PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: China: National Human Rights Action Plan welcomed, but needs greater balance between economic and social rights and civil and political rights

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  3. PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: China: National Human Rights Action Plan welcomed, but needs greater balance between economic and social rights and civil and political rights
13 Apr 2009
Region: PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Topic: International human rights law
Amnesty International welcomes China・s just-released National Human Rights Action Plan. Its publication signals the importance that the Chinese authorities place on the protection of human rights and adherence to international human rights standards.
The action plan includes some concrete targets for 2010, which if achieved would be important steps forward for human rights.

However the emphasis is on economic, social and cultural rights at the expense of civil and political rights. Although the Plan・s preamble recognizes that human rights are indivisible and interdependent, meaningful reforms on civil and political rights are seriously underrepresented in the plan. China must actualize its recognition that human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. Full enjoyment of human rights cannot be fulfilled by focusing on only particular rights.

The action plan fails to address many serious and on-going human rights violations in China.

These violations include the harassment, detention and imprisonment of human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience who have been targeted solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression; censorship of the Internet and other media; and the continued use of forms of administrative detention, including Re-education Through Labour, which deprives individuals of their liberty without the opportunity for a fair trial.

For China・s human rights action plan to have real impact on the ground, authorities will have to take concrete steps including those to address specific civil and political human rights violations such as those highlighted in concluding observations and recommendations of UN human rights monitoring mechanisms and treaty bodies.

In November 2008 an expert from the UN Committee against Torture noted a serious information gap in discrepancies between legislative protections against torture and their implementation on the ground.

As a signatory of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, China has an obligation to protect the civil and political rights enumerated in these treaties. Amnesty International reiterates its call for the Chinese authorities to ratify the ICCPR, which China signed in 1998 and has repeatedly stated its intention to ratify.

13 April 2009

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