Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) carefully planned anointment as the nation’s greatest leader since Mao Zedong (毛澤東) was upstaged yesterday by a Guardian report about a UN document castigating his government’s treatment of three rights activists, although it is unlikely the adoring multitudes in his nation will ever hear about it.
It has been clear for several months that the main goal of Xi and his supporters for the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress, which opened on Wednesday, was to get Xi’s “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” enshrined in the party’s constitution, along with his name, which would cement his status.
In his address to the congress on Wednesday, Xi said China was “approaching the center of the world stage and making continuous contributions to humankind,” the inference being that it was largely due to him.
The UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention begs to differ, even if it has not yet publicly said so, the Guardian reported.
The report was based on an “advanced unedited version” of a report by the working group that calls China’s laws incompatible with international norms and demands that Beijing immediately release three men arrested during Xi’s crackdown on attorneys and rights activists that began in July 2015, and to pay them compensation and other reparations.
The five-member working group said China violated the rights of Christian pastor Hu Shigen (胡石根), who was sentenced on Aug. 3 last year to seven-and-a-half years in prison for subversion; lawyer Zhou Shifeng (周世鋒), who was handed a seven-year sentence for subversion the following day; and Xie Yang (謝陽), who was put on trial in May and then released on bail ahead of his sentencing, which has yet to be announced.
The working group rejected Beijing’s claims that the men had voluntarily confessed to their crimes at their trials and said their incarceration was “made in total or partial nonobservance of the international norms relating to the right to a fair trial.”
The working group said the trio’s detentions contravene Articles 9, 10, 11, 18, 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While the working group’s judgements are not legally binding, Beijing promised to cooperate with the group when it sought — and won — a seat on the UN Human Rights Council last year.
It also promised to make “unremitting efforts” to promote human rights.
How little Beijing’s promises are worth is well known and it has been hard at work for years, overtly and secretly, to silence or block criticism at UN organizations of its human rights record and to weaken mechanisms to protect human rights, including — according to Human Rights Watch — by harassing and intimidating UN staff and experts.
By publicizing the advanced version of the working group’s report, the Guardian has made it harder for Beijing’s minions to block or bury it.
However unlikely the working group’s report is to actually effect change in China, it is important because it validates the claims of Chinese activists, exiled dissents and others that Xi’s government violates China’s own laws, as well as international norms.
It also offers hope that international pressure might help win the release of Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who was put on trial in Hunan Province on Sept. 11, followed by the release of a Chinese video of Lee “confessing” to his crimes in court.
No Taiwanese in their right mind believed Lee’s confession; now it is even more unlikely that anyone else will either.
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