ultra-left. Incidents of torture, forced confessions and forced labour are widely reported. Freedom of assembly and association are extremely limited in many cases. The Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the estimated death toll of which ranges from about 200 to 10,000 depending on sources.

Freedom of speech

The 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of speech. There is heavy government involvement in the media, with many of the largest media organizations being run by the government. Chinese law forbids the advocation of independence or self-determination for territories Beijing considers under its jurisdiction, as well as public challenge to the CCP's monopoly in ruling China. Thus references to democracy, the free Tibet movement, Taiwan as an independent state, certain religious organizations and anything remotely questioning the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China are banned from use in publications and blocked on the Internet. PRC journalist He Qinglian in her 2004 book Media Control in China examined government controls on the Internet in China and on all media. Her book shows how PRC media controls rely on confidential guidance from the Communist Party propaganda department, intense monitoring, and punishment for violators rather than on pre-publication censorship.

Recently, foreign web portals including Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo! Search, and Google Search China have come under criticism for aiding in these practices, including banning the word "Democracy" from its chat-rooms in China. Some North American or European films are not given permission to play in Chinese theatres, although piracy of the same movies is widespread. 6 7 8

Freedom of movement

The Communist Party came to power in the late 1940s and instigated a command economy. In 1958 Mao set up a residency permit system defining where people could work, and classified individuals as "rural" or "urban" workers. A worker seeking to move from the country to urban areas to take up non-agricultural work would have to apply through the relevant bureaucracies. The number of workers allowed to make such moves was tightly controlled. People who worked outside their authorized domain or geographical area would not qualify for grain rations, employer-provided housing, or health care. There were controls over education, employment, marriage and so on. One purpose is to prevent the possible chaos caused by the predictable large scale urbanization. It is alleged that people of Han nationality in Tibet have a far easier time acquiring the necessary permits to live in urban areas than ethnic Tibetans do.

Urban dwellers enjoy a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while peasants, the majority of the Chinese population, are treated as second-class citizens.

"Rural" workers need six passes to work in provinces other than their own. Periodic police raids rounded up those without permits, placed them in detention centers, and deported them. Restrictions placed on the mobility of migrant workers were pervasive, and transient workers were forced to live a precarious existence in company dormitories or shanty towns.

An article in The Washington Times, reported in 2000 that although migrants laborers play an important part in spreading wealth in Chinese villages, they are treated "like second-class citizens by a system so discriminatory that it has been likened to apartheid."

Special administrative regions

Also as a result of the one country, two systems policy initiated in the late 20th century, Chinese citizens must gain permission from the government to travel to the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

Religious freedom

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), particularly the Destruction of Four Olds campaign, religious affairs of all types was persecuted and discouraged by the Communists with many religious buildings looted and destroyed. Since then, there have been efforts to repair, reconstruct and protect historical and cultural religious sites, partly to encourage tourism. Critics say that not enough has been done to repair or restore damaged and destroyed sites.

The 1982 Constitution technically guarantees freedom of religion This freedom is subject to restrictions, as all religious groups must be registered with the government and are prohibited from having loyalties outside of China. The government argues that such restriction is necessary to prevent foreign political influence eroding Chinese sovereignty, though groups affected by this deny that they have any desire to interfere in China's political affairs. This has led to an effective prohibition on those religious practices that by definition involve allegiance to a foreign spiritual leader or organisation, (e.g. Catholicism - see Catholicism in China) although tacit allegiance to such individuals and bodies inside these groups is not uncommon. "Unregistered religious groups ... experience varying degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression."

Another problem is that members of the Communist Party have to be atheists according to the Party's constitution. As Party membership is required for many high level careers, being openly religious can limit one's economic prospects.

Falun Gong

In July 1999, the Chinese government declared the Falun Gong movement illegal and started suppressing its activities across the country. The government claims the group to be an "evil cult" that performs "illegal acts". Critics of the government allege that the crackdown was motivated by fear of its growing number of practitioners, particularly government officials, police and army officers. A peaceful demonstration of about 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners (in response to arrest of several dozen practitioners in Tianjin and prohibition of publishing Falun Gong materials) earlier in 1999 outside Zhongnanhai is thought to have been the trigger for the crackdown.

Practitioners that have been arrested report being beaten and tortured, and the Falun Dafa Information Center, a website run by Falun Gong practitioners, claims at least 3000 practitioners have died in police custody. The Chinese government alleges that Falun Gong fabricates news, that its practitioners are not tortured, nor go on hunger strikes. Amnesty International and other major human rights organizations, have generally sided with Falun Gong in their reports of the persecution.

Critics decry the persecution of Falun Gong as infringing on the freedom of religion, as well as claiming that it is widely known that systematic torture of Falun Gong practitioners exists. The issue was a subject of protests when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the United States in 2006, though such protests were censored from Chinese media coverage of the visit.

In July 2006, a report co-authored by former Canadian cabinet minister David Kilgour and prominent rights lawyer David Matas expressed grave concerns that internal organs are being harvested from Chinese political prisoners, particularly Falun Gong adherents, for the lucrative sale of organs to foreign buyers. The Chinese government has dismissed the report as "a 'groundless and biased' Falun Gong smear effort". Manfred Nowak, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has listed the following allegation in an addendum to his annual report in March 2007 composed of 341 allegations: "Organ harvesting has been inflicted on a large number of unwilling Falun Gong practitioners at a wide variety of locations for the purpose making available organs for transplant operations. Vital organs including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas were systematically harvested from Falun Gong practitioners at [Sujiatun] Hospital, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, beginning in 2001. The practitioners were given injections to induce heart failure, and therefore were killed in the course of the organ harvesting operations or immediately thereafter." (See: Organ harvesting in China)

One-child policy

Although the Chinese government argues that this policy is necessary to stop overpopulation, China's birth control policy, known widely as the One-Child Policy, is seen as morally objectionable by many foreign observers, as well as some Chinese. Such critics argue that it contributes to female infanticide, abandonment and [...] selective abortions. These are believed to be relatively commonplace in some areas of the country, despite being illegal and punishable by fines and jail time . This is thought to have been a significant contribution to the gender imbalance in mainland China, where there is a 118 to 100 ratio of male to female children reported, although underreported female births may reduce this figure. Forced abortions and sterilizations have also been reported .

