i am always shocked to see america comment about another nations HUMAN RIGHTS when its own is a wretched as wretched can be. To even hear any so called US official talking about China or any nations history with its people makes my head spin. America has been a nation built on VIOLATIONS and therefore has no comment on what and how someone should be treated...especially when it has more people in its prison system than China, Russia and South Africa combined...
Gloves are off between US and China
Growing US pressure on China over internet censorship and human rights coincides with a string of other flashpoints
Leading Chinese human rights activists are urging western internet companies and service providers to follow Google's example in refusing to bow to Beijing's online censorship. Their intervention highlights how the high-profile tussle over freedom of information on the net is becoming part of a widening, multifaceted political confrontation between the US and China's increasingly assertive communist government.
Bob Fu, a former leader of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement and founder of the US-based rights body, ChinaAid, applauded Google's decision to defy Beijing's censors. "They are on the right path. Freedom of information is a basic human right defined by international conventions. I encourage other companies like Microsoft and Yahoo to stand up and not sell their consciences for more renminbi in their pockets," Fu said today.
Fu's remarks came amid indications that the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is keen to carry the fight to Beijing over what she sees as its indefensible internet censorship – although President Barack Obama is said to be less sure. An American strategy that focused tightly on upholding free speech could induce more western companies to refuse to play by China's rules. Getting its retaliation in first, the official People's Daily newspaper today accused Google of colluding with US government spy agencies.
Fu and another prominent activist, the Beijing-based human rights lawyer Li Baiguang, visited London and Brussels this week to draw the attention of policymakers and MPs to what they say are worsening human rights problems in China following the 2008 Olympics. Official attempts to restrict public information about individual cases, or to use the net to monitor political opponents, were part of a broader problem, they suggested.
Li said he had been detained and physically attacked on many occasions, and jailed three times, while pursuing cases involving abuses of human rights and religious freedom or unjust local government practices. He said it was entirely possible he would face arrest again on his return to China. "The public security people are always wanting to talk to me. We are forced to have tea together," he said with a smile.
Li highlighted the case of Alimujiang Yimiti, a Uighur Christian living in Xinjiang province, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail last year for "instigating separatism and revealing state secrets". Li said Alimujiang's actual offence, if it could be thus termed, was talking to visiting American Christians. Security officials had manufactured evidence and the conduct of his trial was illegal under Chinese law, Li said. Subsequent appeals to higher authorities in Beijing proved futile.
Fu drew attention to the case of Gao Zhisheng, which has received limited coverage inside China, owing to state control of the media. He said it was more than 400 days since Gao, the country's best-known human rights lawyer, a constant thorn in the side of the Chinese authorities and a Nobel peace prize nominee, had "disappeared" from his home in Shanxi province. There has been no sign of him since, raising fears about his safety.
Fu said Gao had been repeatedly arrested, imprisoned and tortured since 2005. He recounted one incident in which the lawyer said he was accused of being a traitor, beaten and electrocuted during a 53-day detention incurred after he wrote to a US congressman before the Olympics detailing human rights abuses. Fu said he had spoken to Gao days before he vanished in February last year and that the lawyer had expressed no intention of leaving home.
"Rumours and lies surround his absence," Fu said. "Silencing his voice is the only solution the Chinese leadership can come up with. They should concentrate instead on correcting an unjust system."
Li and Fu said western governments, churches and the public should put more pressure on China's leaders to abide by the rule of law, noting that when administrative lawsuits were set in train, the behaviour of state officials invariably improved. They also urged support for a public petition demanding Gao's release, which has so far been signed by 124,000 people in 180 countries.
Growing US pressure on China over human rights and freedom of information coincides with a string of other flashpoints in bilateral relations, ranging from Taiwan to Tibet to tyres. Moves are afoot in Congress to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports, while the US treasury may officially declare China to be a "currency manipulator" next month due to the low value of the yuan.
In another sign that the gloves are coming off, a report published in Washington this week blames unfair Chinese trade practices for 2.4m US job losses since 2001. Whether Chinese internet users will be allowed to read the report is open to question.
