Harold Hongju Koh, assistant Secretary of state for
democracy, human rights and labor, also denounced violations in
countries including Iraq, Iran, Sierra Leone, Sudan and the
former Yugoslavia.
In his speech to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the
Korean-American lawyer also defended the U.S. human rights
record, which has been under fire during the annual session.
The 53-member state body is holding its six-week meeting in
Geneva through April 30 to examine abuses worldwide.
Koh reiterated that the U.S. delegation would introduce a
resolution on China "where authorities have initiated a
crackdown against organized political opposition.''
"Dozens of political activists have been detained for
peaceful political activities, and three leaders of the China
Democracy Party have been given harsh sentences in closed trials
that clearly violated due process,'' the U.S. official said.
"The Chinese government also has attempted to restrict
religious practice to officially sanctioned organizations and
registered places of worship and detained Chinese citizens
because of the peaceful expression of their political or
religious beliefs,'' he added.
Koh said Tibet continued to suffer repressive social and
political controls, which undermined its unique cultural,
religious and linguistic heritage.
"There are credible reports of the imprisonment and torture
of monks and nuns, the death of prisoners, and the closure of
monasteries,'' he said.
On Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who
advocates autonomy for the homeland he fled in 1959, Koh said:
"The government has yet to engage in substantive dialogue
with the Dalai Lama, and despite repeated international
expressions of concern about the welfare of the boy designated
as the Panchen Lama, the Chinese government continues to refuse
access to him by international observers.''
"These developments represent a deterioration in China's
human rights conditions, which our government and others have
protested through bilateral channels,'' he added.
Koh said that through its resolution, the U.S. delegation
would urge respect for rights protected under the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. China has signed but not
ratified the text, a major human rights instrument.
It protects "not just the freedom of conscience,
expression, religion and association, but also the right to a
fair trial, to personal security, and to peaceful political
dissent,'' he said.
The U.S. delegation began circulating a draft resolution to
other member states this week, but some diplomats said it was
late in the session to begin lobbying and win sufficient votes.
China has defeated all resolutions that began in 1990,
months after the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
The European Union had announced it would not put forward a
motion this year, but EU delegates were said to be studying
whether to sign on to the U.S. text on China.
Regarding Cuba, Koh said Fidel Castro's government continued
to "suppress ruthlessly all forms of political dissent.''
"Authorities routinely engage in arbitrary detention of
human rights advocates and independent journalists, subjecting
them to interrogation, threats and degrading treatment,'' he
said.
Koh named four founders of the Internal Dissidents' Working
Group - Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, Felix Bonne Carcasses,
Rene Gomez Manzano and Vladimiro Roca Antunes - given
''outrageous sentences'' for non-violently exercising their
rights to freedom of expression and association.
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