China to review labour camps in milestone UN pact

China to review labour camps in milestone UN pact
REUTERS

BEIJING, NOV 20: United Nations human rights’ chief Mary Robinson signed an agreement with China on Monday which she said would tackle the ‘Laogai’ labour camps to which Beijing consigns anyone it considers a threat to Communist rule.

‘‘This is a very significant move by China and I’d like to acknowledge it as such,’’ Robinson told reporters after signing a memorandum of understanding with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya.

The pact, calling for programmes in human rights education and police and judicial training, would build a ‘‘stronger culture of human rights here in China’’ and bring the country closer to international norms, she said.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the first fruits of the memo on technical cooperation would come in February, when her office would review ‘Laogai’, or reeducation through labour.

Human rights groups say Beijing has used labour camp sentences to banish hundreds of political dissidents and more recently, thousands of adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, to the Chinese gulag without trial.

Robinson said her Geneva-based office intended to use the new cooperation to send special UN investigators, known as rapporteurs, to look into allegations of torture and China’s treatment of Falun Gong, banned as an ‘evil cult’.

The memo would also point the way to Chinese ratification of two key human rights treaties Beijing has signed but not enacted, Robinson said.

Beijing signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in October 1997 and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a year later.

While neither has been ratified by the Chinese legislature, Robinson said she had ‘‘every sense that China does take very seriously its process of ratification of the two covenants’’.

Wang said China’s signing of the memo after two years of talks with the High Commission would ‘‘help China know more about the practices and experience of the international community and other countries on human rights’’.

China had ‘‘successfully found a development road suited for China’s specific culture, which also includes the promotion and protection of human rights’’, Wang added.

China argues that state sovereignty takes precedence over human rights and collective rights trump individual liberties. It also maintains that providing food, clothing and shelter for 1.3 billion people is more important that granting political rights.

Human rights groups remain sceptical that more dialogue and legal seminars will do enough to halt what they and some Western nations say are widespread violations of political and religious freedoms in the world’s most populous nation.Sophia Woodman, research director for the US-based group, Human Rights in China, expressed concern the UN might be opening ‘‘just another talking shop’’ with China along the lines of its bilateral rights dialogues with many Western countries.

‘‘China doesn’t need any more exchanges of views, which are of course useful, but don’t really address the very specific and concrete problems that we see happening every day,’’ she said.

‘‘What is needed is institutional reform, legislative change, training and oversight and the High Commission has enormous experience in helping countries set up very practical procedures for dealing with human rights violations,’’ Woodman said.

But Robinson said the new agreement would not let China off lightly for violations and would lead to ‘‘serious debate on small print’’ of Beijing’s obligations under rights treaties.

‘‘I will be critical where criticism is necessary,’’ she said.

The signing follows an announcement last week that US President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed in principle to resume human rights talks frozen since last year.

Robinson, a former Irish president, is due to meet Jiang and Vice-Premier Qian Qichen during her two-day trip.

She will then head to Indonesia for two days of talks on East Timor and other issues with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman.