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Benjamin Klein at 2:54 PM ET
Oct 15, 2007

[JURIST] The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China [official website] has flagged ongoing human rights abuses and the stalled development of the rule of law in China in its latest Annual Report [official report, PDF]. The Commission, consisting of nine US senators, nine House members and five executive appointees, highlighted two general concerns in its 2007 review submitted Wednesday: 1) Chinese leaders’ increasing intolerance of citizen activism and greater suppression of information on urgent matters of public concern (including food safety, public health, and environmental emergencies); and 2) the instrumental use of law for political purposes. The report also documented heightened repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and Tibetan autonomous areas of China, increased harassment of legal advocates, and more stringent restrictions on Chinese reporters.

China, the host of the 2008 Summer Olympics, has lately been under growing pressure [advocacy website] from human rights organizations to comply with international human rights and regulatory standards. Time has more.


CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2007 (full report)

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ETHNIC MINORITY RIGHTS

The Chinese government recognizes and supports some aspects of ethnic minority identity, but represses aspects of ethnic minority rights deemed to challenge state authority, especially in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan autonomous areas. Overall conditions vary for members of the 55 groups the Chinese government designates as minority ‘‘nationalities’’ or ‘‘ethnicities’’ (minzu), but all communities face state controls in such spheres as governance, language use, culture, and religion. The government provides some protections in law and in practice for ethnic minority rights, and allows for autonomous governments in regions with ethnic minority populations.

The narrow parameters of the ethnic autonomy system and the overriding dominance of the Communist Party, however, prevent ethnic minorities from enjoying their rights in line with international human rights standards. The central government has increased support for development projects in ethnic minority regions, but benefits to ethnic minority communities have been limited. Although one new development program sets concrete targets for improving economic and social conditions among ethnic minorities, it couples potentially beneficial reforms with measures designed to monitor and report on ethnic relations and perceived threats to stability.

The Chinese government uses counterterrorism and other policies as a pretext for suppressing ethnic minorities’ peaceful aspirations to exercise their rights. The government has characterized some expressions of ethnic minority rights as separatism or a threat to state security, and levied prison sentences on some ethnic minority rights advocates.

The Chinese government has increased repression in the XUAR since 2001, building off campaigns started in the 1990s to squelch political viewpoints and expressions of ethnic identity deemed threatening to state power. Rights abuses in the region are far reaching and target multiple dimensions of Uighur identity. In addition to ‘‘strike hard’’ measures, officials also have enforced ‘‘softer’’ policies aimed at diluting expressions of Uighur identity. In recent years, local governments have intensified measures to reduce education in ethnic minority languages and have instituted language requirements that disadvantage ethnic minority teachers. Authorities in the XUAR continue to imprison Uighurs engaged in peaceful expressions of dissent and other nonviolent activities.

[15] Although the Chinese government granted political prisoner Rebiya Kadeer early release on medical parole to the United States in 2005, it has since launched a campaign of harassment and abuse against her family members in the XUAR, in an apparent strategy to punish Kadeer for her activism in exile. In 2007, a XUAR court sentenced Kadeer’s son, Ablikim Abdureyim, to nine years in prison for ‘‘instigating and engaging in secessionist activities.’’ A court imposed a seven-year prison sentence and fine in 2006 on Kadeer’s son, Alim.

Recommendations

To address these issues, Members of the Congress and Administration officials are encouraged to:

• Provide support for U.S. organizations that can provide technical assistance to the Chinese government in its efforts to draft and revise legislation on ethnic minority rights. Such organizations might include groups already engaged in legal reform projects in China. A new Chinese government program for ethnic minority development, issued in 2007, promotes drafting legislation to protect some aspects of ethnic minority rights, providing one possible opportunity for increased engagement in this area.

• Urge the Chinese government to end the practice of repressing the constitutionally protected right to the freedom of speech by ethnic minorities in China, such as Tibetans, Uighurs, and Mongols, and of punishing or imprisoning individuals of such ethnic minority groups by characterizing peaceful expression and nonviolent action as ‘‘splitting the country’’ or ‘‘endangering state security.’’ Urge China’s National People’s Congress and State Council to clarify within their laws and regulations on state security the distinction between violent terrorist behavior, and nonviolent policy research and advocacy of ideas aimed at expanding ethnic autonomy and rights, and provide explicit legal protection for such research and advocacy. Support funding for organizations that can assist China in such legislative projects. Support funding for organizations that promote human rights in the XUAR. Because of restrictions on civil society groups within the region, recipients of such funding should include organizations that carry out their work outside the region.

• In talks and written correspondence, call on China to release Chinese citizens imprisoned for advocating ethnic minority rights, including prisoners mentioned in this report and included in the Commission’s Political Prisoner Database. Such prisoners include Uighur writer Nurmemet Yasin (serving a 10-year sentence for writing a short story about a caged pigeon); Mongol bookstore owner Hada (serving a 15-year sentence for peacefully advocating for ethnic minority rights); and Tibetan schoolteacher Drolma Kyab (serving a sentence of 10 years and 6 months for authoring unpublished manuscripts on subjects such as Tibetan history and People’s Liberation Army forces in Tibetan areas).

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• Express concern about the continued abuse and imprisonment of Rebiya Kadeer’s family members in the XUAR, and call for the release of all political prisoners in the region. Couple efforts to promote Uighur rights within China with measures to protect Uighur culture in diaspora. In particular, in light of recent measures that reduce Uighur language instruction within the XUAR, encourage and provide financial support for organizations and projects that seek to preserve Uighur language and literature in diaspora. Such funding targets could include community language schools that promote training in the Uighur language, especially among Uighur children; literary journals that publish works in Uighur; and library programs to collect Uighur books published inside and outside China and catalogue them by their Uighur-language titles, rather than by the Mandarin-Chinese titles imposed on Uighur books published within China.
(full report)

Report: China Repression Worsening

Time
Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007
By Michael Weisskopf

Next summer's Olympics will showcase a China of glittering skyscrapers and overstuffed store shelves. But the government responsible for this economic miracle continues to imprison political activists, restrict religious freedom, tightly control the media and Internet, and protect its citizens only haphazardly from pollution and unsafe food and consumer products, a congressional panel reported Friday.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China credited Communist Party leaders with increasing legal protections for those who abstain from unauthorized political and religious activities, but noted the safeguards are selectively enforced. "Against persons the Party deems to pose a threat to its supremacy, officials wield the legal system as a harsh and deliberately unpredictable weapon," the panel concluded in its annual report on the state of human rights and rule of law in China.

With the Games seen as a mark of its arrival, Beijing is under pressure from foreign activists to comply with international standards from the workplace to air quality. Friday's report added leverage for human rights reforms because of the official U.S. imprimatur: the CECC consists of nine senators, nine House members and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President.

The commission veered from its central focus to such recent issues as food and product safety, which also affects foreign consumers of Chinese exports. The report praised Beijing for reforms, but complained of "inadequate and inconsistent implementation, corruption and a lack of regulatory incentives." Worse, the government discouraged consumer organizations and harassed people for reporting problems with consumer products. Likewise, environmental reforms have been hampered by uncooperative local authorities and official suppression of green activists and the free flow of information, the report said.

Human rights came in for the toughest criticism. Despite a 2005 pledge to "provide relief" for its political prisoners, Beijing continued to detain and imprison democracy activists as well as those attempting to organize workers in labor unions not approved by the government. Police routinely detain people for days without formal charge or more justification than to avoid protests or "social unrest," it said.

A database set up by the commission to monitor political and religious prisoners numbered 4,060 cases as of September.

The past year saw a tightening of the screws on religion, the report said, with Beijing continuing its "campaign of persecution" against the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Protestant church gatherings that didn't register with the government were shut down, and Catholics blocked from contact with the Vatican. Independent clergy were detained and coerced.

Tibetan Buddhists faced greater repression in recent months, said the report, as authorities continued to detain and imprison Tibetans for peaceful expression and nonviolent action — at least 100 such cases were identified.

The commission underlined the importance of free expression in an ever-shrinking world beset by contagious diseases and globalized trade. In China, however, the media are muzzled by officials seeking to protect themselves, the report said. Even though foreign reporters were granted greater freedoms to host the Olympics, Beijing has increased government restrictions on domestic journalists in the interest of preserving order and control before a party congress this month. "Developments during 2007 suggests that the prospects for a free press in China remain dim," it said.

The Internet has threatened the Party�s monopoly of information, a threat it has blunted with requirements for all websites to be licensed, curbs on politically sensitive data and arrests of online government critics. Beijing continues to impose prior restraints on publishing, banning certain books and publications prior to the party congress.

Senator Byron L. Dorgan, the commission�s chairman, said the 360-page study was "sober reading," a sign that repression was getting worse in China, despite promises of reform. He called the report a "wake-up call" to Washington decision-makers. The Chinese Embassy in Washington was called for a comment, but officials did not respond to it.