Saturday, February 26, 2000
UN rights chief to visit
ahead of key vote
JOSEPHINE MA
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, will visit
China next week, less than three weeks before a controversial debate
pushed by the US in Geneva to censure China's human rights
violations.
After a stopover in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Mrs Robinson will fly
to Beijing for a workshop on Regional Co-operation for the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific region.
During her stay in Beijing, she is expected to meet officials
from the Chinese Foreign Ministry and other departments to finalise
details of technical co-operation between the UN and China,
according to her spokesman, Jose Luis Diaz.
The discussions follow a Memorandum of Intent signed two years
ago when Mrs Robinson last visited Beijing.
Mr Diaz said Mrs Robinson hoped to sign a Memorandum of
Understanding during her visit, to kick start the co-operation
programmes.
The programmes are designed to help China amend its legislation
and reform its judiciary so that they can be compatible with two
international human rights conventions it has signed.
Beijing signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights in 1998 - a year after it signed a sister treaty on social
and cultural rights.
But neither convention has been ratified by the National People's
Congress.
Mr Diaz declined to comment on whether Mrs Robinson would raise
issues such as the crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement
and Tibet during her meetings with Chinese officials.
Sophie Woodman, a Hong Kong spokeswoman for Human Rights in
China, said the chance that the rights resolution would be passed
this year in Geneva hinged on "how hard the US is going to lobby
other members".
She described the past year as a bad year for China's human
rights situation and said people should not assume the resolution
would fail when the rights commission begins its hearings on March
20.
- Fang Jue, an advocate of political reform convicted of making
illegal business deals, has complained to the Ministry of Justice
that he is being treated unfairly in prison because he insists he
is innocent, a rights group said yesterday.
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