Amnesty International Steps Up Pressure on China
By Meredith Buel Washington 08 May 2008
Amnesty International is stepping up its criticism of China's human rights record as the opening of the summer Olympic Games approaches. With just three months to go before the opening ceremony, Amnesty said Thursday that China is intensifying its crackdown on human rights activists and those critical of the Beijing government. VOA correspondent Meredith Buel reports from Washington.
T. Kumar, the Advocacy Director for Asia at Amnesty International, told reporters during a teleconference that there has been a significant erosion of human rights in China as the beginning of the games approaches.
"It is only three months until the Olympic Games begin in Beijing and China's human rights landscape remains as bleak as ever. In fact hosting the Olympic games has become a thinly veiled excuse to crackdown on freedom of expression and assembly," he said.
Kumar says a quarter of a million people have been arrested and held without charges or trial in labor camps during China's so-called patriotic re-education campaign.
"One of the primary concerns is the detention and imprisonment of human rights defenders," he added. "There are numerous reports that Chinese authorities have arrested and imprisoned activists. These are lawyers, journalists and other activists who are fighting to change human rights in China. This is on the rise."
Kumar points to the sentencing of prominent Chinese activist Hu Jia to three-and-one-half years in prison on subversion charges.
He has urged visitors coming to Beijing for the summer Olympics not to forget human rights abuses during the pageantry of the games.
Last month prior to the release of an Amnesty report on alleged rights abuses in the run up to the Olympic Games, China lashed out at the group.
Officials said any attempt by Amnesty to pressure Beijing over the Olympics would fail. A foreign ministry spokesman also accused Amnesty of being prejudiced against Beijing.
As part of its ongoing rights campaign, Amnesty has called on the U.S. Olympic Committee to grant the group access to athletes for briefings about the human rights situation in China.
"We are not against the Olympics," he explained. "We are not even advocating a boycott. What we want is, we want U.S. athletes to know which country they are going in and what type of human rights abuses are happening there."
Kumar also called on large U.S. corporations sponsoring the Olympics to speak out against human rights violations in China.
China has resisted linking human rights issues with the Olympics saying such accusations politicize the games.
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Friday, May 9, 2008
[+/-] : US Jewish leaders urge Olympic boycott
US Jewish leaders urge Olympic boycott
By Michal Lando, THE JERUSALEM POST
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, US Jewish leaders from across the spectrum are urging Jews to boycott the summer Olympics in Beijing to protest China's human rights record and its assistance to Iran, Syria and Hamas.
A total of 185 rabbis and Jewish leaders so far have signed on to the appeal, which claims that China, like Germany in 1936, is using the Olympics to deflect attention from its record.
"We are deeply troubled by China's support for the genocidal government of Sudan; its mistreatment of the people of Tibet; its denial of basic rights to its own citizens; and its provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, and friendship for Hamas," the text of a joint statement read. "Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today."
Spearheading the project is Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a former chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, head of New York's Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue and the Ramaz School. It is based partially on research by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
The appeal seizes on the creation of a kosher kitchen at the Olympics village to attract Jewish tourists as part of a larger strategy to deflect attention from China's human rights record.
"Jews should not be party to the whitewashing of such a regime," the statement read.
Several representatives of Judaism's major denominations and institutions are signatories, including Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Neil Goldstein and Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress; and Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the association of Conservative rabbis.
Lookstein said the call for a boycott is limited to the Olympics and is not intended toward all dealings with China.
"I don't think there is anything wrong with people doing business with China, but the Olympics is not business, it is fun and pleasure," Lookstein said.
"They should not be able to be the center for the world's most famous sporting event, and Jews should be sensitive to that.
"I don't think people should spend their discretionary time or funds in support of an activity which serves to give legitimacy to a government which is doing some terrible things," added Lookstein.
"Are they analogous to the Nazis? No. But if they told Sudanese to stop genocide in Darfur, it would stop in a dime," he said. "Instead they are standing by while innocent blood is being shed."
Organizers of the petition say there is a lesson to be learned from the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Shortly after the Berlin games, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told American Jewish leaders that he had been informed by visitors to Germany "that the synagogues were crowded and apparently there is nothing very wrong in the situation [of Germany's Jews] at present."
Rafael Wolff, director of the Wyman Institute, said totalitarian regimes have a record of using international events to whitewhash human rights abuses.
"Sadly, even presidents get taken in by propaganda," he said. "One hopes President Bush won't similarly fall for efforts by the Chinese government to soft-pedal their abuses today."
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By Michal Lando, THE JERUSALEM POST
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, US Jewish leaders from across the spectrum are urging Jews to boycott the summer Olympics in Beijing to protest China's human rights record and its assistance to Iran, Syria and Hamas.
A total of 185 rabbis and Jewish leaders so far have signed on to the appeal, which claims that China, like Germany in 1936, is using the Olympics to deflect attention from its record.
"We are deeply troubled by China's support for the genocidal government of Sudan; its mistreatment of the people of Tibet; its denial of basic rights to its own citizens; and its provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, and friendship for Hamas," the text of a joint statement read. "Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today."
Spearheading the project is Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a former chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, head of New York's Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue and the Ramaz School. It is based partially on research by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
The appeal seizes on the creation of a kosher kitchen at the Olympics village to attract Jewish tourists as part of a larger strategy to deflect attention from China's human rights record.
"Jews should not be party to the whitewashing of such a regime," the statement read.
Several representatives of Judaism's major denominations and institutions are signatories, including Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Neil Goldstein and Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress; and Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the association of Conservative rabbis.
Lookstein said the call for a boycott is limited to the Olympics and is not intended toward all dealings with China.
"I don't think there is anything wrong with people doing business with China, but the Olympics is not business, it is fun and pleasure," Lookstein said.
"They should not be able to be the center for the world's most famous sporting event, and Jews should be sensitive to that.
"I don't think people should spend their discretionary time or funds in support of an activity which serves to give legitimacy to a government which is doing some terrible things," added Lookstein.
"Are they analogous to the Nazis? No. But if they told Sudanese to stop genocide in Darfur, it would stop in a dime," he said. "Instead they are standing by while innocent blood is being shed."
Organizers of the petition say there is a lesson to be learned from the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Shortly after the Berlin games, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told American Jewish leaders that he had been informed by visitors to Germany "that the synagogues were crowded and apparently there is nothing very wrong in the situation [of Germany's Jews] at present."
Rafael Wolff, director of the Wyman Institute, said totalitarian regimes have a record of using international events to whitewhash human rights abuses.
"Sadly, even presidents get taken in by propaganda," he said. "One hopes President Bush won't similarly fall for efforts by the Chinese government to soft-pedal their abuses today."
...
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