The US dropped China from its list of the world's worst human- rights violators, but added Syria, Uzbekistan and Sudan to its top 10 offenders in an annual report released on Tuesday.
Despite removing Beijing from its top blacklist, the US State Department's 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices said China, which has raised hopes internationally that it would improve human rights by hosting the 2008 Olympics, still had a poor record overall.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the report aims to highlight the struggle for human rights around the world.
"In the long run, we are confident that citizens who sacrifice for their dignity and their rights will prevail, just as the Havels and the Mandelas did before them," Rice told reporters. "Change may, indeed, change will take time, but change will come."
But human-rights groups criticized the move, with Reporters Without Borders saying it was "a bad decision at a bad time" amid global moves to pressure Beijing into improving its record ahead of the August Olympics.
China had been fingered as one of the worst violators in the 2006 and 2005 reports. This year China was classified among authoritarian countries that are undergoing economic reform and rapid social change, but which "have not undertaken democratic political reform," the report said.
The State Department said in the report that "countries in which power was concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers remained the world's most systematic human-rights violators."
It listed 10 in that category: North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan.
A State Department spokesman though, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters "there is no statutory significance to this list," meaning it does not legally affect the status of relations with Washington.
But the report stressed that China's "overall human-rights record remained poor" last year, citing tightened controls on religious freedom against Buddhists in Tibet and Muslims in Xinjiang.
"The government also continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison activists, writers, journalists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law," the report said.
Other authoritarian countries listed as undergoing change were Venezuela, Nigeria, Thailand, Kenya and Egypt.
Human rights had improved in several countries since 2006, including Mauritania, Ghana, Haiti and Morocco, the report said.
Little or no progress had been made in Nepal, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Afghanistan or Russia, while the situation had deteriorated in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, it said.
It said human rights in Pakistan worsened last year despite Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's repeated pledges to foster democracy. It highlighted a period of emergency rule late last year.
In Bangladesh, the "government's human-rights record worsened, in part due to the state of emergency and postponement of elections," the report said.
In Sri Lanka, it said "the government's respect for human rights continued to decline due in part to the escalation of the armed conflict."
Also See: Human trafficking still a problem in Taiwan: US
Also See: A new twist on "Made in India"
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS