The human rights situation in China has deteriorated in the past year as Beijing clamped down on free expression and used force to suppress social unrest, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
The US-based group also condemned China for using its growing economic clout around the world to protect abusive governments in Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe.
"There has been a significant backsliding on human rights and we are seeing that principally in terms of increasing restrictions on what it's possible to say in the press -- certainly what it's possible to say on the Internet," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
The reversal over the past two years corresponded with the ascent in 2003 of Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Roth did not elaborate on the role of Hu in human rights problems, which he said took place amid major social unrest and with a weak legal system unable to address rampant disputes.
The report said China's leaders "have responded to the increasing social mobilization with a multifaceted crackdown on demonstrators and their allies and with repression of means for disseminating information and organizing protests, particularly the Internet."
China has jailed some 60 people for peaceful expression of opinion on the Internet and imposes sophisticated Internet controls known as the "Great Firewall of China," it said.
Roth said many of the abuses served to fuel the unrest Beijing leaders were trying to prevent. The annual report cited a Chinese government tally of 74,000 protests involving 3.5 million people in 2004.
"Rather than recognizing that rule of law and greater freedom of the press and association as being antidotes to this unrest, they are shutting things down," he said.
The report said China's "quest for natural resources combined with its stated policy of `noninterference in domestic affairs' led to its bolstering of corrupt and repressive regimes in Africa, Latin America and Asia, to the disadvantage of the people of these regions."
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS