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China's bi-polar take on 'human rights' riles critics

Just Earth News | @thingsDeepsays | 22 Jun 2017, 06:09 am Print

China's bi-polar take on 'human rights' riles critics
New Delhi, Jun 22 (JEN): China has never been great friends of human rights watch dogs, who have gone on complaining at great lengths about the country's oppressive techniques and atrocities aimed at civilians.

From the Human Rights Watch to rights lawyers, the communist regime has managed to rile everyone and has done it so successfully over the last few decades.

Disturbed by China's bizarre tactics, the HRW has urged EU to suspend talks with the former.

"The EU should not further harm its credibility, but rather redirect its efforts toward bringing meaningful change to China," a HRW statement read.

Speaking out against China, Iverna McGowan, head of European Institutions Office at Amnesty International, said, "The EU’s failure to speak out on Beijing’s rights violations is a body blow to independent activists across China and a betrayal of the EU’s proclaimed human rights commitments."

McGowan also slammed the EU and added, "Instead of a forum for promoting rights, the EU-China human rights dialogue has become a cheap alibi for EU leaders to avoid thorny rights issues in other high level discussions."

The HRW has also voiced support towards Dolkun Isa, a well-known activist who campaigns from Germany on behalf of Uyghur Muslims, a community of Turkic ethnic group living in eastern and central Asia, with their maximum population in China.

Earlier it was reported that the Chinese government has prevented the Uyghur community from keeping fast in the ongoing Ramadan, a move that was slammed by human rights groups worldwide.

In 2016 Isa was granted a visa by the Indian government which was cancelled shortly afterwards after China interfered and released a statement stating the former as a 'terrorist', thus exposing their vulnerable side, that of the inability to take criticism.  

The Human Rights Watch has also found the United Nations incompetent of reprimanding China for its rabid violation of rights.

Citing  the example of Chinese rights activists Cao Shunli, who died in prison during detention, the group slammed China for being unable to provide any clear explanation for her death.

Meanwhile, rights lawyers have termed the country's police-run detention centre's as a 'human rights disaster'.

Speaking about the widespread curbing of human rights inside the centres, lawyer Wen Donghai said, "This form of detention has taken the form of a widespread disaster for human rights."

"Prosecution authorities, rather than solving the problem, often try to cover it up instead," Donghai added.

Questioning the role of police, the lawyer said, "The police are both investigators and jailors, which means that they will often resort to methods such as forcing a confession through torture."

Donghai said that the best plan to solve the issue would be to separate the detention centres from police but add that it was a far-cry as the "ministry of public security wants to control all of it."

Yu Wensheng, a rights attorney, pointed out that the police seldom pay heed to rules in cases pertaining to politics.

"The detention centers pay no heed whatsoever to any laws when it comes to political cases, not even the criminal procedure law," he said.

Lawyers and attorneys have also alleged that the detention centres prevent them from meeting their clients.

The Chinese government has also been accused of not allowing private attorney appointed by the family of the detainee and instead appoint government lawyers to represent the latter, in which the chances of the detainee losing the case is high.

In another case, rights groups have admonished China for their take on Tibet, slamming the nation for their opaque policy terms in official media to tighten repression in the former nation.

The Chinese authorities have deployed stability maintenance” policy in Tibet, "a range of policing and administrative systems aimed at preventing, controlling, or punishing social dissent and social disorder used across China – as one way to eradicate support for the Dalai Lama," a HRW release read.


(Writing by Sudipto Maity)

Image: Daniel Case/Wikipedia