China Says U.S. Distorts Facts in Report on Rights

Kelsey McGalliard
7:45 pm
2/26/2009

Chinese authorities reacted sharply on Thursday to an annual State Department report on global human rights that called China’s respect for rights not only “poor,” but also declining in its handling of ethnic minorities and dissidents. The state news agency Xinhua called the report’s section on China groundless and irresponsible, saying it “willfully ignored and distorted basic facts” about human rights conditions and the nation’s ethnic, legal and religious systems. “The report turned a blind eye to the efforts and historic achievements China has made in human rights that have been widely recognized by the international community,” the Xinhua statement said. “It called the annual report an American pretext for interfering in the domestic affairs of other nations.” Hillary Rodham Clinton said publicly that American concern over China’s human rights practices would not impede cooperation on strategic issues like the economic crisis and global warming. Human rights groups and some others expressed dismay at her remarks, which they said undercut the United States’ ability to influence China’s human rights policies and its treatment of dissidents and other persecuted individuals. The State Department document mentioned China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Egypt and a handful of other nations in its introduction as states where human rights conditions had deteriorated during 2008. It said Russia had “continued a negative trajectory” in domestic rights matters and accused Zimbabwe of a campaign of terror against the governments political opponents that has led to the torture, disappearance or death of hundreds. The 44-page section on China particularly criticized the government’s treatment of its Tibetan and Uighur minorities, and what it termed “increased detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners.”
This was really interesting to read and I am glad that public is getting to see China for what it really is and how they are treating their citizens. China wasn’t the only country that was listed which is a good thing because these human rights is very important and the people of the world need to have efforts done that protect them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/world/asia/27china.html?ref=world