Critics urge U.N. to condemn China's human rights record

Delegates at a recent U.N. forum on human rights called on Beijing to give the Chinese people more freedom

April 17, 2000
Web posted at: 4:32 p.m. HKT (0832 GMT)

In this story: Group cites rights persecution Followers risk arrest RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

BEIJING (CNN) -- Critics and rights groups are pleading their cases to the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights ahead of its Tuesday vote on a resolution to condemn China's human rights record.

China, meanwhile, says its human rights record should not be raised at this year's forum, being held in Geneva, because it is an internal matter, not an international issue.

"The U.N. Human Rights Commission should be a forum for equal exchanges and dialogue between all countries in the world, not a venue for political confrontation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman SU.N. Yuxi said.

The banned Chinese meditation group Zhong Gong has asked the U.N. Human Rights Commission to condemn China's crackdown against it, and the detention of approximately 600 of its followers.

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Falun Gong

Group cites rights persecution

"This is serious human rights persecution," Zhong Gong leaders wrote to the U.N. commission, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

China's leaders outlawed the group in January, expanding their crackdown on religious groups that began with the banning of the Falun Gong spiritual group in July. However, the Chinese government has dismissed criticism of its months- long crackdown against the Falun Gong.

Both Zhong Gong and Falun Gong are variants of qigong, traditional Chinese exercise and meditation forms meant to promote health and spiritual harmony. Millions of Chinese practice styles of qigong.

Chinese authorities have seized $95 million and 3,000 businesses belonging to the 400,000-member Zhong Gong, the Information Center said. About 600 Zhong Gong members have been held since October, and 25 of the group's leaders have been formally arrested, said human rights group Amnesty International.

On Sunday, police reportedly beat and detained a Falun Gong member on Tiananmen Square. Police had stopped the woman, in her 20s, and found a Falun Gong banner in her shoulder bag. A journalist reported seeing officers kick and punch the woman as she was pushed into a van and driven away.

Followers risk arrest

Several Falun Gong followers recently risked arrest to tell how Chinese police had detained them in a mental hospital, and then demanded they pay the equivalent of several months' salary in "hospital fees" for their release.

"They said if we didn't pay they'd send us to a labor camp. Then they threatened our daughters, and they said they wouldn't get into high school. And then they cut off the electricity at home," said one former detainee, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Human rights groups have also condemned an ongoing crackdown in China's northwestern Xinjiang province, and former Chinese government official Bao Tong has begun speaking out against Beijing's leadership.

Bao, who supported the 1989 student democracy protest at Tiananmen Square, has been under house arrest since he was released from prison in 1996. He recently wrote to Chinese leaders challenging China's courts to prove he had violated the country's constitution. A copy of the letter was sent to the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights.

"The Chinese government should think about why people keep criticizing its poor rights record, and think about whether they have made mistakes," China Democracy Party official He Depu said.

"They shouldn't turn critics into enemies."

Beijing Bureau Chief Rebecca MacKinnon and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Falun Gong launches campaign to pressure China to lift ban
October 7, 1999
Tough talk but no agreement on China human rights
March 2, 1999

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Foreign Ministry of the People's Republic of China
China - CIA World Factbook
China Falun Gong
Universal Declararion of Human Rights

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