September 1, 2005

For Audio Broadcast:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/programs/s1451322.htm

CHINA: Beijing signs UN human rights accord

China has taken a step towards adopting a key international treaty on
human rights. Beijing has signed an accord with the United Nations
Human Rights Agency aimed at revising its criminal laws and finding
alternatives to imprisonment.

The move which comes a week before the Chinese president's visit to
Washington, has been cautiously welcomed by rights activists. But even
as the agreement was being signed, the Chinese authorities were
cracking down on dissenting voices.

Marion MacGregor reports.

MACGREGOR: The accord signed by the U-N Human Rights Commissioner
Louise Arbour and China's vice Foreign Minister Shen Guofang is a step
on the way to Beijing's signing a number of international treaties on
human rights.

It's received a cautious welcome from activists like Nicholas
Becuuelin, from the organisation Human Rights in China.

BECUUELIN: We certainly prefer China to be at least engaging with the
human rights system, submitting reports to the Human Rights
Commission, welcoming the officer of the High Commmissioner to visit
China. In the long term, this is definitely a process that has to
encouraged.

MACGREGOR: But most observers remain sceptical.

Nicholas Becuuelin says the agreement stops short of committing
Beijing to any concrete changes.

BECUUELIN: It's basically an agreement to co-operate on a number of
technical cooperation projects. Studying alternative penalty measures
to imprisonment, revision of the criminal procedure law or the lawyers
law, training the police about human rights aspects of their work, and
it doesn't require China to do much.

MACGREGOR: Signing the accord, China's vice foreign minister Shen said
Beijing was committed to the principles enshrined in the U-N Charter
on human rights.

He also said the country should be allowed to handle human rights
issues in its own way.

Human rights groups say that means continued persecution of
separatists in Tibet and western Xinjiang province, as well as the
Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Falun Gong practitioner Hui Yie Han, based in Hong Kong, says
vilification has stopped in the Chinese media, but it's got worse in
practice.

HAN: We're still getting reports of cases of Falun Gong practitioners
being arrested and put to labour camps or prisons, and we're still get
reports of practitioners being persecuted to death, so they're just
talking one thing, but they're doing another thing.

MACGREGOR: Even as the Human Rights Commissioner was in Beijing,
Chinese police were making sure dissenters were away from the public
eye.

Hou Wenzhou the director of the U-S-funded organisation, the
Empowerment and Rights Institute in Beijing, had her office raided
earlier in the week and she's been kept under police surveillance.

WENZHOU: Since Monday, there were about a dozen police. I mean they
shift, there are several shifts day and night and I have been 24 hour
watch. I was told by police officers exactly that I should not go
anywhere, I should not meet any people and I've talked with them, I
said I want to go swimming. I want to go shopping and they said now
the reply is no, you cannot. Basically they said you cannot move
anywhere beyond between 200 metres.

MACGREGOR: The President Hu Jintao, is preparing to visit the United
States next week. Do you see visits like that with hope that they
might result in some break through on human rights or some progress?

WENZHOU: I do not have a high hope, I have some hope and there in the
past, like Chinese Government has made certain concessions during
these bilateral talks and sometimes a few political prisoners are
released and they are used as like hostages, during these bilateral
talks.

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