Monitor the Chinese authorities and strive for human rights

Amnesty International urges the Chinese authorities to press ahead with reforms in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Nine French non-governmental organisations (Action des chretiens pour labolition de la torture, Agir pour les droits de lHomme, Amnesty International-France, Comite de soutien au peuple tibetain, Ensemble contre la peine de mort, Federation International des Ligues de Droits de lHomme, Ligue des Droits de lHomme, Reporters Sans Frontieres and Solidarite Chine) petitioned the Chinese regime to take actions to improve human rights records. For more information you can visit Collectif Chine JO 2008 website (note that this is a site in French language). I summarise the demands and supplement some details:

   
• Release all prisoners of conscience.

   

• Stop the persecution of human rights activists, lawyers and journalists.

   

• Freedom of expression and information.

   

• Abolish the death penalty.

   

• Stop illegal evictions and land seizures.

   

• Allow for the organisation of trade unions.

   

• Allow exiles to return to China without conditions.

   

• Allow for independent investigations into the history of human rights abuses and access to the official archive, and to make the findings of these investigations publically available.

   

• Constitutional reforms, the Chinese Communist party (the CCP) must obey the constitution rather than acting as a monopoly power using their own constitution against citizens, society and state. The CCP must nationalise the army and stop controlling all legal affairs.

Whatever the CCP promises, it is most important to examine if each of the demands above is achieved. If the CCP regime remains unchanged in these areas before and during the Beijing Olympics, Chinese citizens and society as well as global civil societies need more effective and creative cooperation to strive for human, political and civil rights.