China Digital Times

China news tagged with: Amnesty International (16)

• China Defends Internet Policies Against Amnesty Charges

  

  From AFP:

  Chinese authorities defended their Internet censorship practices Tuesday after rights group Amnesty International accused them of cracking down on the web ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries.

  “The relevant accusation was made because they are ignorant of China’s situation. It is not true,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

  “The organisation that you mentioned has always been biased toward China and has not always been objective in viewing China.”

  Jiang was responding to an accusation by the London-based group that Beijing was blocking the Amnesty website in order to quell commemorations of anniversaries in 2009 that will be sensitive for China’s communist leadership.

  » Read more
  • January 13, 2009 8:05 PM

• China Rights ‘Worsen With Games’

  

  From BBC News:

  The human rights situation in China has deteriorated, not improved, with its hosting of the Olympic Games this year, campaigners Amnesty International say.

  It documents the use of “re-education through labour”, the suppression of rights activists and journalists, and the use of arbitrary imprisonment.

  A spokesman urged world leaders due to attend the Games, opening in 10 days, to speak out against the violations.

  Chinese officials were not commenting on the report ahead of its publication.

  » Read more
  • July 28, 2008 5:42 PM

• Amnesty Internatonal’s Award Winning Print Ads

  

  From ESWN blog:

  Recently, a series of photos that seemingly come from Amnesty International has been drawing attention in China. These photos became prominent for seemingly winning a bronze lion prize for the TBWA agency at the Cannes International Advertising Festival. The photos included three Olympic ‘ sports’ (swimming, weightlifting and archery) to highlight the abuse of prisoners in China. You can click on the photos above to access the high-resolution ones.

  The words at the bottom righthand side of the photos are:
  AFTER THE OLYMPIC GAMES,
  THE FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MUST GO ON.
  WWW.AMNESTY.COM

  Watch aslo:

  Amnesty International released yesterday some viral animations (you can find them at the bottom of the post) highlighting the repression of peaceful protesters and the case of Huang Qi, a cyber-dissident who runs the www.64tianwang.com website. Huang Qi has been detained since 10 June when several men found him at a restaurant in Chengdu and forced him into a vehicle and too him and two of his organization volunteers. Since then there no news of him and it is believed that he is in a very high risk of torture.

  The number 64 on his web address is referring to the 4th day of the 6h month of 1989 when the authorities turned their guns onto peacefull protesters in Tiananmen Square.

  » Read more
  • July 11, 2008 8:16 PM

• China ‘Leads World’ in Death Penalty

  

  According to a recently released report by human rights group Amnesty International, China meted out corporal punishment to 470 prisoners last year, more than any other country in the world. From the BBC:

  More than 60 crimes can carry the death penalty in China, including tax fraud, stealing VAT receipts, damaging electric power facilities, selling counterfeit medicine, embezzlement, accepting bribes and drug offences, Amnesty said.

  Those sentenced to death are usually shot, but some provinces are introducing lethal injections, which the government says is more humane.

  The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville, in Beijing, says justice is usually swift – most of those sentenced to death are executed only weeks after they are found guilty.

  The death penalty has popular support in China, our correspondent says, but the government has been attempting to reform the system.

  Last year, it decreed that all cases involving the death penalty had to be referred to the Supreme Court. According to state media, this led to a 10% fall in executions in the first five months of 2007.

  Here’s the Amnesty report.

  » Read more
  • April 14, 2008 7:38 PM

• Olympics Aren’t Improving Rights In China: Amnesty

  

  From Reuters:

  The Olympics have so far failed to catalyze reform in China and pledges to improve human rights before the Games look disingenuous after a string of violations in Beijing and a crackdown in Tibet, Amnesty International said.

  The International Olympic Committee, foreign leaders and overseas companies engaging with China could appear complicit if they fail to speak out about the rights violations, the London-based watchdog said on Wednesday. It also called for an end to the repression.

  Beijing signed up for the Games hoping they would showcase the country’s progress and national unity, but the Olympics year so far has seen pressure mount on China, chiefly over its support for the government of Sudan and human rights record, most recently in Tibet.

  Read also People’s Republic of China: The Olympics countdown – crackdown on activists threatens Olympics legacy by Amnesty International.

  » Read more
  • April 1, 2008 7:11 PM

• China and the Olympics – Repression Increases Amidst ‘Reform’ – Gary Feuerberg

  

  A new report from Amnesty International shows ways in which China’s promise to improve human rights belies its actions. From The Epoch Times:

  Amnesty International (AI) released its 2007 annual report on May 23, an assessment of human rights worldwide. Not surprisingly, the report finds China as a nation with severe violations of human rights.

  But there is a difference this time. With the Olympic Games only a little more than a year away in August 2008, Chinese leaders are offering a few reforms”judicial review of death sentences and a relaxing of restrictions on foreign journalists. But according to AI, these improvements are not all that they might seem, and are overshadowed by the expression of even more intolerance towards political and religious dissent, and the attorneys who defend the dissenters. Controls on domestic journalism and the Internet are also tightening up. [Full Text]

  See also Reporters Without Borders’ petition to boycott the Beijing Olympics on account of human rights violation.

  » Read more
  • May 28, 2007 9:48 AM

• Amnesty Alleges China, Russia are Supplying Arms for Use in Violence-Wracked Darfur – Alexa Olesen

  

  From AP via SignonSanDiego.com:

  China and Russia are supplying arms to Sudan that are being used to fuel the violence in the Darfur region in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, a human rights group said in a report Tuesday.

  China and Russia quickly rejected the report and Sudan’s government said it was “not justified.”

  “The irresponsible transfer of arms to Sudan and its neighbors are a significant factor in the massive human rights catastrophe in Darfur and its spread into eastern Chad,” London-based Amnesty International said.

  The report said “the bulk” of the arms were transferred from China and Russia, without giving specific, up-to-date figures.[Full Text]

  » Read more
  • May 8, 2007 1:34 PM

• China to Send Military Unit to Darfur – Edward Cody

  

  As a new report from Amnesty International criticizes China for supplying arms to Sudan, the Washington Post reports that China is making plans to send a military engineering unit to assist the African Union peace-keeping troops in the war-torn region of Darfur, Sudan:

  The decision to help bolster the 7,000 African Union peacekeepers was seen mainly as a gesture to underline Chinese support for a U.N.-administered solution to the four-year-old conflict in western Sudan’s Darfur region. Since an armed secessionist revolt began there in 2003, an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and nearly 2.5 million have been driven from their homes.

  In recent weeks, the Darfur crisis has become particularly sensitive in China because of suggestions in the United States and Europe that people should boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics to demonstrate opposition to Chinese policies in Sudan. China, which has deep economic and military ties there, has been widely criticized for failing to bring strong pressure on the government to persuade it to accept a large force of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. [Full text]

  Read also a Boston Globe editorial, “Chinese Shadows,” which calls China an “enabler of evil” in Darfur and elsewhere:

  » Read more
  • May 8, 2007 8:44 AM

• Amnesty Switzerland makes demands on China – Gerhard Lob

  

  From Swissinfo:

  The Swiss section of Amnesty International has launched a campaign for better respect for human rights in China, ahead of next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

  At a congress on Saturday in Locarno in southern Switzerland, Amnesty started collecting signatures for a petition to be handed in to the Chinese embassy in Bern six months before the event.

  The campaign, which runs under the slogan: “Human Rights on the Podium”, has four demands – the abolition of the death penalty, the abolition of re-education camps, the lifting of internet censorship and a halt to reprisals against defenders of human rights.[Full Text]

  » Read more
  • May 5, 2007 10:17 AM

• Report Faults China On Rights Failures – Maureen Fan

  

  From the Washington Post:
  
  

  The 2008 Olympic Games have become a catalyst for more repression in China, not less, according to an Amnesty International report released today and aimed at pressuring the Beijing government a year before the start of the world’s premier sporting event.

  The 22-page report says China’s illegal detention and imprisonment of activists and other measures have overshadowed some modest reforms, including how the Chinese legal system reviews death penalty cases and the loosening of some restrictions on the foreign press. The report marks the latest effort by human rights organizations and individuals to try to use the Olympics, and the international spotlight they place on China, to push for broader reforms.
  
  [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • April 29, 2007 10:18 PM

• Amnesty slams China over rights in Olympics run-up – Paul Majendie

  

  From Reuters, via The Washington Post:

  China’s human rights record in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics has deteriorated, with thousands of people being executed after unfair trials, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

  The human rights watchdog sent its latest findings to the International Olympic Committee and said Chinese authorities would have to act quickly if they were to fulfil their pledges to improve human rights.

  “The serious human rights abuses that continue to be reported every day across the country fly in the face of the promises the Chinese government made when it was bidding for the Olympics,” said Amnesty’s Catherine Baber. [Full Text]
  
  

  Technorati Tags: Amnesty International

  » Read more
  • September 25, 2006 8:08 PM

• Buyers line up for China’s arms – Tim Luard

  

  From BBC News:
  
  

  China may have lost its reputation for making low-cost goods, but when it comes to weapons, there is no doubt which end of the market its sights are still set on.

  Some of the poorest and most unsavoury regimes on earth, which either cannot afford or are not allowed to buy sophisticated Western arms, are turning to the world’s newest superpower to buy guns, leg-irons, anti-riot equipment and armoured vehicles.

  Military specialists contacted by the BBC News website have confirmed the main findings of a report issued this week by Amnesty International, which said Chinese arms sales were fuelling conflicts and human rights abuses in countries such as Sudan and Burma. [Full Text]

  See also: China always prudent in arms trade from Xinhua, and China’s weapons trade from The Washington Times.

  » Read more
  • June 16, 2006 7:35 AM

• Amnesty Intl. Sees Red over Yahoo China – Bruce Einhorn

  

  From The BusinessWeek Online (link): The human rights group is calling for the Internet company to be more socially responsible in China, but others say the Web giant is doing a lot of good

  Amnesty International is turning up the pressure on Yahoo! (YHOO) to change directions in China. Amnesty International USA, the American branch of the international human rights group, is sending an official to Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting on May 25 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley. Anthony Cruz, the San Francisco-based Amnesty official who plans to speak at the meeting, intends to use the meeting as a platform to demand action from Yahoo executives. “We’re calling on them to take a stand against China,” says Cruz.

  Technorati Tags: China, Yahoo

  » Read more
  • May 25, 2006 11:01 AM

• AP: Human rights in Asia get `trampled’

  

  From AP, via Taipei Times:

  From Afghanistan to East Timor, human rights were trampled with impunity in Asia last year by governments and armed rebel groups, Amnesty International said yesterday…

  In China, authorities used the threat of terrorism to justify a crackdown on minority Muslim Uighurs, closing many unofficial mosques, arresting imams and restricting the use of the Uighur language. Freedom of expression and religion was severely restricted in Tibet. Political crackdowns continued on specific groups, including the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Thousands of people were sentenced to death or executed, many after unfair trials.

  » Read more
  • May 25, 2005 11:51 PM

• AI: China: Number of human rights activists detained or imprisoned is rising

  

  From Amnesty International:

  China: Number of human rights activists detained or imprisoned is rising

  The number of human rights defenders who are arbitrarily detained or imprisoned in China has continued to rise, according to a new Amnesty International report released today.

  » Read more
  • March 8, 2005 9:25 PM

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