DP Tool Club 15/CD_ASCQ_15_070894.iso/vrac/wtn_0594.zip/WTN-0514.NWS

Text File | 1994-06-06 | 34KB | 586 lines

------------------------   World Tibet Network News   ----------------------
   Published by:     The Canada-Tibet Committee
   Editorial Board:  Brian Given <[e-mail]>
                     Nima Dorjee <[e-mail]>
                     Conrad Richter <[e-mail]>
                     Tseten Samdup <[e-mail]>
   Submissions and subscriptions to:
                     [e-mail]
                     or fax to: [phone]  (U.K.)
   Send us your comments, announcements, news or items for discussion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issue ID: 94/05/14 17:30 GMT                      Compiled by Conrad Richter

Contents
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Politics Weighs in Battle for Soul of Tibet Lama
2. China Releases Another Dissident
3. China Widens Police Power to Detain, Restrict Activists
4. DharmaNet Creates WTN News Archive
5. Longing for Democracy: An Interview with Wei Jingshen
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Politics Weighs in Battle for Soul of Tibet Lama
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
     BEIJING, May 14, Reuter -- A Tibetan monastery on Saturday denounced
overseas exiles for trying to install a "puppet" as one of the region's
holiest lamas as China wages a political battle for control of Tibet's
religious heritage.
     The official Xinhua news agency carried a statement by the Curbo
Monastery near Lhasa saying only the Chinese-approved candidate could become
head of the Karma Kagyu, one of Tibetan Buddhism's four main sects.
     It accused exiled Tibetan dissidents in India of "making a puppet
reincarnated child" by proposing their own candidate as 17th Karmapa lama, one
of Tibet's highest religious posts.
     The official argument hinges on which of the two boys most fully fits the
description left by the 16th Karmapa, who died in exile in 1981 and left
detailed instructions as to where his reincarnated soul would re-appear.
     The real argument, however, goes deeper, with Beijing engaged in a battle
of wills with overseas Tibetans over which side will determine who becomes
Tibet's next religious, and therefore political, leaders.
     In Tibet's religious hierarchy, the Karmapa ranks just below the Dalai
Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, and the Panchen Lama, whose seat is
currently vacant.
     China's cabinet in 1992 for the first time exercised its legal right to
approve the appointment of a new senior lama, and Ygen Thinley Rinpoche was
installed as Karmapa at Curbo on September 27 that year.
     Later, however, Tibetan exiles in India announced they were disputing the
Karmapa's claim and that they had located another boy who truly embodies the
lama's reincarnated soul.
     The chief difference is that the Chinese-approved Karmapa remains on
Chinese-controlled territory, while his rival is based with other Tibetan
exiles in India.
     Curbo's statement accused two Tibetan "fugitives," one of them a senior
lama, of "privately designating" a Tibetan child as the reincarnation and
smuggling him abroad in order to keep control over the sect.
     The two exiles "have committed a tragic mistake in their deep trap of
sin," the statement said, urging them "to stop timely before the abyss."
     How the dispute is resolved could have a major political impact on Tibet,
which has periodically erupted into anti-Chinese protests since Beijing
quelled an uprising there in 1959.
     The search is now under way for a "soul boy" embodying the Panchen Lama,
who died in 1989. Exile groups fear that China may use an obedient Panchen to
deepen its control over Tibetans, many of whom now rally to the peaceful
independence call of the exiled Dalai Lama.
     The question of the Dalai Lama's own reincarnation also carries a
political impact. While China in 1989 announced that senior lamas must be
re-born on Chinese territory, the Dalai himself has vowed "not to be reborn in
Chinese hands."

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2. China Releases Another Dissident
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
By JOHN LEICESTER
   BEIJING, May 14, AP -- With U.S. pressure building to free political
prisoners or face trade sanctions, China announced today the release of
another dissident: a liberal scholar accused of helping instigate the 1989
Tiananmen Square democracy movement.
   Although the government did not link the release to U.S. demands, the
timing made the connection obvious.
   Chen Ziming was released late Friday on medical parole, the official Xinhua
News Agency said. His 13-year term had been set to end in 2002.
   The parole -- sought by his family for several years -- comes just before
President Clinton's June 3 deadline for deciding whether to renew China's
low-tariff trade status, called most-favored nation status.
   Clinton has said renewal depends on whether China has significantly
improved its treatment of dissidents, religious believers and Tibetans.
Billions of dollars worth of trade are at stake.
   Just last month, China gave medical parole to Wang Juntao, who ran a
liberal research institute with Chen and was accused with him of being "black
hands" behind the 1989 protests.
   Over the past week, China also has given early release to six people jailed
for holding Christian services outside the official churches, and issued a
passport to a liberal legal scholar who had been banned from travel abroad.
   "I hope this is a start. I hope that after these two they can release
others in the same situation," said Li Hai, a Beijing dissident. But Li said
he didn't see any change in the government attitude of condemnation for the
1989 protests.
   Chen's sister, Chen Zihua, said authorities summoned the family to
Beijing's No. 2 Prison on Friday night to meet him briefly before he and his
wife were taken under police escort to an unidentified place outside Beijing.
She said the family was told Chen and his wife would have a rest for 20 days
-- up until the fifth anniversary of the June 4 military attack on the 1989
demonstrators.
   Authorities apparently want to prevent Chen from speaking with journalists
and meeting with old friends before the anniversary.
   Chen's family said he has been suffering from skin, stomach and kidney
ailments.
   "His spirit was good but his health wasn't too good," the sister said by
telephone.
   Chen, 42, and Wang Juntao founded and ran the Beijing Social Economics
Studies Institute, a private organization that conducted some of Communist
China's first social surveys and produced pioneering studies on political and
economic reform.
   After students began holding mass marches and hunger strikes in Beijing and
other cities in 1989, demanding clean government and greater democracy, Chen
and Wang gave their leaders advice. They also tried to coordinate protest
actions by non-student groups, including workers and older intellectuals.
   But with thousands of students from all over China pouring into Tiananmen
Square daily, the movement defied coordination. Dissidents say the "black
hand" label authorities gave Chen and Wang was undeserved.
   "Such a big movement could not be led by anybody. The government knows
this," said Xu Liangying, a physicist and dissident. "It's very simple,
because before June 3 the United States must consider China's human rights,"
Xu said.
   Wang Dan, one of the student protest leaders, agreed with Xu that Chen's
release "does not show that the government has changed its attitude toward the
1989 movement."
   Authorities have detained several dozen Beijing and Shanghai dissidents
since early March and are keeping dozens more under close surveillance for fear
they will attempt to commemorate this year's anniversary of the protests. Wang
said he plans to leave Beijing before the June 4 anniversary to avoid trouble.
   An unknown number of 1989 protesters remain in jail, including student
leader Liu Gang. Also still jailed is a former top party official, Bao Tong,
accused of leaking state secrets to the students, whose family said this week
that he is seriously ill.

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3. China Widens Police Power to Detain, Restrict Activists
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Lena H. Sun
    BEIJING, May 13, Washington Post -- China has amended its public order law
to broaden the already extensive powers of the police to detain and restrict
the activities of democracy and labor activists as well as religious and
national minority groups, official newspapers reported today.
    Although China has released some activists in the last few weeks -
including six religious dissidents in the last two days - the new regulations,
which went into effect immediately, essentially give authorities the legal
basis to detain anyone they regard as a threat to the socialist system.
    The scope and thrust of the regulations could make it difficult to support
claims by U.S. officials that China is making progress on human rights. To the
contrary, they appear to underscore the contention by human rights advocates
and other analysts that China's human rights situation has in fact
deteriorated in the past year.
   Reports of new arrests, torture and secret trials dwarf the number of known
releases of political and religious prisoners. A group of Tibetan nuns had
their sentences extended for singing nationalist songs in prison. Several
political activists detained around the time of U.S. Secretary of State Warren
Christopher's controversial visit to Beijing in March remain in police
custody, including China's most prominent dissident, Wei Jingsheng.
    "You don't have to be Einstein to figure this out," said Robin Munro, Hong
Kong director for Human Rights Watch/Asia. "I defy anyone to produce a
statistic to support the claim that the human rights situation is getting
better."
    Even though China officially rejects any linkage between trade and human
rights, it has become customary for Chinese authorities to release some
political and religious prisoners as a gesture to Washington in the weeks
before the U.S. decision on renewal of Beijing's low-tariff trading
privileges. These releases are aimed at Western audiences; they are not
reported in the domestic media.
    Today, authorities announced the release of five religious dissidents,
three of whom were sentenced to "reeducation through labor" for their
participation in an outlawed Protestant congregation.
    One man, a 50-year-old peasant, was tortured and beaten during
interrogation and left hanging upside down in a window frame, according to
Amnesty International. The official media did not say when they were released,
only that the five had "behaved themselves" during their correctional period.
    On Thursday, authorities released on parole a Chinese woman jailed since
1990 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government through religious
activities. But that same day, two dissidents were arrested in Shanghai,
according to their family members.
    President Clinton must decide in three weeks whether there has been enough
human rights progress to warrant renewal of Beijing's trading privileges,
known as most-favored-nation status. With billions of dollars worth of trade
at stake in the world's largest emerging market, the administration is under
pressure to find a way to renew the status without losing credibility on human
rights.
    The new regulations adopted Thursday by China's nominal legislature will
make Clinton's job tougher. The regulations allow authorities to crack down on
members of unapproved religious groups, members of ethnic groups who call for
national independence, and political dissidents.
    Because the regulations come under the category of administrative law, the
police have the power to determine whether an offense has been committed, and
to impose punishments without any judicial process.
    They add 18 new offenses to reflect "newly emerging public security
problems in the country," according to the official New China News Agency. The
provisions were initiated by the Public Security Ministry. Officials declined
to provide a full text of the offenses, but according to official reports,
they include:
   "Carrying out activities under the name of a social organization without
registration;"
   "Organizing activities of superstitious sects and secret societies to
disrupt public order;"
   "Disturbing public order and damaging people's health through religious
activities;"
   "Stirring up conflicts between nationalities, hurting their unity and
inciting separation of nationalities;"
   "Fabricating or distorting facts, spreading rumors or otherwise disrupting
public order, or doing harm to the public interest through other means."
     Under the new regulations, those who commit any of the 18 offenses, but
whose violations are not serious enough to warrant criminal charges, can be
held for up to 15 days detention and fined up to 3,000 yuan, about 10 months'
wages for an average worker.
   One offense in particular - "disobeying supervisory provisions while
individuals are under surveillance, deprived of political rights or on
probation or parole" - seems targeted at former political prisoners. These
individuals are usually subjected to numerous restrictions after their
release.
    Dissident Wei, for example, has been accused of violating the conditions
of his parole. After nearly 14 years in jail, Wei was released last September
days before the International Olympic Committee was to announce whether
Beijing had won the right to host the 2000 Summer Olympics. The honor actually
went to Sydney, Australia.
   After he was released, Wei angered authorities by continuing his calls for
democracy and having dinner this spring with the State Department's top
official on human rights. He was re-arrested by police on April 1 and is being
investigated for unspecified "new crimes."
    In Washington, Wang Juntao, a leader of the 1989 democracy movement who
was released on "medical parole" after three years of a 13-year sentence, said
this week that conditions had been poor, especially at the beginning of his
jail term.
    The 35-year-old dissident said at a press conference that he had been kept
in a nine-by-nine-foot cell with a toilet. He said he believed that the
unsanitary conditions contributed to his contracting hepatitis B.
    Although he remained noncommittal over whether the United States should
revoke China's trade status, Wang said international pressure should be kept
up and had helped improve his own prison conditions.

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4. DharmaNet Creates WTN News Archive
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From: Barry Kapke, DharmaNet <[e-mail]>

BERKELEY, May 10, GASSHO [Excerpt from Vol 1, No 4] -- DharmaNet International
has begun a permanent collection of past issues of World Tibet Network News,
the daily newsletter of the Canada Tibet Network.
    "There needs to be greater access to information about Tibet. So little
reaches the mainstream media," says Barry Kapke, founder and director of
DharmaNet International. "The Canada-Tibet Committee does an outstanding job
of presenting timely international coverage of Tibetan news. With this online
archive, journalists, legislators, writers, historians, and anyone interested,
will be able to easily research issues and events."
    The WTN back-issues will be compiled into monthly archives and stored
online at the Dharma Electronic Files Archive (D.E.F.A.) and at selected
DharmaNet BBS sites. Internet users may access D.E.F.A. via anonymous ftp to
ftp.netcom.com (subdirectory: /pub/dharma/Tibet).
    For more information, please contact Barry Kapke, DharmaNet International,
P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley CA 94704-4951. E-mail: [e-mail]

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5. Longing for Democracy: An Interview with Wei Jingshen
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: Sharon Bacon, Bay Area Friends of Tibet <[e-mail]>
By Philip Cunningham

   [This interview was from just before Wei was rearrested.]

May 12, 1994

China has elections, maybe even more elections that America, but
what kind of democracy is it when the vast majority of people are
not allowed to participate? Human rights are not observed.

We don't have any idea who is chosen to represent us, because we
are not allowed to participate. We don't know who we are"voting"
for.

Even communist governments claim to be democratic. They can't
ignore it. But their system does not produce democracy because
they don't share power, they don't protect basic human rights.

It's not a problem of Asian culture. Europe has its undemocratic
aspects. Democracy is also a kind of discipline, a guide for
human relations.

Confucianism creates an undemocratic society based on obedience.
It is superficially stable, but if people cannot express ideas,
vent dissatisfaction, then you jave a basically unstable system
that cannot correct itself. Democracy is geared to involve more
people, it is suited to human nature. It is more broadly
supportedbecause it provides more participation for everyone.

Here, you have freedom to agree. There is not even freedom to not
agree, let alone disagree. Freedom of speech has many levels-the
freedom for the two of us to be speaking here, that's a kind of
freedom. A freed press is necessary for democracy. You cannot get
new ideas, new thought if free discussion of the issues is not
permitted.

Because the prople have such a yearning for democracy, even the
dictators are against it, so they offer a false democracy to the
people.

The communists have elections, but it only mimics democracy. For
them, democracy is just a lot of empty talk. We do not know who
represents us in China and that's the way they want it. They use
the trappings of democracy to perpetuate their dictatorship.

The National People's Congress is a basically undemocratic
organization. Who chooses the delegates? Why do they cram several
thousand people in a room or their meetinngs? It is set up that
way to make it impossible to have any real discussion.

Mao and the other heads of the Communist Party understood
democracy. That's why they suppressed it. Works forming real
unions, that's a kind of grassroots democracy. Notice how scared
it makes the authorities.

If the Chinese government makes a big improvement in the human
rights situation, then continuing most-favored nation status is
appropriate, but if big improvements are not made, it should not
be continued.

In all likelihood, if the communists get that in hand, they will
start to arrest the activists, their so-called enemies. Under
these circumstances, China shoul not get most favored nation
status, eventhought that will cause hardship for the Chinese
people. If the people of China are not guaranteed basic human
rights, the loss is even greater.

From 1979 to 1984 was a dark period, and my health was broken.
After that, conditions improved in and my health improved. I was
almost always alone. Then from 1989 when the government cracked
down, conditions in prison also went down.

I don't feel any hatred. There were people who denied being my
friends-that's very common in China. Maybe what they did was
necessary for their own lives.

At Tianamen in 1989, many things that are usually hidden came to
the surface. Nowadays, some of the former activists are out there
making money, but they will give their money to the cuse.

Many people have the spirit inside, but hide it. But when the
right time comes, it will come out again. Most people wait until
others are standing to make their stand. Very few are willing to
stand up first or to stand alone. That's why my friends call me a
fool (laughs).

Editor's note: Wei Jingsheng, 43, was released from a Chinese
labor camp last year after serving 14 1/2 years of a 15 year
sentence for his role in the Democracy Wall protests in 1979. He
has since been re-arrested twice, most recently last month and
his whereabouts are unknown. These remarks are excerpted from an
interview with Philip Cunningham, a free lance writer
specializing in Asian affairs, shortly before Wei was  taken into
custody.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------   World Tibet Network News   ----------------------
   Published by:     The Canada-Tibet Committee
   Editorial Board:  Brian Given <[e-mail]>
                     Nima Dorjee <[e-mail]>
                     Conrad Richter <[e-mail]>
                     Tseten Samdup <[e-mail]>
   Submissions and subscriptions to:
                     [e-mail]
                     or fax to: [phone]  (U.K.)
   Send us your comments, announcements, news or items for discussion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISSUE ID: 94/05/14 22:45 GMT            Compiled by Nima Dorjee

========================================================================
1. Despite Pressure, China Has Increased Abuses In Tibet, Exiles Say
2. Amnesty International Urges China to Stop Torture and Human
   Rights Abuses
========================================================================
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Despite Pressure, China Has Increased Abuses In Tibet, Exiles Say
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: Dan Hodel <[e-mail]>
By John-Thor Dahlburg
Source: Los Angeles Times

