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The situation of human rights in the People's Republic of China has been criticized by various sources, particularly Western countries and some international organizations, as being poor in many respects. Past human rights issues include the the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, when 200-3000 civilians were killed and thousands more were injured. The PRC argues that the notion of human rights should include economic standards of living and measures of health and economic prosperity.

The situation

Multiple sources, including the U.S. State Department's annual People's Republic of China human rights reports, as well as studies from other groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the PRC's abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms.

In March, 2004, an amendment was made to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, stating "The State respects and preserves human rights." As with other Chinese guarantees of individual liberties in the Constitution, the wording suggests that such liberties are already observed and respected, rather than explicitly prohibiting the government from infringing on such rights (as the United States Constitution does). It was hoped in the West that this heralded a change in attitude from the Communist Party of China, but subsequent violations of human rights and previously established civil rights demonstrated that the amendment had not changed government policy regarding public freedom.

Perspective of the PRC government

The PRC government argues that the notion of human rights should include such as economic standards of living and measures of health and economic prosperity.

Unofficially, many Chinese officials hold the unstated belief that as a developing country, China cannot afford the same level of human rights as developed countries. They argue that many Western countries abused human rights (through slavery, child labor and colonial exploit) as they rose to prosperity. Many Chinese people agree with their government that organized religion is a threat to the country and social stability. Some point to the Taiping Rebellion, which was rooted deeply in religion (though praised by the communist government as a patriotic, anti-imperialist movement), which cost millions of lives. Common mistrust of groups seen as "cults" is perhaps an enduring legacy of this conflict, or perhaps the result of generations of government propaganda.

Views from the United States government

In 2003, the United States claimed that despite some positive momentum in that year, and greater signs that the People's Republic of China was willing to engage with the U.S. and others on this topic, there was still serious backsliding. The PRC government has acknowledged in principle the importance of protection of human rights and has purported to take steps to bring its human rights practices into conformity with international norms. Among these steps are signature of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in October 1997 (ratified in March 2001) and signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1998 (not yet ratified). In 2002, the PRC released a significant number of political and religious prisoners, and agreed to interact with United Nations experts on torture, arbitrary detention and religion. However, international human rights groups claim that there has been virtually no movement on these promises, with more people being arrested for similar offences subsequently. Such groups maintain that the PRC still has a long way to go in instituting the kind of fundamental systemic change that will protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens.

Legal system

The Chinese government recognises that there are problems with the current legal system, such as:

• A lack of laws in general, not just ones to protect civil rights.
• A lack of due process.
• Conflicts of law.

Other serious problems include the lack of judicial independence, especially as judges are appointed by the State and the judiciary as a whole does not have its own budget. These problems have led to corruption and the abuse of administrative power. However while the government acknowledges the need for reform, it has yet to agree upon a method to resolve these problems.

Capital punishment

China has the highest number of death penalties in 2005, with 1,770 people executed. Between 1994 and 1999, according to the UN Secretary-General, China, which has the world's largest population of 1.3 billion people, was ranked 7th in terms of the number of executions carried out in comparison to overall population, behind Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan. Amnesty International claims that official figures are much smaller than the real number, stating that in China the statistics are considered State secrets. Amnesty stated that according to various reports, in 2005 3,400 people were executed. In March of that year, a senior member of the National People’s Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year.

There is concern from NGOs and several foreign governments over the number of crimes punishable by death, 68 in all, including some white collar crimes such as embezzlement and tax fraud. India has a similar population to China (1.1 billion), yet rarely uses the death penalty. Furthermore, the inconsistent and sometimes corrupt nature of the legal system in mainland China bring into question the fair application of capital punishment there.

In January 2007, China's state media announced that all death penalty cases will be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. Since 1983, China's highest court did not review all cases. This marks a return to China's pre-1983 policy.

Organ harvesting and extrajudicial execution

In recent years, there have been allegations that executed prisoners have had their organs harvested for transplants, which were sold to both Chinese and foreign nationals.

China's deputy health minister has officially admitted, after previous denials, that organs were harvested from executed prisoners and that regulations were needed to "standardise" the practice. An American who flew to Shanghai to have such a transplant performed on his wife, said the prisoners had to give their consent before their organs could be removed.

In July 2006, David Kilgour, a former Canadian Cabinet minister and a human rights lawyer, and David Matas, also a human rights lawyer, released a report about allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Far from getting consent in all cases, the report claimed, China was secretly mass-murdering Falun Gong practitioners, in order to harvest their organs for lucrative sale to wealthy patients - often foreigners. After being killed and having their organs removed, the report alleged, the victim's body would be incinerated to destroy the evidence. This report has been the subject of controversy and has been disputed by fellow anti-Chinese government activist Harry Wu. Beijing denies the allegations without addressing their content.

Ethnic minorities

There are 55 recognized ethnic minorities in China. Article 4 of the Chinese constitution states "All nationalities in the People's Republic of China are equal", and the government has made efforts to improve ethnic education and increased ethnic representation in local government. The government maintains that it runs affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, though the benefits of these are disputed. Also minorities are exempt from China's One-child policy.

Also, the government has encouraged significant numbers of people of Han nationality to move into ethnic areas, especially after the China Western Development plan was adopted. The government argues that this was designed to boost the underdeveloped western regions, but has also been perceived by some as an effort to "water down" the ethnic minority population and make such regions less inclined towards separatism.

The government is harsh toward those that argue for independence or political autonomy, mainly Tibetans and Uigurs in rural provinces in the west of China. Five Chinese Uighur detainees from Guantanamo were released in June, 2007, but the United States refused to return them to China citing the People's Republic of China's "past treatment of the Uigur minority".In present day, some claim that the PRC is keeping a strong military force on these parts of the country in an effort to suppress separatist sentiment, as well as keeping the strong security of the border, due to past frictions with India and Russia.

The Dalai Lama originally pushed for independence for Tibet, but he changed his position when it was clear that this was not a realistic objective. Instead he has called for full autonomy. Negotiation between Dalai Lama and the Chinese government has been difficult, and although contact has taken place between representatives, nothing has been agreed. Commentators have said that Chinese officials may be waiting for the Dalai Lama to die, as they believe Tibetans will not be a problem afterwards. Yet they also say that this may result in Tibetan political sentiment becoming more dangerous and violent, as the Dalai Lama has consistently argued for peaceful protests against Chinese rule.

Political freedom

The PRC is known for its intolerance of organized dissent towards the government. Dissident groups are routinely arrested and imprisoned, often for long periods of time and without trial. One of the most famous dissident is Zhang Zhixin for standing up against the ultra-left. Incidents of torture, forced confessions and forced labour are widely reported. Freedom of assembly and association are extremely limited in many cases. The Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the estimated death toll of which ranges from about 200 to 10,000 depending on sources.

Freedom of speech

The 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of speech. There is heavy government involvement in the media, with many of the largest media organizations being run by the government. Chinese law forbids the advocation of independence or self-determination for territories Beijing considers under its jurisdiction, as well as public challenge to the CCP's monopoly in ruling China. Thus references to democracy, the free Tibet movement, Taiwan as an independent state, certain religious organizations and anything remotely questioning the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China are banned from use in publications and blocked on the Internet. PRC journalist He Qinglian in her 2004 book Media Control in China examined government controls on the Internet in China and on all media. Her book shows how PRC media controls rely on confidential guidance from the Communist Party propaganda department, intense monitoring, and punishment for violators rather than on pre-publication censorship.

Recently, foreign web portals including Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo! Search, and Google Search China have come under criticism for aiding in these practices, including banning the word "Democracy" from its chat-rooms in China. Some North American or European films are not given permission to play in Chinese theatres, although piracy of the same movies is widespread.

Freedom of movement

In most parts of China, citizens must register an official place of residence designated either rural or urban. To resettle from one place to another, the citizen needs permission from the authorities at the destination and/or origin. One purpose is to prevent the possible chaos caused by the predictable large scale urbanization. It is alleged that people of Han nationality in Tibet have a far easier time acquiring the necessary permits to live in urban areas than ethnic Tibetans do.

Also as a result of the one country, two systems policy initiated in the late 20th century, Chinese citizens must gain permission from the government to travel to the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

Religious freedom

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), particularly the Destruction of Four Olds campaign, religious affairs of all types was persecuted and discouraged by the Communists with many religious buildings looted and destroyed. Since then, there have been efforts to repair, reconstruct and protect historical and cultural religious sites, partly to encourage tourism. Critics say that not enough has been done to repair or restore damaged and destroyed sites.

The 1982 Constitution technically guarantees freedom of religion This freedom is subject to restrictions, as all religious groups must be registered with the government and are prohibited from having loyalties outside of China. The government argues that such restriction is necessary to prevent foreign political influence eroding Chinese sovereignty, though groups affected by this deny that they have any desire to interfere in China's political affairs. This has led to an effective prohibition on those religious practices that by definition involve allegiance to a foreign spiritual leader or organisation, (e.g. Catholicism - see Catholicism in China) although tacit allegiance to such individuals and bodies inside these groups is not uncommon. "Unregistered religious groups ... experience varying degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression."

Another problem is that members of the Communist Party have to be atheists according to the Party's constitution. As Party membership is required for many high level careers, being openly religious can limit one's economic prospects.

Falun Gong

In July 1999, the Chinese government declared the Falun Gong movement illegal and started suppressing its activities across the country. The government claims the group to be an "evil cult" that performs "illegal acts". Critics of the government allege that the crackdown was motivated by fear of its growing number of practitioners, particularly government officials, police and army officers. A peaceful demonstration of about 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners (in response to arrest of several dozen practitioners in Tianjin and prohibition of publishing Falun Gong materials) earlier in 1999 outside Zhongnanhai is thought to have been the trigger for the crackdown.

Practitioners that have been arrested report being beaten and tortured, and the Falun Dafa Information Center, a website run by Falun Gong practitioners, claims at least 3000 practitioners have died in police custody. The Chinese government alleges that Falun Gong fabricates news, that its practitioners are not tortured, nor go on hunger strikes. Amnesty International and other major human rights organizations, have generally sided with Falun Gong in their reports of the persecution.

Critics decry the persecution of Falun Gong as infringing on the freedom of religion, as well as claiming that it is widely known that systematic torture of Falun Gong practitioners exists. The issue was a subject of protests when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the United States in 2006, though such protests were censored from Chinese media coverage of the visit.

In July 2006, a report co-authored by former Canadian cabinet minister David Kilgour and prominent rights lawyer David Matas expressed grave concerns that internal organs are being harvested from Chinese political prisoners, particularly Falun Gong adherents, for the lucrative sale of organs to foreign buyers. The Chinese government has dismissed the report as "a 'groundless and biased' Falun Gong smear effort". Manfred Nowak, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has listed the following allegation in an addendum to his annual report in March 2007 composed of 341 allegations: "Organ harvesting has been inflicted on a large number of unwilling Falun Gong practitioners at a wide variety of locations for the purpose making available organs for transplant operations. Vital organs including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas were systematically harvested from Falun Gong practitioners at Hospital, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, beginning in 2001. The practitioners were given injections to induce heart failure, and therefore were killed in the course of the organ harvesting operations or immediately thereafter." (See: Organ harvesting in China)

One-child policy

Although the Chinese government argues that this policy is necessary to stop overpopulation, China's birth control policy, known widely as the One-Child Policy, is seen as morally objectionable by many foreign observers, as well as some Chinese. Such critics argue that it contributes to female infanticide, abandonment and sex selective abortions. These are believed to be relatively commonplace in some areas of the country, despite being illegal and punishable by fines and jail time . This is thought to have been a significant contribution to the gender imbalance in mainland China, where there is a 118 to 100 ratio of male to female children reported, although underreported female births may reduce this figure. Forced abortions and sterilizations have also been reported .

It is also argued that the one child policy is not effective enough to justify its costs, and that the dramatic decrease in Chinese fertility started before the program began in 1979 for unrelated factors. The policy seems to have had little impact on rural areas (home to about 80% of the population), where birth rates never dropped below 2.5 children per female. Nevertheless, the Chinese government and others estimate that at least 250 million births have been prevented by the policy.

In 2002, the laws related to the One Child Policy were amended to allow ethnic minorities and Chinese living in rural areas to have more than one child. The policy was generally not enforced in those areas of the country even before this. The policy has been relaxed in urban areas to allow people who were single children to have two children.

Economic and social improvement

Mainland China's economic growth and reform since 1978 has improved dramatically the lives of a huge number of Chinese, providing increased social mobility and expanded the scope of personal freedom. This has meant substantially greater freedom of travel, employment opportunity, educational and cultural pursuits, job and housing choices, and access to information for the newly emerging Chinese middle class. In all, this suggests a substantial rise in the quality of life and standard of living of the Chinese people.

In recent years, the PRC has also passed new criminal and civil laws that provide additional safeguards to citizens. Village elections have been ostensibly carried out in approximately 80% of mainland China's one million villages. However subsequent disputes concerning such elections, including events at the village of Taishi, have raised questions about their value.

Treatment of rural workers

China's hukou system of residency permits, introduced in the 1950s, has effectively discriminated against China's 800 million rural peasants for decades, and has been described as "China's apartheid".

In November 2005 Jiang Wenran, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, said this system has been "one of the most strictly enforced 'apartheid' social structures in modern world history." He stated "Urban dwellers enjoy a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while peasants, the majority of the Chinese population, are treated as second-class citizens."Commenting on reports that abolition was proposed in 11 (of 23) provinces, mainly along the developed eastern coast, he added that such measures were long overdue. The law has already been changed such that migrant workers no longer faced summary arrest, after a widely publicised incident in 2003, when a university-educated migrant died in Guangdong province. This particular scandal was exposed by a Beijing law lecturer, Mr Xu, who claims it spelt the end of the hukou system. He further believes that, at least in most smaller cities, the system had already been abandoned. Mr Xu continued: "Even in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, it has almost lost its function".

The discrimination enforced by the hukou system became particularly onerous in the 1980s after hundreds of millions of migrant laborers were forced out of state corporations and co-operatives. The system classifies workers as "urban" or "rural", and attempts by workers classified as "rural" to move to urban centers were tightly controlled by the Chinese bureaucracy, which enforced its control by denying access to essential goods and services such as grain rations, housing, and health care, and by regularly closing down migrant workers' private schools. The hukuo system also enforced pass laws similar to those in South Africa, with "rural" workers requiring six passes to work in provinces other than their own, and periodic police raids which rounded up those without permits, placed them in detention centers, and deported them. As in South Africa, the restrictions placed on the mobility of migrant workers were pervasive, and transient workers were forced to live a precarious existence in company dormitories or shanty towns, and suffering abusive consequences. Anita Chan argues that, like South Africa under apartheid, China's hukou system was primarily a means of regulating and exploiting cheap labor.

David Whitehouse divides what he describes as "Chinese apartheid" into three distinct phases: The first phase occurred during the state capitalist phase of China's economy, from around 1953 to the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The second "neoliberal" phase lasted from 1978 to 2001, and the third lasted from 2001 to the present. During the first phase, the exploitation of rural labor, the passbook system, and in particular the non-portable rights associated with one's status, created what Whitehouse calls "an apartheid system". As with South Africa, the ruling party made some concessions to rural workers to make life in rural areas "survivable... if not easy or pleasant". During the second phase, as China transitioned from state capitalism to market capitalism, export-processing zones were created in city suburbs, where mostly female migrants worked under oppressive sweatshop conditions. The third phase was characterized by the weakening of the hukou controls; by 2004 the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture counted over 100 million people registered as "rural" working in cities.

Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, and Zhang Ping of the Committee for Asian Women argue this system oppresses women more severely than men, and see seven distinct elements giving rise to what they describe as "he regime of spatial and social apartheid" which keeps rural Chinese in their subordinate status:

1. The repressive regime at the factory level;
2. the paramilitary forces at local level;
3. the ‘local protectionism’ of local governments;
4. the fiercely pro-business and pro-government attitude of the local press;
5. the fiercely pro-business and pro-government attitude of the branches of ACFTU;
6. pro-government local courts; and
7. the discriminatory hukou system.

They agree that the gradual relaxation of some of the more repressive aspects of the hukou system since the mid-1990s has largely eliminated the spatial aspect of the apartheid; for example, workers can now buy one year permits to reside in cities, and since 2003 the police no longer jail and deport people who lack local hukou passes. However, they point out the still-hereditary nature of the hukou system, and state that the "substance of the social apartheid in general and the hukou system in particular remains intact." Migrant workers are permanently marked as outsiders and remain second-class citizens, and are denied access to good jobs or upward mobility, thus forcing their eventual return to their place of origin.

Whitehouse sees the analogy to South Africa's apartheid system breaking down in two areas: First, under a system called xia fang, or "sending down", individuals or even entire factories of urban workers were sometimes re-classified as rural workers and sent to live in the countryside (at lower wages and benefits). By contrast, white workers in South Africa were never sent to work in Bantustans. Second, the ideology driving China's apartheid system was Maoism, not racism, as is South African apartheid. Anita Chan agrees with Whitehouse on this point, noting that while the hukou system shares many of the characteristics of the South African apartheid system, including its underlying economic logic, the racial element is not present.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security justified these practices on the grounds that they assisted the police in tracking down criminals and maintaining public order, and provided demographic data for government planning and programs.

Apartheid "pass system" in treatment of migrant workers

According to Peter Alexander, China's export-oriented growth has been based on the labor of poorly paid and treated migrant workers, using a pass system similar to the one used in South Africa's apartheid, in which massive abuses of human rights have been observed.

An article in The Washington Times, reported in 2000 that although migrants laborers play an important part in spreading wealth in Chinese villages, they are treated "like second-class citizens by a system so discriminatory that it has been likened to apartheid." Another author making similar comparison is Anita Chan, in which she furthers that China's household registration and temporary residence permit system has created a situation analogous to the passbook system in apartheid South Africa, which were designed to regulate the supply of cheap labor.

The embassy of the China in South Africa, posted a letter to the editor of The Star dated February 22, 2007 , under the title Article on China presents racism rumours as fact, in which a reader stated that "It's pure incitement to proclaim 'Chinese apartheid' in reference to migrant labour being kept out of the cities."

Treatment of Tibetans

In 1991 the Dalai Lama alleged that Chinese settlers in Tibet were creating "Chinese Apartheid":

The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us.

In a selection of speeches by the Dalia Lama published in India in 1998, he refers again to a "Chinese apartheid" which he believes denies Tibetans with equal social and economic status, and furthers the viewpoint that human rights are violated by discrimination against Tibetans under a policy of apartheid, which the Chinese call "segregation and assimilation"

A report by the Heritage Foundation discussed some of the reasons for the use of this term:

If the matter of Tibet's sovereignty is murky, the question about the PRC's treatment of Tibetans is all too clear. After invading Tibet in 1950, the Chinese communists killed over one million Tibetans, destroyed over 6,000 monasteries, and turned Tibet's northeastern province, Amdo, into a gulag housing, by one estimate, up to ten million people. A quarter of a million Chinese troops remain stationed in Tibet. In addition, some 7.5 million Chinese have responded to Beijing's incentives to relocate to Tibet; they now outnumber the 6 million Tibetans. Through what has been termed Chinese apartheid, ethnic Tibetans now have a lower life expectancy, literacy rate, and per capita income than Chinese inhabitants of Tibet.

In 2001 representatives of Tibet succeeded in gaining accreditation at a United Nations-sponsored meeting of non-governmental organizations. On August 29 Jampal Chosang, the head of the Tibetan coalition, stated that China had introduced "a new form of apartheid" in Tibet because "Tibetan culture, religion, and national identity are considered a threat" to China. The Tibet Society of the UK has called on the British government to "condemn the apartheid regime in Tibet that treats Tibetans as a minority in their own land and which discriminates against them in the use of their language, in education, in the practice of their religion, and in employment opportunities."

These tensions have spilled over into the tourist industry. According to Peter Neville-Hadley:

Hotels practice a form of apartheid. Han-run hotels overcharge foreigners and don't want your business. Equally perverse are Tibetan-run hotels with signage only in English, sending a clear message to Han would-be patrons.

Treatment of foreigners

Africans

For decades African students in China have been treated with hostility and prejudice. Their complaints regarding their treatment were largely ignored until 1988-9, when "students rose up in protest against what they called 'Chinese apartheid'". African officials, who had until then ignored the problem, took notice of the issue. The Organization of African Unity issued an official protest, and the organization's chairman, Mali's president Moussa Traoré, went on a fact-finding mission to China. The issue was so severe that, according to a Guardian 1989 Third World Report titled "'Chinese apartheid' threatens links with Africa", "'Chinese apartheid', as the African students call it, could threaten Peking's entire relationship with the continent."

Taiwanese

A.M. Rosenthal, former executive editor of The New York Times accused China of fostering an "apartheid" policy toward Taiwan. Dr Tan Sun Chen, Taiwan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, asserts that China's obstruction in the international community has led to a "political apartheid" which "harms the human rights, interests, and dignity of Taiwan’s people.".

Other human rights issues

Worker's rights and privacy are other contentious human rights issues in China. There have been several reports of core International Labor Organization conventions being denied to workers. One such report was released by the International Labor Rights Fund in October 2006 documenting minimum wage violations, long work hours, and inappropriate actions towards workers by management. Workers cannot form their own unions in the workplace, only being able to join State-sanctioned ones. The extent to which these organizations can fight for the rights of Chinese workers is disputed.

Although the Chinese government does not interfere with Chinese people's privacy as much as it used to, it still deems it necessary to keep tabs on what people say in public. Internet forums are strictly monitored, as is international postal mail (this is sometimes "delayed" inexplicably or "disappeared") and e-mail.

The issue of refugees from North Korea is a recurring one. It is official policy to repatriate them to North Korea, but the policy is not evenly enforced and a considerable number of them stay in the People's Republic (some move on to other countries). Though it is in contravention of international law to deport political refugees, as illegal immigrants their situation is precarious. Their rights are not always protected. Some of them are tricked into marriage or prostitution.

Further reading

• Cheng, Lucie, Rossett, Arthur and Woo, Lucie, East Asian Law: Universal Norms and Local Cultures, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, ISBN 0-415-29735-4
• Edwards, Catherine, China's Abuses Ignored for Profit, Insight on the News, Vol. 15, December 20, 1999.
• Foot, Rosemary, Rights beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-198-29776-9
• Jones, Carol A.G., Capitalism, Globalization and Rule of Law: An Alternative Trajectory of Legal Change in China, Social and Legal Studies, vol. 3 (1994) pp. 195-220
• Klotz, Audie, Norms in International Relations: The Struggle against Apartheid, Cornell University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-801-43106-9
• Knight, J. and Song, L., The Rural-Urban Divide: Economic Disparities and Interactions in China, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-198-29330-5
• Wang, Fei-Ling, Organizing through Division and Exclusion: China's Hukou System, Stanford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-804-75039-4
• Zweig, David, Freeing China's Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Reform Era, M. E. Sharpe, 1997, ISBN 1-563-24838-7
• The silent majority; China. (Life in a Chinese village), The Economist, April, 2005

Notes

1. China Amends Constitution to Guarantee Human Rights By Edward Cody
2. Human rights can be manifested differently
3. "Belkin, Ira" (Fall, 2000). "China's Criminal Justice System: A Work in Progress" (PDF). Washington Journal of Modern China. 6 (2). {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. "Varieties of Conflict of Laws in China". 2002-11-25. Retrieved 2006-08-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. Yardley, Jim (2005-11-28). "A young judge tests China's legal system". Retrieved 2006-08-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. SINGAPORE The death penalty: A hidden toll of executions
7. Amnesty International's report on China
8. The Death Penalty in 2005
9. China makes ultimate punishment mobile
10. China harvesting inmates' organs, journalist says By Bill Gertz
11. China 'using prisoner organs for transplants' by David Fickling
12. China harvesting Falun Gong organs, report alleges
13. The New York Times International, Sunday June 10, 2007, page 12
14. The Dalai Lama, A conversation with Robert Thurman
15. Tim Luard (Tuesday, 25 April 2006). "Fathoming Tibet's political future". BBC News. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
16. Zheng, Yi. Sym, T. P. Terrill, Ross. (1996). Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China. Westvuew Press. ISBN 0813326168.
17. List of casualties, Ding Zilin, Retrieved 2007-05-21 Template:Zh icon
18. Timperlake, Edward. (1999). Red Dragon Rising. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 0895262584
19. "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."
20. Media Control in China published in Chinese in 2004 by Human Rights in China, New York. Revised edition 2006 published by Liming Cultural Enterprises of Taiwan. Accessed February 4, 2007.
21. "The Hijacked Potential of China's Internet", English translation of a chapter in the 2006 revised edition of Media Control in China published in Chinese by Liming Enterprises of Taiwan in 2006. Accessed February 4, 2007
23. "Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)". Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
24. murdoch edu
25. Beijing usembassy-china
26. "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination."People's daily China
27. Persecution.com.au
28. Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea: Press Release -- Hunger Strike and Torture: Rumors Spread by Falun Gong
29. Amnesty International: Falun Gong persecution factsheet
30. rsf.org
31. How the Snags in the Hu-Bush Visit Play in China by Anthony Kuhn. All Things Considered, April 21, 2006.
32. Smh.com.au
33. United Nations: Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Manfred Nowak, 20 March 2007.
34. Voanews
35. Cnn.com China abortion
36. Over population one child
37. news.bbc.co.uk
38. Geography.about.com population
39. "HIGHLIGHT: Discrimination against rural migrants is China's apartheid: Certainly, the discrimination against the country-born is China's form of apartheid. It is an offence against human rights on a much bigger scale than the treatment of the tiny handful of dissidents dogged enough to speak up against the state." "Country Cousins", The Economist, April 8, 2000.
40. Macleod, Calum. "China reviews `apartheid' for 900m peasants", The Independent, June 10, 2001.
41. "...China's apartheid-like system of residency permits." Yao, Shunli. "China's WTO Revolution", Project Syndicate, June, 2002.
42. ^ "As in South Africa under apartheid, households in China faced severe restrictions on mobility during the Mao period. The household registration system (hukou) system... specified where people could work and, in particular, classified workers as rural or urban workers. A worker seeking to move from rural agricultural employment to urban non-agricultural work would have to apply through the relevant bureaucracies, and the number of workers allowed to make such moves was tightly controlled. The enforcement of these controls was closely intertwined with state controls on essential goods and services. For instance, unauthorized workers could not qualify for grain rations, employer-provided housing, or health care." Wildasin, David E. "Factor mobility, risk, inequality, and redistribution" in David Pines, Efraim Sadka, Itzhak Zilcha, Topics in Public Economics: Theoretical and Applied Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 334.
43. ^ "China's apartheid-like household registration system, introduced in the 1950s, still divides the population into two distinct groups, urban and rural." Chan, Anita & Senser, Robert A. "China's Troubled Workers", Foreign Affairs, March / April 1997.
44. Luard, Tim. "China rethinks peasant 'apartheid'", BBC News, November 10, 2005. Retrieved 5th Aug 2007.
45. ^ "Chinese apartheid: Migrant labourers, numbering in hundreds of millions, who have been ejected from state concerns and co-operatives since the 1980s as China instituted "socialist capitalism", have to have six passes before they are allowed to work in provinces other than their own. In many cities, private schools for migrant labourers are routinely closed down to discourage migration." "From politics to health policies: why they're in trouble", The Star, February 6, 2007.
46. ^ "The application of these regulations is reminiscent of apartheid South Africa's hated pass laws. Police carry out raids periodically to round up those tho do not possess a temporary residence permit. Those without papers are placed in detention centres and then removed from cities." Waddington, Jeremy. Globalization and Patterns of Labour Resistance, Routledge, 1999, p. 82.
47. ^ "The permit system controls in a similar way to the passbook system under apartheid. Most migrant workers live in crowded dormitories provided by the factories or in shanties. Their transient existence is precarious and exploitative. The discrimination against migrant workers in the Chinese case is not racial, but the control mechanisms set in place in the so-called free labor market to regulate the supply of cheap labor, the underlying economic logic of the system, and the abusive consequences suffered by the migrant workers, share many of the characteristics of the apartheid system." Chan, Anita. China's Workers Under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy, M.E. Sharpe, 2001, p. 9. Cite error: The named reference "Chan" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
48. ^ Whitehouse, David. Template:PDFlink, Paper delivered at the Colloquium on Economy, Society and Nature, sponsored by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, March 2, 2006. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
49. "We further identify seven elements of the repressive regime at the national, municipal and local levels, and argue that the combined results of these elements have given rise to a kind of spatial and social apartheid which systematically discriminates against the rural population, with women being the most oppressed." Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Template:PDFlink, Committee for Asian Women, May 2007, p. 1.
50. Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Template:PDFlink, Committee for Asian Women, May 2007, p. 20.
51. "Since the middle of 1990’s the hukou system has been gradually relaxed. First, rural residents were permitted to buy a temporary (usually one year) urban residential card, which allowed them to work legally. The fees for such permits gradually decreased to a fairly affordable level. Beginning from 1998, parents have been able to pass down their hukou either through the father’s or the mother’s line, hence the triple discrimination against rural women has been alleviated. In 2003, after the uproar surrounding the death of Sun Zhigang alarmed the authorities, the laws on jailing and repatriating ‘undocumented’ people (those failing to produce local hukou) were abolished. Thus the spatial aspect of the apartheid has now largely been eliminated. However, the substance of the social apartheid in general and the hukou system in particular remains intact. The permanent mark of being an outsider and second class citizen remains, and prevents migrant workers from achieving significant upward mobility in cities. Most decent jobs are still reserved for people who possess local hukou. Migrants can only get badly paid jobs. They still have no future in the cities, and may only work there for some years and then return to their home village." Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Template:PDFlink, Committee for Asian Women, May 2007, p. 11.
52. "The hukou system has been criticized in some quarters and has been called 'the equivalent of and apartheid system between rural and urban residents' (China Labor Bulletin, February 25, 2002). However, the Ministry of Public Security has continued to justify the hukou system as an instrument for keeping public order (the ministry said it allowed the police to track down criminals more easily) and for providing demographic data for planning and program formulation." Laquian, Aprodicio A. Beyond Metropolis: The Planning and Governance of Asia's Mega-Urban Regions, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, pp. 320-321.
53. Alexander, Peter, Does China Have an Apartheid Pass System?, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30.4 (2004)
    China's household registration system (HRS) maintains a rigid distinction between China's rural population, that is people who have a rural hukou (household registration), and urban residents, who have an urban hukou. Movement of rural people into the cities is restricted, and they require a permit to stay and work temporarily in any urban area. If caught without these permits, people with a rural hukou could be placed in a detention centre, fined, and deported back to their home village or home town (that is, 'endorsed out', to borrow a South African expression). Those with a rural hukou who obtain a temporary employment permit to work in an urban area are not entitled to the pensions, schooling, unemployment benefits, etc. enjoyed by those who have an urban hukou. There are, in short, some obvious and significant similarities between the two countries, but a closer examination is required before we can consider equating China's pass system with what operated in apartheid South Africa." " The combination of these four factors may explain why China has developed a quasi-apartheid pass system. The fact that it has such a system underlines the reality that China's export-oriented economic growth has been built, in large measure, on the labour of poorly paid and appallingly treated migrant workers. In China today, as in apartheid South Africa, the pass system is associated with massive abuses of human rights, and its retention should be opposed."
54. Macleod, Calum and Macleod, Lijia China's migrants bear brunt of bias, The Washington Times, July 14, 2000.
    "Sending up to 50 percent of their earnings home, migrants play an important role in spreading wealth down to the villages. Yet they are still treated like second-class citizens by a system so discriminatory that it has been likened to apartheid."
55. {{cite web |url=http://www.chinese-embassy.org.za/eng/zt/thirdeye/t299146.htm%7Cpublisher=Embassy of The People's Republic of China in the Republic of South Africa""
56. "Profile: The Dalai Lama", BBC News, April 25, 2006.
57. United States Congressional Serial Set, United States Government Printing Office, 1993, p. 110.
58. "The Political Philosophy of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. Selected Speeches and Writings". Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research Centre. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)< /br>"Tibet is being colonized by waves of Chinese immigrants. We are becoming a minority in our own country. The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us. The immediate result has been a round of unrest and reprisal." (pp.65) "Human rights violations in Tibet are among the most serious in the world. Discrimination is practiced in Tibet under a policy of apartheid which the Chinese call "segregation and assimilation." (pp. 248)
59. Lasater, Martin L. & Conboy, Kenneth J. "Why the World Is Watching Beijing's Treatment of Tibet", Heritage Foundation, October 9, 1987.
60. Goble, Paul. "China: Analysis From Washington -- A Breakthrough For Tibet", World Tibet Network News, Canada Tibet Committee, August 31, 2001.
61. "What do we expect the United Kingdom to do?", Tibet Vigil UK, June 2002. Accessed June 25, 2006.
62. Neville-Hadley, Peter. Frommer's China, Frommers.com, 2003, p. 268.
63. ^ Robinson, Thomas W. & Shambaugh, David L. Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, p. 315.
64. Snow, Phillip. "Third World Report: 'Chinese apartheid' threatens links with Africa", The Guardian, January 20, 1989.
65. Rosenthal, A.M. "China's 'Apartheid' Taiwan Policy." The New York Times, December 4, 1995.
66. Sun Chen, Tan. Joining the Global Village: Taiwan's Participation in the International Community. Republic of China (Taiwan). Accessed August 5, 2007.
67. Wal-Mart in China: Rolling Back Labor Rights by International Labor Rights Fund, October 2006
68. Overview of human rights issues in china
69. The long march to privacy
70. Overview of human rights issues in china
71. HRW: North Koreans in People's Republic of China
72. An Absence of Choice: The sexual exploitation of North Korean women in China by Norma Kang Muico, Anti-Slavery International 2005.

References

• "Country Cousins", The Economist, April 8, 2000.
• "Dalai Lama honours Tintin and Tutu", BBC News, June 2, 2006.
• "From politics to health policies: why they're in trouble", The Star, February 6, 2007.
• "Online encyclopedia Misplaced Pages founder raps firms aiding China censorship" , Associated Press Financial Wire, March 8, 2007.
• "Profile: The Dalai Lama", BBC News, April 25, 2006.
• "Tutu calls on China to 'do the right thing' in Tibet", International Campaign for Tibet, June 1, 2006.
• United States Congressional Serial Set, United States Government Printing Office, 1993.
• "What do we expect the United Kingdom to do?", Tibet Vigil UK, June 2002. Accessed June 25, 2006.
• Au Loong-yu, Nan Shan, Zhang Ping. Template:PDFlink, Committee for Asian Women, May 2007.
• Chan, Anita. China's Workers Under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy, M.E. Sharpe, 2001. ISBN 0765603578
• Chan, Anita & Senser, Robert A. "China's Troubled Workers", Foreign Affairs, March / April 1997.
• Elliott, Mark C. The Manchu Way: The 8 Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0804736065
• Goble, Paul. "China: Analysis From Washington -- A Breakthrough For Tibet", World Tibet Network News, Canada Tibet Committee, August 31, 2001.
• Laquian, