Foreign Correspondence

[otraque]

China, hitting back, slams US rights abuses By Ben Blanchard and Chris Buckley
Thu Mar 9, 1:28 AM ET



BEIJING (Reuters) - China hit back at U.S. criticism of its human rights record on Thursday, unveiling its own report detailing U.S. rights abuses, while Chinese activists issued a critical look at their own country's restricted freedoms.


The Chinese report, issued by the State Council, or Cabinet, takes aim at U.S. democracy -- calling it "a game for the rich" -- the high murder rate, domestic wire tapping and detention of Iraqi reporters by U.S. forces in Iraq.

"We urge the United States government to face squarely their own human rights problems, reflect on their own actions, take practical measures and improve their human rights situation," the report, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, said.

Other abuses involved "secret snooping, police abuse, wrong convictions and the highest ratio of people behind bars," it said.

But a group of Chinese lawyers and rights activists said in their own report there were modest expansions of some freedoms in 2005, though many citizens' rights remained narrow, fragile or non-existent.

"Relative to economic development and social progress, the government has not done enough to actively protect and expand civic rights," said the report issued by the Open Constitution Initiative, an independent organization that investigates claims of rights violation and pushes policy change.

"Progress in Chinese citizens' political rights has been quite modest, and especially freedom of expression and of faith have become even more restricted," said the Chinese report, which was given to Reuters.

A prominent legal activist who helped write the report said it was intended to stimulate public debate among Chinese citizens, and to emphasize that they -- not Washington -- must be the engine of change.

The activist Xu Zhiyong told Reuters the timing of the report's release, immediately after the U.S. State Department issued its 2006 human rights report that dwelt on China, was intended to send that message.

"We wanted to emphasize that Chinese citizens must be involved in these issues; that it's not just a matter for Washington or for diplomacy," he said.

CENSORSHIP

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that China had increased its censorship of the Internet and of media critics last year and that harassment and detention of those challenging the authorities had grown.

The annual report is usually swiftly rejected by China, which says its human rights definition differs from the West, insisting that the basic rights of its 1.3 billion people to food, clothing and housing take precedence over individual civil liberties.

"The United States has always boasted itself as the model of democracy and hawked its mode of democracy to the rest of the world, but in fact, American 'democracy' is always one for the wealthy and a 'game for the rich'," it said.

The United States should also "rectify their method of using human rights questions to create international confrontation," the report said.

"We disapprove of countries meddling in other countries' domestic affairs," added Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing in reaction to the U.S. report, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the annual meeting of parliament.

China's report quoted widely from U.S. media, including the Washington Post, New York Times and CNN, detailing human rights abuses.

Beijing often criticizes many of these same foreign media outlets for their biased coverage of China.

The report also quoted the Committee to Protect Journalists in detailing the cases of four Iraqi reporters locked away by the United States in Iraq.

The same group named China as the world's leading jailer of journalists for the seventh consecutive year in 2005 with 32 behind bars.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley)