The State of Human Rights in China

-- 60 years after the "Universal Human Rights Declaration"

Zhang Kai

 


 

2008 is the 60th anniversary of the "Universal Human Rights Declaration", and the 10th anniversary of China's endorsement of the "Internatioanl Pact on Civil and Political Rights". However, China's human rights conditions have little improved. Dissident Liu Xiaobo and Beijing scholar on constitutional affairs Zhang Zuhua were arrested for their promotion of "Charter 2008".

Charter 2008 consists of 19 points, including the revision of the Constitution and removal of clauses that are incongruent with the principles of people's sovereignty; the independence of the judiciary free from intervention of the party; the army to be under the state rather than the party, and the army to be loyal to the Constitution and the State; safeguard of human rights, and no-one should be subject to illegal arrest, detention, interrogation and punishment; abolition of labour re-education camps; full universal suffrage; direct election of the state president; rural-urban equality and abolition of the existing dual rural-urban residence scheme; freedom of association and formation of parties; freedoms of parade, rally, demonstration and expression; separation of the judiciary, executive and legislature; democratic election of the legislative bodies, etc.

Charter 2008 was signed by over 2000 famous personalities in China. They include Mao Yushi (Beijing economist), Sha Yexin (Shanghai playwright), Liu Shahe (Sichuan poet), Bao Tong (Zhao Ziyang's former secretary), Ding Zilin (mother of a June 4 victim), Liu Xiaobo (Beijing writer), Zhang Zuhua (Beijing scholar on Constitution), Xu Youyu (Beijing philosopher), Zhang Sizhi (known as conscience of Chinese lawyers), Li Pu (former deputy director of New China News Agency), Yu Haocheng (former deputy secretary-general of China Law society), Jiao Guobiao (former associate professor of Peking University), Ren Duguang (former deputy director of Research Division of the CCP Central School), Li Datong and Gao Yu (journalists).

At the same time, over 100 people gathered for a sit-in outside the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Beijing to demand the government's respect for human rights. The petitioners included senile women, holding placards that demanded attention to illegal arrests, forced acquisition of land, abuse of power of local cadres, compensation for grievances, etc. Some held the photos of their relatives who had been beaten up in labour camps. The Beijing police initially demarcated a protest zone for the petitioners, but when the numbers increased, the petitioners were eventually taken away in buses.

Hu Jintao, the President of the State, has made proclamations in recent years about respect for human rights. In a recent letter to the China Human Rights Research Society, he said that the party and the government had taken as an important principle the respect and safeguard of human rights, and such clauses had been written into the Communist Party's Constitution and the PRC Constitution; he claimed that a new chapter in the development of the cause of China's human rights had started. (Wen Hui Pao, 12 Dec 2008)

Yet, in actual politics, there are numerous instances of violation of human rights. Apart from the arrest of some signatories of Charter 2008, the mass media have also been subject to strict control.

It was reported that a number of media workers have been blacklisted by the Central Propaganda Office, and will be put under strict monitoring and control. The newspapers include the Southern Urban Newspaper, the Southern Urban Weekly, and the South Wind Window in Guangzhou; New Beijing Daily, Yanhuang Chunqiu, and China News Weekly in Beijing. The list also included 15 active journalists, such as Jiang Yiping, the Chief Editor of Southern Weekly. The reasons are reported to be the government's fears for the possibility of serious unrest due to various sectors in China being affected by the current global economic crisis. Furthermore, 2009 is the 60th anniversary of the formation of the PRC, and the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Democracy Movement.

However, the efforts of the people for democracy and human rights have never stopped. On the one hand, the growing social polarization and social injustice have caused the people's struggles to be more frequent and more intensive. At the same time, the development of the internet has been an impetus for the dissemination of information. The spaces for the circulation of news, information and views have expanded. The monopoly of the party newspapers has been seriously challenged. Now, any local news of significance is carried as headline news in the internet, and hence widely known not only within China, but also internationally. Indeed, with China's internet users reaching almost 300 million, which is over one quarter of the total population, the monopoly of the bureaucracy over information and public opinion is seriously undermined. This is undoubtedly conducive to the advancement of the human rights of the Chinese people.

 

20 Dec 2008

 


 

 

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