Author:
Publication: Hindustan Times
Dated: July 30, 2008
Introduction: Rights group slams China for
failing to honour its Olympic human rights pledges, Beijing rebuffs report
With just over a week to go before the Games kick off on August 8, Amnesty
gave a scathing assessment of China's track record since 2001, when it won
the right to host the 2008 Olympics amid pledges to improve its human rights
performance in line with Olympic ideals
Amnesty International Claims. There has been
no progress towards fulfilling these promises, only continued deterioration.
Chinese authorities had targetted human rights defenders, journalists and
lawyers to "silence dissent" ahead of the Games, jailing the likes
of Hu Jia, Ye Guozhu and Yang Chunlin and often intimidating their families
¦ They have used the Olympic Games as pretext to continue, and in some
respects, intensify existing policies and practices which have led to serious
and widespread violations of human rights ALEXANDER F. YUAN/AP RIGHTS GROUP
Amnesty International slammed China for failing to honour its Olympic human
rights pledges in a report summarising Beijing's "deteriorating"
record over the past seven years.
However, China dismissed the report and said
that people who "understood" China would not agree with it.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said:
"We hope Amnesty can take off the tinted glasses it has worn for many
years and see China in an objective way."
With just over a week to go before the Games
kick off in Beijing's bird's nest stadium on August 8, Amnesty on Tuesday
gave a scathing assessment of China's track record since 2001, when it won
the right to host the 2008 Olympics amid pledges to improve its human rights
performance in line with Olympic ideals. "There has been no progress
towards fulfilling these promises, only continued deterioration," said
Amnesty in the report, titled The Olympics countdown - broken promises.
"The authorities have used the Olympic
Games as pretext to continue, and in some respects, intensify existing policies
and practices which have led to serious and widespread violations of human
rights," it said in the report released in Hong Kong.
Amnesty said Chinese authorities, had targetted
human rights defenders, - journalists and lawyers to "silence dissent"
ahead of the Games, jailing the - likes of Hu Jia, Ye Guozhu and Yang Chunlin
and often intimidating their families.
"China really needs to be releasing human
rights activists, in order to be showing it's following through with its promises,"
said Mark Allison, a China researcher for Amnesty in Hong Kong.
The International Olympic Committee was also
blamed for failing to put more pressure on China and for "sending a message
that it is acceptable for a government to host the Olympic Games in an atmosphere
characterised by repression and persecution".
The spring unrest in Tibet and subsequent
crackdown was highlighted as an instance of China overstepping its bounds
in persecuting people without charge, and of shutting out foreign reporters
in violation of its promise to grant full media freedoms for foreign journalists
in the run-up to the Games.
Sichuan's earthquake was also cited as a lost
opportunity, with the initial climate of media openness later strangled off
amid tightened controls as reporters probed official corruption.
Internet censorship and regulation had also
been "increasingly tightened" as the Olympics approach, with journalists
working in the Olympic media centre unable to access websites, including those
of Amnesty and certain foreign media.
The report called on China to free all prisoners
of conscience immediately, allow full media freedoms and to halt the "clean-up"
of dissent.