It is also argued that the one child policy is not effective enough to justify its costs, and that the dramatic decrease in Chinese fertility started before the program began in 1979 for unrelated factors. The policy seems to have had little impact on rural areas (home to about 80% of the population), where birth rates never dropped below 2.5 children per female. Nevertheless, the Chinese government and others estimate that at least 250 million births have been prevented by the policy.

In 2002, the laws related to the One Child Policy were amended to allow ethnic minorities and Chinese living in rural areas to have more than one child. The policy was generally not enforced in those areas of the country even before this. The policy has been relaxed in urban areas to allow people who were single children to have two children.

Economic and social improvement

Mainland China's economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of a huge number of Chinese, providing increased social mobility and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information for the newly emerging Chinese middle class. In all, this suggests a substantial rise in the quality of life and standard of living of the Chinese people.

In recent years, the PRC has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been ostensibly carried out in approximately 80% of mainland China's one million villages. However subsequent disputes concerning such elections, including events at the village of Taishi, have raised questions about their value.

Other human rights issues

Worker's rights and privacy are contentious human rights issues in China. There have been several reports of core International Labor Organization conventions being denied to workers. One such report was released by the International Labor Rights Fund in October 2006 documenting minimum wage violations, long work hours, and inappropriate actions towards workers by management. Workers cannot form their own unions in the workplace, only being able to join State-sanctioned ones. The extent to which these organizations can fight for the rights of Chinese workers is disputed.

Although the Chinese government does not interfere with Chinese people's privacy as much as it used to, it still deems it necessary to keep tabs on what people say in public. Internet forums are strictly monitored, as is international postal mail (this is sometimes "delayed" inexplicably or "disappeared") and e-mail.

The issue of refugees from North Korea is a recurring one. It is official policy to repatriate them to North Korea, but the policy is not evenly enforced and a considerable number of them stay in the People's Republic (some move on to other countries). Though it is in contravention of international law to deport political refugees, as illegal immigrants their situation is precarious. Their rights are not always protected. Some of them are tricked into marriage or prostitution.

In 1988-9 African students in China "rose up in protest against what they called 'Chinese apartheid'". The Organization of African Unity issued an official protest, and the organization's chairman, Mali's president Moussa Traoré, went on a fact-finding mission to China. According to a Guardian 1989 Third World Report, it could "threaten Peking's entire relationship with the continent."

Further reading

• Cheng, Lucie, Rossett, Arthur and Woo, Lucie, East Asian Law: Universal Norms and Local Cultures, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, ISBN 0-415-29735-4
• Edwards, Catherine, China's Abuses Ignored for Profit, Insight on the News, Vol. 15, December 20, 1999.
• Foot, Rosemary, Rights beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-198-29776-9
• Jones, Carol A.G., Capitalism, Globalization and Rule of Law: An Alternative Trajectory of Legal Change in China, Social and Legal Studies, vol. 3 (1994) pp. 195-220
• Klotz, Audie, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid, Cornell University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-801-43106-9
• Knight, J. and Song, L., The Rural-Urban Divide: Economic Disparities and Interactions in China, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-198-29330-5
• Wang, Fei-Ling, Organizing through Division and Exclusion: China's Hukou System, Stanford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-804-75039-4
• Zweig, David, Freeing China's Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Reform Era, M. E. Sharpe, 1997, ISBN 1-563-24838-7
• The silent majority; China. (Life in a Chinese village), The Economist, April, 2005

References

See also

• Human rights in Hong Kong
• Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China
• Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
• Human Rights in China (organization)
• Tangshan Protest
• Laogai

External links

General links

• White Papers of the Chinese Government on Human Rights in China and own assessments in progress.
• Human rights can be manifested differently
• UN Human Development Report 2003 on China
• US State Department's 2004 Human Rights Report on China
• JURIST China - Chinese law, legal research, human rights
• Olympic Watch: Human Rights in China and Beijing 2008 - Campaign for human rights improvements in China before the 2008 Olympic Games
• Human Rights In China - International NGO based in New York and Hong Kong
• Human Rights Watch: China and Tibet
• International Freedom of Expression eXchange - monitors freedom of expression in China
• The China Support Network
• The Progress of Human Rights in China - Statement by PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Who shows more respect for human rights? - Editorial published by the People's Daily
• Tiananmen Vigil - Remember the victims of the June 4 1989 massacre by lighting a candle in your window on June 3
• Asia Death Penalty blog focuses on the death penalty in Asia, including the People's Republic of China
• Free China 2008 campaign to encourage human rights in China by having foreign visitors and athletes wear a symbol to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

Video

• The Tank Man - 2006 PBS documentary on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 as well as other human rights issues in China
• China land grab - A Sky News report on abuses of eminent domain powers in China
• Chinese soldiers shooting at Tibetan pilgrims - Pro TV footage via YouTube of an alleged Chinese military attack on Tibetan pilgrims

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