Rights groups urge scrutiny of Beijing

Human-rights groups in the US urged the international community to enhance its scrutiny of China in the runup to the 2008 Olympic Games to assure that its human-rights record does not deteriorate during that time.

Their reaction came as China's harshest critics in Congress blasted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for awarding Beijing the 2008 games, and business groups cheered the action.

Xiao Qiang (蕭強), executive director of the New York-based group Human Rights in China said the selection "presents significant challenges both to Chinese authorities and to the international community," calling on the world to set up monitoring mechanisms to ensure China's human rights.

"Selection as an Olympic site is a great honor to the Chinese people. The Chinese government must not dishonor this prestigious opportunity by violating the rights of its citizens," he said.

Xiao urged China to release all political prisoners and the recently detained Chinese-American scholars.

The New York office of the Falun Gong said its practitioners "share in the exhilaration of their countrymen and women," but also called on the international community to monitor China's compliance with its human-rights promises.

"We hope that China will not see winning the Olympics as a license to kill," said the group's spokesman Zhang Erping (張爾平).

The leading rights organization, Human Rights Watch, also slammed the selection of Beijing.

"The IOC didn't even try to get guarantees on human rights," said Sidney Jones, the group's Asia director. "If abuses take place as preparations for the games proceed, it won't just be the Chinese authorities who will look bad -- the IOC and the corporate sponsors will be complicit," she said.

The Bush administration has taken a hands-off attitude. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said "the president believes that the Olympics are a sporting event and not a political event," and a matter for the IOC to decide.

Fleischer added that the selection of Beijing was "an opportunity for China to showcase itself as a modern nation."

Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms, however, called the selection "an affront to all who dare to speak up for freedom in China."

Representative Tom Lantos, the top Democrat in the House International Relations Committee and a leading congressional human-rights crusader, said "it boggles the mind" that Beijing was selected "despite having one of the most abominable human-rights records in the world."

He called the decision "an outrage."

Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee said he felt Beijing's victory could help China improve its record.

"Tyranny thrives best in the shadows. The Olympics will place Beijing and its policies in the world's spotlight. And with Beijing under the international microscope, perhaps Taiwan can rest easier, at least for now," Hyde said.

Cheng Li (李程), a government professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, was also positive that Beijing's victory would ensure stability in the Taiwan Strait.

"There will be no war in the coming seven years and beyond. It would not make sense at all. A military conflict worries Taiwan the most, but it also worries some Chinese the most."

He also noted that China will be under increased international scrutiny up until the Olympics.