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Amnesty International calls on Washington to demand
`concrete improvements' in Chinese human rights
Friday, December 13, 5.06 AM ET
By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - Complaining about a lack of Chinese progress,
Amnesty International exhorted American diplomats
Friday to set specific goals and demand the release of
political prisoners during a new round of human rights
talks in Beijing next week.
"We remain deeply concerned by the lack of progress,"
the London-based organization said in a letter to U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news -
web sites). "Without progress on these fundamental
topics the effectiveness of the dialogue remains in
question."
The meeting Monday in Beijing is part of a periodic
series of human rights exchanges held by China since
the mid-1990s with the United States, the European
Union (news - web sites) and other governments.
Activists say such meetings produce little, while
muting official criticism of China. U.S. and other
officials release few details of their talks.
Amnesty cited a wide range of outstanding issues
despite past talks with Washington, including torture
in prisons and crackdowns on Internet dissent and the
Falun Gong (news - web sites) spiritual group.
Beijing routinely rejects human rights criticism as
interference in its affairs. But it has carried on
such dialogues since the mid-1990s with the European
Union, the United States and other governments, and in
recent years has shifted its public tone to
acknowledge progress is under way - though on China's
terms.
Amnesty called on U.S. diplomats to tell Chinese
officials that human rights will be an "integral part
of the political dialogue" with Beijing.
"The U.S. government should the specify the overall
aims, concrete objectives and time frame," its letter
said. "Benchmarks for progress should be identified
and complemented with a clear time frame for the
achievements of these objectives."
The group said it sent a copy to U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Lorne Craner, who will represent
Washington at the Beijing talks. Craner is head of the
State Department's human rights bureau.
The letter asked U.S. officials to convey a list of
specific requests.
They include the release of Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent
Muslim businesswoman imprisoned for sending newspapers
to her activist husband abroad, and dissident Xu Wenli,
who is serving a 13-year prison term and is reported
to be suffering from Hepatitis B.
Amnesty said it recognized that engagement with China
is a long-term process,
and that "dialogue may not produce major changes in
the short term."
However, it said that in some cases abuses have
worsened, such as a recent Chinese crackdown on
Internet use in which it said at least 30 people have
been arrested on vague subversion or state-secrets
charges.
Amnesty also complained of imprisonment, torture and
sometimes death in the government's crackdown on
independent Christian churches, Falun Gong and Tibetan,
Muslim and other ethnic minority activists.
China has been accused recently of misusing the
international campaign against terrorism to crack down
on peaceful pro-independence sentiment in Tibet and
among Uighurs, a Muslim minority in the northwestern
Xinjiang region.
"Thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns remain
in detention, while ethnic Uighurs, many of them
Muslims, are falsely accused of being `separatists' or
`terrorists,'" Amnesty said. "Many have been executed
after secret trials."
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