AFP
BEIJING — China has told Washington not to interfere in its affairs after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the release of dozens of activists rounded up in a growing crackdown on dissent.
Beijing rejected an annual human rights survey by the State Department saying China had stepped up efforts to rein in activists, the media and free Internet access and pursued "severe repression" in the Tibet and Xinjiang regions.
"The US should stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs with human rights reports," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement issued late Saturday.
Clinton said on Friday that Beijing's record on human rights was worsening.
"We remain deeply concerned about reports that since February, dozens of people including public-interest lawyers, writers, artists, intellectuals and activists have been arbitrarily detained and arrested."
She highlighted the case of Ai Weiwei, an outspoken artist who helped design the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Beijing Games. He was detained on April 3 for unspecified "economic crimes."
In an unusual public criticism, a UN human rights panel on Friday also voiced concern at China's treatment of activists and lawyers, saying that so-called enforced disappearances were a crime under international law.
China has warned foreign nations not to interfere over Ai's case. China often bristles at the annual State Department report, hitting back that the United States also has concerns it needs to address.
Hong said Washington should reflect on itself before acting as a "preacher of human rights".
In unusually blunt public comments, US Ambassador Jon Huntsman -- who leaves his post this month -- last week saluted Ai, jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and others who "challenge the Chinese government to serve the public in all cases and at all times".
"The United States will never stop supporting human rights because we believe in the fundamental struggle for human dignity and justice wherever it may occur," he said.
"We do so not because we oppose China but, on the contrary, because we value our relationship."
3 comments:
If momma ain't happy, no body is happy. Better listen up Papa China, 'cause momma knows what is best for a peaceful world.
Papa China, you been selling body parts to the highest bidder of those Fonlong cultish people that you have imprison? Did you sell one to Mr Bill Clinton?
The United States should never stop defending human rights anywhere in this world because being one of the few powerful nations in the world the US has a duty and obligation to make sure that human rights are protected no mattter where people live under the sky.
National boundaries cannot be used by dictators anywhere in this world to stop the desire of those who want to see every fellow human being be served with the right to enjoy fundamentally universal human rights.
Anywhere there is a fundamental struggle for human dignity and justice, the US and other powerful and free countries should definitely step in to help and this is a noble duty of all free states to help free the people who still live under dictatorship.
China should be ashamed of herself for having been the greatest supporter of the most brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge who massacred Cambodians without any mercy.
How many people would love to live in China anyway even though China is considered to be somewhere close to being number 2 in the world in term of being powerful?
If the free and developped countries were to open their doors to accept new immigrants from China, millions would move away from that country and China probably know that herself.
The Chinese people themselves have to fight for these fundamental human rights if they want to be free sooner.
China, I could never forgive you for having been a good comrade of the Khmer Rouge thus turning a complete blind eye to the sufferings of the Cambodian people under the Khmer Rouge brutal regime.
Anet Khmer
Please, don't forget culture revolution in Cambodia during the KR !!!!!
This revolution was imported from China which killed million of Cambodian !!!!!
If KR adopted the same system as Vietnam, it would not have been that many people died !!!!!
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