Next year's Olympics is being used as a catalyst for repression in China, allowing hardliners to crack down on peaceful dissent in the name of stability, Amnesty International says.
The rights group gave China a failing grade in its third report since 2005 on the Olympic host nation's performance in living up to international human-rights standards in the run-up to the Beijing Games in August next year.
Citing "little evidence of reform" in several areas, the report, released today, painted a bleak picture, showing the Olympics "as a catalyst [for] a continued crackdown on human rights defenders, including prominent rights defense lawyers and those attempting to report on human rights violations."
Amnesty, accused by Beijing last year of mounting politically motivated attacks on China, welcomed new measures adopted recently by Chinese authorities concerning the death penalty and media freedoms. But it said they were overshadowed by the state's obsession with stability and a "strike hard" policy adopted to counter peaceful dissent.
The London-based group said the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which awarded China the 2008 Games, should use its "significant influence" on the Chinese authorities to continue to raise human rights issues in the run-up to the Games.
The IOC executive board, meeting in Beijing recently, said it was a sports organization with no political role.
The Amnesty report cited a call by China's minister of police last month for a crackdown on "hostile forces" including religious sects and separatists ahead of the Olympics.
"We must strike hard at hostile forces both in and outside the nation," said Zhou Yongkang (周永康), urging the crackdown by security to uphold the goal of creating the "harmonious society" advocated by President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
The so-called "strike hard" policy was apparent during the two-week session of the National People's Congress last month, Amnesty said.
A security clampdown on central Beijing accompanied the session and according to some sources thousands of people were locked up in what was widely seen as a security rehearsal for next year's Games.
The report emphasized relaxation of media rules for foreign reporters in the lead-up to the Games and a new measure granting the Supreme Court judicial review of death sentences. Amnesty applauded the granting of more freedom for foreign journalists. But it noted that censors have tightened control of the traditional news media and the Internet.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats