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Repression Continues in
China, But Govt Learns Value of Public Relations
BEIJING, Jan 14 (AFP) - China continued to limit free
expression, impose censorship and crackdown on
dissidents in 2002, but it showed it had learnt
valuable lessons in public relations, Human Rights
Watch said in its annual survey Tuesday.
In a lengthy section on China, the US-based rights
group said Chinese diplomacy had also successfully
managed to deflect human rights criticism, preventing
attempts to censure Beijing's record at the United
Nations.
And the leadership had skillfully used the global
anti-terrorist agenda to justify its crackdown at home,
it added.
The report said preparations for the 16th Party
Congress in November and the accompanying change in
China's top leadership colored human rights practices
in 2002.
"Concerned with maintaining economic and social
stability as the transition unfolded, leaders in
Beijing appeared to calculate carefully when to tread
lightly and when to crack down hard," it said.
It noted that the leadership responded to major,
well-coordinated, and sustained worker protests in
China's northeast with only minimum force and
moderated their response to disclosures of their
failure to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis effectively.
But repression continued nonetheless.
"The leadership moved unequivocally, however, to limit
free expression and build a firewall around the
Internet, to destroy Falungong even beyond China's
borders, and to eliminate dissident challenges," the
report said.
The Chinese foreign ministry dismissed the allegations
as groundless.
"It's the 1.3 billion Chinese people who are most
entitled to speak about China's human rights situation,"
said foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue.
"China enjoys economic development and its poor
population has reached historical lows. China has
registered improvement in both democracy building and
its legal system.
"Any people with an objective view will reach this
conclusion. So I should say that the accusations in
the report are groundless."
China is seen grappling with opening the country to
the outside world as never before in its drive to
boost its economic prowess while keeping a firm grip
on a massive population.
Human Rights Watch said the free flow of information
about China continued to be compromised.
"They blocked major Internet search engines, closed
publications, harassed foreign and domestic
journalists, tightened controls on satellite
transmission, and hampered the work of academics and
activists," HRW said.
The report documented cases where Chinese authorities
charged activists with subversion for using the
Internet to promote causes ranging from political
change to worker rights.
Outspoken academics also continued to be targeted.
It said a three-month "strike hard" campaign initiated
in April 2001 to crackdown on criminal activity and
speed the judicial process appeared to have become a
permanent fixture.
Targets for 2002 included organized crime, corrupt
officials, and those labeled terrorists, separatists,
religious extremists, or members of "criminal cults"
such as practitioners of the banned Falungong
spiritual group.
And it said local cadres and party officials still
interfered in the criminal justice system with "confessions"
elicited by torture admissible as evidence and defense
lawyers routinely denied access to their clients and
to prosecution witnesses.
Authorities continued to imprison China Democracy
Party leaders and prevent its members from working
with overseas dissidents and unemployed workers.
Falungong practitioners faced the most severe
repression among religious groups, it said, although "through
use of an expanded definition of 'cult' officials 'legally'
prosecuted a wide range of groups and believers."
For Tibetans, little changed. The report said
authorities continued to arrest "political" offenders
and place restrictions on religious practice.
In the largely Muslim region of Xinjiang, steps to
curtail "ethnic splittists, religious extremists, and
violent terrorists" had included death sentences and
long prison terms.
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