5/12/94  DHARAMSALA, India -- Asked whether China has made
progress in respecting human rights, Tibetan refugee Niyma
Tsering points at his groin.
    For two days last summer, he says, he was detained by Chinese
state security agents in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, after taking part
in a demonstration against rising prices. The agents fastened his
hands behind his back by clamping the thumbs together with a
''thumb cuff,'' then beat and kicked him in the stomach three
times a day.
    The lanky former shop employee touches the nape of his neck,
then the trousers around his groin. ''They shocked me here and
there with electric cattle prods,'' Tsering, 25, says
matter-of-factly, drawing on his cigarette.
    He fled Lhasa by truck for southern Tibet last November, then
walked for 14 days and nights through the snow-clad Himalayas to
reach Nepal.
    ''The Tibetan people live in extreme fear,'' Tsering said.
''Their lives depend on the whims of top Chinese officials. If
tomorrow they are told to shoot 1,000 Tibetans, they will carry
out the order blindly.''
    By June 3, President Clinton must decide whether to extend
most favored nation status to China. In granting China those trade
benefits last year, Clinton conditioned renewal on progress by the
Beijing government in several areas of human rights, including
preservation of Tibet's unique religious and cultural heritage.
    In this north Indian city that has served since 1960 as the
seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Tibetan officials,
including the Dalai Lama himself, say despite Clinton's
requirements, the situation for Tibetans on the whole has
worsened, not improved. A people's very survival is at stake, they
say.
    ''Time is running out,'' said the Dalai Lama, the spiritual
and political leader of the Tibetans who fled to India 35 years
ago after China's crushing of an abortive national uprising. The
Beijing government's intent, he asserted in an interview, ''is to
suppress (Tibetans) completely and in the meantime to increase the
Chinese population so that in a few years time, the Tibetans
become insignificant in their own land.''
    ''Some of my friends call this the 'Final Solution' of the
Tibet issue,'' the Dalai Lama said.
    In recent days, high-ranking Indian government officials say,
China has been moving more troops into Tibet, including
detachments that took part in the bloody suppression of the
Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement five years ago.
    The cause, the Indians suggest, may be widespread troubles
feared on the May 23 anniversary of the 1951 agreement signed by
the Tibetans under duress that legalized the ''liberation'' of
their land by the invading Chinese Communist military.
    ''There has been a massive influx of Chinese population,''
reports Pema Thinley, head of the Human Rights Desk in the exile
government's Department of Information and International
Relations. ''The immigrants are taking away economic
opportunities, and the local population is getting marginalized. I
think the population influx is the most serious human rights
issue.''
    In a troubling new trend, Tibetan exile officials say, Chinese
have been moving for the first time out of the cities to the
countryside, where they are allegedly confiscating land from
Tibetan peasants to start vegetable farms.
    Tibetans say occupation of their harsh, mountainous land has
led over the years to the deaths of 1.2 million Tibetans -- one
sixth of the total population -- as well as the destruction of
more than 6,200 monasteries and wide-scale plundering of Tibet's
cultural and natural treasures.
    Recent visitors and refugees who have reached Dharamsala tell
of continuing brutal repression and torture. In 1993, 253 Tibetans
were reportedly arrested for political offenses, in addition to
some 400 already known to monitor groups, Thinley said. Countless
other Tibetans are said to be imprisoned or in preventive
detention awaiting trial, including at Situ northeast of Lhasa.
    Education is one way of simultaneously eradicating Tibetan
culture and ensuring Chinese dominance. ''In order to get a job,
you must know Chinese,'' Thinley said. ''In schools, after primary
level, everything is taught in Chinese. To get a higher education,
you have to know Chinese. All modern subjects are taught in
Chinese, so the Chinese have taken away all the jobs.''
    Heavy government restrictions on religion, the second field in
Tibet singled out for monitoring by Clinton, remain, despite some
improvements since the Chinese instituted a policy of
''liberalization'' in 1979. Boards set up by the Chinese function
in the monasteries themselves, running their finances, watching
the monks' doings and ensuring that Communist Party doctrines on
religion are implemented.
    Dasang, a 19-year-old Buddhist monk who fled Tibet in January
of this year, scoffed when asked if the Chinese respect official
guarantees of freedom of worship. ''The Chinese say there's
religious freedom inside Tibet. But it's not true,'' he said. ''In
the monasteries, there is no one to struggle for freedom.  There
are no teachers to instruct. They are no elder monks left ....
They have fixed the number of monks for each monastery. So much
for their religious freedom!''
    Tibetan refugees in India describe the situation in their
homeland in universally bleak terms. But a recent four-week
journey in Tibet by two American journalists, one of whom has made
several trips to the area in recent years, presented a more
complex picture, in some cases supporting the Chinese government
position.
    Not all Tibetans, for example, appeared to be suffering under
Chinese rule.
A minority of younger Tibetans, born after the Chinese occupation,
appeared to be prospering. Western-dressed Tibetans drive up to
discotheques in imported land cruisers. When asked, many contend
that they and their families are much better off financially than
they were only a few years ago.
    The reporters also saw examples of unemployment and alcoholism
among Tibetan youth. Signs of the increasing Han Chinese dominance
over the indigenous Tibetan culture were pervasive, especially in
Lhasa.
    But compared with recent years, the reporters saw more open
active religious activity. True to the Chinese government's
claims, many temples and monasteries are being rebuilt and
restored. Pilgrims worship openly.  Photographs of the Dalai Lama,
once rare contraband, are now sold openly in the central Lhasa
Barkhor market, near the Jokhang temple.
    Tibetan exile authorities, like U.S. policy-makers, seem torn
over what action is more likely to compel China to modify its
human rights policies.
    But the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his
commitment to using only nonviolent means to restore a measure of
Tibet's freedom and sovereignty, appears to want to test whether
stepping up worldwide pressure will work.
    ''He is now saying that increased international pressure may
help,'' said Bhuchung K. Tsering, editor of the Tibetan Bulletin
published by the exile government and no relation to the Lhasa
refugee. ''And he has said that he is willing to wait for one or
two years to see if pressure will bring results.''
    In the Dalai Lama's opinion, what is crucial is that whatever
Clinton's decision, it satisfy forces inside China that are still
struggling for democracy. A published suggestion by physicist Fang
Lizhi that U.S. trade privileges be maintained for private Chinese
businesses but be revoked for state- and military-run enterprises
is an approach that has caught his eye.
    ''It is very important to take a decision according to the
wishes of the
Chinese -- those Chinese who are carrying out the struggle for
democracy and freedom,'' the Dalai Lama said.


2. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA URGES ALL PARTIES IN CHINA DEBATE TO MAKE
       LONG TERM COMMITMENT TO END TORTURE AND OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

May 12, 1994WASHINGTON, D.C. --  Amnesty International USA
(AIUSA) today called on the United States government to tell the
truth in the debate over Most
Favored Nation trading status and to remain firm in its long-term commitment
to human rights in China.  Displaying torture instruments which had been
smuggled out of Tibet as graphic and horrifying evidence of the persistence of
torture in China and Tibet, Amnesty International USA called upon China, the
United States and the business community to each take appropriate steps to end
torture there.

     "We will not allow China, the United States or the business community to
pretend that the human rights situation in China is improving when it is not,"
said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director, AIUSA.  "While we in the
United States debate whether tariffs should be lowered on some products or
commissions be formed, the Chinese government continues to inflict untold
suffering upon the Chinese people," he said.

     The organization said that President Clinton's executive order on MFN
which calls on China to "ensure humane treatment" has not been met and that
the Clinton Administration would be badly advised to suggest that it has.

     "We welcome both the release of political prisoners and the talks begun
with the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC)," said Schulz, "but
these steps constitute only superficial attempts to appease the world and
divert attention from the fact that China is continuing to practice torture
remorselessly and systematically."

     Amnesty International called on the Chinese government to systematically
prosecute torturers and to introduce training procedures for law enforcement
officers regarding the prohibition of torture under domestic and international
law.

     Amnesty International called on President Clinton to press the Chinese
government to allow unhindered access to China by international human rights
groups including Amnesty International and to ensure access to detention
centers for the International Committee for the Red Cross.  The organization
also urged the U.S. government to call on China to invite the United Nations
Special Rapporteur on Torture to investigate torture in the country.

     Amnesty International called on businesses with interest in China to
utilize their unique leverage to pressure the Chinese government to end its
use of torture and for those businesses to adopt voluntary Codes of Conduct
which would commit them to exerting such pressure.

     Torture is in direct violation of both China's international obligations
and its Criminal Law which prohibits the "extortion of confessions by
torture." The People's Republic of China ratified the United Nations
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment in October, 1988.

     "Once the debate over MFN is over -- no matter how it is decided--
torture in China and Tibet will continue. Amnesty Inen imprisoned and tortured
by the Chinese.


=============================================================================

--- GoldED 2.41+/#1067
 * Origin: BODY DHARMA * Moderator, TIBET_NEWS - DharmaNet (96:101/33)