As Olympics Approach, U.S. Cites China Rights Abuses

WASHINGTON — America branded China an authoritarian human rights abuser yesterday, citing alleged torture, state control of basic aspects of daily life, tight controls on religion, and harassment of foreign charities.China, the host of the Summer Olympics, has rampant and chronic human rights problems despite rapid economic growth that has transformed large parts of Chinese society, the State Department said in its annual accounting of human rights practices around the world.The world’s most populous nation, China is an increasingly important American trade partner and a chief competitor with America for energy and shrinking natural resources. It is the object of broad American economic and diplomatic outreach, with mixed results.America, other nations, and outside advocacy groups have tried to use the attention brought by press and broadcast outlets and prestige associated with the Olympics to leverage internal change and diplomatic cooperation from China, but the games barely are mentioned in the human rights report. “The government tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, particularly in anticipation of and during sensitive events, including increased efforts to control and censor the Internet,” the report said.Forced relocations went up last year, the report said. It noted claims that people were forced from their homes to make way for Olympic projects in Beijing.President Bush plans to attend the Olympics this year. Visiting American lawmakers would get help from the U.S. Embassy for a “safe, memorable and enjoyable experience,” the American ambassador in Beijing wrote in a letter last year.The report detailed the lengths some Chinese officials have taken to enforce their country’s well-known “one child” policy, and gave a chilling account of alleged torture in China, including the use of electric shocks, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse. It includes an account of a prisoner strapped to a “tiger bench,” a device that forces the legs to bend sometimes until they break.The study, published each year since 1977, offers a comprehensive analysis of all countries in the world except America. There are no automatic penalties to nations that get poor marks.The report noted further backsliding in President Putin’s Russia last year, and ticks off a string of undemocratic moves taken by close American ally President Musharraf of Pakistan.Political adversaries Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe, and Syria were all listed as human rights abusers. Sudan’s record was called “horrific.” A “pervasive climate of violence” characterized Iraq in the fifth year after the American-led invasion, the State Department report said. Specific problems included official corruption, disappearances, torture, anemic legal protections, restrictions on religious freedom, and “arbitrary deprivation of life.” Afghanistan was not much better.“The country’s human rights record remained poor due to a deadly insurgency, weak governmental and traditional institutions, corruption, drug trafficking, and the country’s legacy of two-and-a-half decades of conflict,” the report said.

As Olympics Approach, U.S. Cites China Rights Abuses

As Olympics Approach, U.S. Cites China Rights Abuses

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