The US is likely to call for international criticism of China's human rights record at the upcoming meeting of the UN's top human rights body, a senior US official said.
The Bush administration is moving toward introducing a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission condemning China because last year "it was radio silence from Beijing" in addressing human rights concerns, the official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
At last year's session, the US decided not to introduce a China resolution because Beijing took some significant steps on human rights in 2002: It invited the Dalai Lama's representative to visit for the first time in 20 years, it talked to the US special representative on Tibet and it released more political prisoners than in any year in the 1990s, the official said.
China routinely rejects scrutiny of its human rights record as interference in its affairs. But the communist government has begun in recent years to acknowledge a need for change -- albeit on Chinese terms -- and to accept foreign technical advice on improving its courts and some other institutions, which includes guidance aimed at improving respect for human rights.
Washington is concerned that more and more Chinese are being arrested, that in several cases lawyers trying to defend clients are ending up in jail and that only two prominent prisoners were released last year, the official said.
The US is also concerned that Beijing did not keep its promise to allow the UN investigators on religion and torture and a working group on international detention into the country last year, the official said.
Beijing also broke a promise to allow the US commissioner on international freedom to visit.
China's human rights record was the subject of a lengthy discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Jan. 29. According to a transcript, Lorne Craner, the US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, raised the possibility of introducing a resolution criticizing China.
"As a result of our concern about backsliding across a range of key human rights issue, the US is seriously considering sponsoring a resolution on human rights in China at this spring's UN commission -- a decision that will be made at the highest levels of our government," Craner said.
In the past, China has blocked US attempts to get the 53-member UN Human Rights Commission to pass critical resolutions. The US official said Beijing would likely try to thwart any resolution introduced this year, but it wouldn't matter because Washington's aim is to raise the issues.
China is trying to persuade the world that its human rights practices are on the way to meeting the standards of democratic countries, the official said, "but the fact is they're a long way from that and we haven't seen the progress over the past year that gets us to that."
The six-week annual session of the Human Rights Commission starts March 15 in Geneva.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to