3.20.2005
Mixed Message (WashingtonPost.com)
EDITORIAL
Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A24
ON THURSDAY a familiar quid pro quo took place between the Bush administration and the Chinese government. China released a single prominent political prisoner, one of the many hundreds it is known to be holding; the State Department, meanwhile, announced that it will not seek a resolution condemning China at this year's meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. The commission, successfully infiltrated by such major rights violators as Sudan and Cuba, has been a travesty the past few years, and U.S.-sponsored resolutions on China have failed repeatedly. Yet it was particularly dispiriting to hear a State Department spokesman, J. Adam Ereli, declare at news conferences on two successive days that there has been "progress" on Beijing's human rights record. As the State Department's own human rights report made clear just three weeks ago, that's simply not the case.
The release of Muslim activist Rebiya Kadeer, while welcome, is a transparently token gesture, just like the previous releases of prominent political prisoners on the eves of visits by a U.S. secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice arrives in Beijing on Monday) or in the run-up to a U.N. human rights meeting. So are the other signs of "progress" cited by Mr. Ereli: a promise to allow a visit by a U.N. torture investigator, which has been made before and later broken, and a supposed easing of restrictions on home-based religious services, which human rights activists say may actually make such worship more difficult.
(More ... Mixed Message (washingtonpost.com)) ¶ 15:04
Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A24
ON THURSDAY a familiar quid pro quo took place between the Bush administration and the Chinese government. China released a single prominent political prisoner, one of the many hundreds it is known to be holding; the State Department, meanwhile, announced that it will not seek a resolution condemning China at this year's meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. The commission, successfully infiltrated by such major rights violators as Sudan and Cuba, has been a travesty the past few years, and U.S.-sponsored resolutions on China have failed repeatedly. Yet it was particularly dispiriting to hear a State Department spokesman, J. Adam Ereli, declare at news conferences on two successive days that there has been "progress" on Beijing's human rights record. As the State Department's own human rights report made clear just three weeks ago, that's simply not the case.
The release of Muslim activist Rebiya Kadeer, while welcome, is a transparently token gesture, just like the previous releases of prominent political prisoners on the eves of visits by a U.S. secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice arrives in Beijing on Monday) or in the run-up to a U.N. human rights meeting. So are the other signs of "progress" cited by Mr. Ereli: a promise to allow a visit by a U.N. torture investigator, which has been made before and later broken, and a supposed easing of restrictions on home-based religious services, which human rights activists say may actually make such worship more difficult.
(More ... Mixed Message (washingtonpost.com)) ¶ 15:04
