CHINA

Documents & Texts from America.gov

15 January 2008
Beijing Olympics Could Highlight China's Human Rights Situation

By Eric Green
Staff Writer

Washington -- The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing may help raise the profile of human rights in China, say officials from several human rights organizations.

Amanda Abrams, communications and advocacy officer in Washington for Freedom House, told America.gov that whether dissidents can use the Olympics to get their views out "depends on how other nations treat" the games. "If other countries focus on human rights, then the issue of dissidents will be highlighted." But if democratic governments choose not to raise concerns, the human rights issue will be hidden, she indicated.

In a January 7 op-ed article in the Washington Post, Freedom House official Ellen Bork wrote that President Bush should meet with Chinese dissident leaders when he attends the Beijing games in August.

Bork, the organization's senior program manager for human rights, wrote that a Bush meeting with dissidents in Beijing would be the best way for the president "to associate himself and the United States with Chinese people who are working the hardest and risking the most on behalf" of freedom.

The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers reports that at least 30 journalists and 50 cyber-dissidents currently are held in Chinese prisons. In a January 14 statement, the group said it had sent a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao calling on China to "honor its international obligations and release all jailed journalists" before the Olympics begin in August.

VIEWS OF CHINESE DISSIDENT

Chinese dissident Yang Jianli told America.gov that the Olympics "will provide a very good opportunity" to bring about "positive change" in China's human rights situation.

But Yang, founder and president of the Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century, lamented that the human rights situation in his country has worsened.

"We have seen to our dismay that the Chinese government in recent months heightened control over the political rights" of the Chinese people and "continues to commit human rights violations," said Yang, a mathematician by training who -- because of his political activism -- was blacklisted by the Chinese government and forced to live in exile.

Yang said he and other Chinese dissidents must become more effective in changing the Chinese government's human rights policies "before it is too late."

Yang said he has organized a campaign to allow Chinese dissidents to return home to China. But he said the dissidents should agree to go home only on the condition that the Chinese National People's Congress ratifies the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Chinese government signed in October 1998. Other conditions for a return home, he said, include the Chinese government stopping its arrests of Chinese dissidents and releasing political prisoners.

COMMENTS FROM HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch told America.gov that Chinese dissidents both inside and outside China can use the Olympics to "tell their side of the story" about repression of human rights in the country.

"The open question is whether the rest of the world is going to listen" to their views, said Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. Another important question, he said, is whether the opportunity for dissidents to bring up human rights "outweighs" the harm of the Chinese government "cracking down on dissidents to keep them from speaking out."

He said the regime's retaliation in the past months against local activists for speaking out for human rights may be related to the government's increasing "sensitivity" about its global image as the August 8-24 Beijing games draw nearer.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said Chinese activists have refrained from advocating that the Olympics be moved from China.

"But certainly there have been a [growing] number of public letters -- very moving ones -- from Chinese scholars and academics" writing to the Chinese government saying "the whole world is watching and you still deny us" basic human rights, Richardson told America.gov.

Richardson says "clearly people inside China are aware they have a particular kind of opportunity now" to air their viewpoints as opposed to a decreased opportunity following the Olympics.

A December 20, 2007, letter by Human Rights Watch to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says a "window of opportunity" exists to address human rights abuses in China, "especially those tied directly to the arrival" of the Beijing Olympics.

Human Rights Watch outlined in the letter several areas of particular concern with respect to the Beijing Games, including the lack of media freedom, mass evictions of Chinese citizens for Olympic-related infrastructure projects and the use of house arrest to silence dissidents.

President Bush announced in September 2007 that he had accepted China's invitation to attend the Beijing Olympics.  Bush said the event would be a "moment where China's leaders can use the opportunity to show confidence by demonstrating a commitment to greater openness and tolerance" in Chinese society. (See related article.)

The full text of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is on the U.N. Web site.

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