From: amnesty@acs.ucalgary.ca (Nima Gyaltsen Dorjee)
Subject: China Faces Criticism at the UN
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 23:38:46 GMT
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta


/* Written  2:58 pm  Aug 17, 1992 by robbieb in gn:tibet.information */
/* ---------- "China Faces Criticism at UN" ---------- */
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TIN News Update / 17 August, 1992 / total no of pages: 2
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 - China Faces Criticism At UN Human Rights Meeting -

China's human rights record has come under attack at a UN meeting
being held this month in Geneva to discuss human rights
throughout the world.

The US delegate to the meeting, Ms. Linda Chavez, told the UN
Sub-Commission on Human Rights that serious abuses of human
rights were still taking place in the PRC although more
discretely than before, and away from the view of Western TV
cameras.

The leading human rights organisation Amnesty International in a
statement to the meeting on Wednesday singled out Chad, China,
Guatemala and Iraq as examples of continuing gross violations of
human rights in the world.

"The incidence of torture and ill-treatment [in China] is far
higher than that officially recorded," Amnesty told the Sub-
Commission, adding that there had been no change to the laws
under which such violations were perpetrated and  that "little
has been done by the authorities to lessen the risk of detainees
being tortured".

"There remains a pressing need for a clear message that continued
gross violations of human rights in China will not be tolerated
by the international community," said Amnesty.

Beijing's White Paper on the Chinese Prison system, issued last
Tuesday (11th August), apparently in an effort to undermine any
plans for a resolution attacking China at the UN meeting, met
with strong criticism from human rights teams in Geneva.

Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in Chinese labour camps, and
published a major study of the prison system in May this year,
described the White Paper as "a lie".

"If the laogai camps are as they are described in this report
then most of the Chinese would want to get into them", he told
the South China Morning Post yesterday.

Speaking from Geneva, Mr. Wu noted that Beijing's claim that
there are only 1.1 million prisoners in China was incompatible
with official figures for the number of criminals convicted each
year - between 400,000 and 600,000 - which would bring the total
closer to five million.

Prisoners in administrative detention and those on forced work
placement had been excluded from the total, he said, adding that
China's actual policy was different from its regulations.

"For example, the Chinese Government says that prisoners have the
right to vote, but the funny thing is I never voted in the 19
years I was prison, and I don't know of any other prisoners who
were able to," said Mr Wu.

The White Paper says that the export of labour camps products is
prohibited, although US Customs has issued detention orders for
18 products said to have been produced in labour camps. Mr. Wu
claims to have documentary evidence of 80 other forced labour
products which are still exported by China.

Amnesty International this morning described the White Paper as
presenting "a distorted view" of the situation in Chinese
prisons, and noted that it failed to address numerous accounts of
torture and ill-treatment from former prisoners.

"For example, political prisoners in Liaoning province's Lingyuan
camp were reported in late 1991 to have been beaten with fists,
leather belts and electric batons, to be held in overcrowded
cells and to be made to work up to 14 hours per day," said an
Amnesty spokesman.

The release of the White Paper led to some embarrassment for
Chinese diplomats at the UN. Late last week they had still not
received copies of the White Paper from Beijing and had to ask
human rights organisations for copies of the document.

A delegation consisting of a dozen human rights activists, mainly
Hong Kong citizens or exiled Chinese, has assembled in Geneva to
lobby for a resolution criticising China's human rights record.

Dr Philip Baker, a lawyer from London and an expert on Chinese
law, described the White Paper as "an exercise in half-truths and
wishful thinking which deliberately results in a grossly
misleading picture of the Chinese legal system".

The UN Sub-Commission, which consists of 26 experts on human
rights, in theory operating independently of the Governments that
nominate them, is expected to finish its annual meeting on 28th
August.

- end -
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