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Bush Urged to Press China's Jiang on Rights
PBEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Human rights groups urged
U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday to press
Chinese President Jiang Zemin to free political
prisoners and curb abuses against a Muslim ethnic
group when the leaders meet in Texas this week.
A group of followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement,
banned in China since 1999, also said they were taking
legal action against Jiang through the United Nations
for crimes committed during a crackdown on their faith.
But analysts said Bush was expected to soft pedal on the
sensitive issue of human rights to secure China's
acquiescence to U.S. plans for possible military
action against Iraq.
Jiang headed for the United States on Tuesday and is due to
meet Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Friday,
two weeks before he is expected to step down as
Communist Party chief.
China has released a string of Tibetan political prisoners
this year in what analysts see as an attempt to clear
the air for the summit. Last week, it freed Tibetan
nun Ngawang Sangdrol, 25, the Chinese Foreign Ministry
confirmed on Tuesday.
But critics say such releases are a cynical ploy and do not
reflect an improvement of the overall rights situation
in China.
``Releasing just a few political prisoners does not
constitute significant human rights progress, although
we'll welcome it if happens,'' Mike Jendrzejczyk,
director for Asia for the U.S.-based group Human
Rights Watch, said in a statement.
``But releasing all of China's political prisoners would
really be a significant way to mark Jiang's upcoming
retirement as president and leader of the Communist
Party.''
Rights activists and some Western diplomats are concerned by
a U.S. decision to add to its terrorist list an ethnic
Uighur group China brands as a terrorist organisation
fighting for a Muslim state in the northwestern
Chinese region of Xinjiang.
``Bush should make it clear that by designating one Uighur
group as a terrorist organisation, the United States
is not giving China a blank check to simply label
Uighurs as terrorists and then arrest them,'' said
Jendrzejczyk.
LEGAL ACTION
Eight Falun Gong members said in a statement they had
submitted their case against Jiang and two other
Chinese leaders on Monday to the U.N. Committee
Against Torture, the U.N. Human Rights Committee and
the International Criminal court.
The statement said they had faced kidnapping, prolonged
incarceration, extortion, forced labour, beatings,
torture, sexual assault and the murder of family
members as a result of the campaign against Falun
Gong.
``We are merely a cross section of the millions who have been
affected,'' it quoted plaintiff Zenon Dolnyckyj, a
Canadian citizen, as saying.
``Today's submission marks the beginning of international
legal action against those responsible for the brutal
and unlawful persecution of Falun Gong in China.''
Falun Gong practices a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese
exercises and its founder's ideas. China banned the
group after thousands of followers staged a peaceful
demonstration in Beijing to demand recognition of
their faith.
Falun Gong members have embarrassed several senior Chinese
officials by issuing them with writs while travelling
overseas.
LEGAL PROTECTION
The London-based group Amnesty International urged the
Chinese government and parliament to improve legal
protection, prevent torture and abolish two systems of
administrative detention.
Hundreds of thousands of people suffered human rights
violations because they lacked legal protection and
China had no independent judiciary, the rights group
said in a statement.
``In the current economic and social climate in China,
violations on this scale cannot be ignored for much
longer if China is to continue to develop in a stable
social environment,'' the statement said.
The New York-based Human Rights in China group urged Bush to
ask Jiang to allow dissident Fang Jue to go to the
United States.
Fang, 47, a former Chinese government official and democracy
activist, was released in July after four years in
detention on charges of fraud he says were trumped up
for political reasons.
But police had not returned his identification papers and
refused to give him a passport to go to the United
States despite a U.S. embassy request, the group said
in a statement.
The group also raised the case of Yin Jin, a former reporter
for the Hainan Economic Times, who it said was jailed
for 13 months after the crackdown on democracy
protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989 and served
another three years in labour camps.
His 73-year-old mother and 12-year-old daughter had been
given permission to emigrate to Sweden eight years ago
but had yet to be granted Chinese passports, it said.
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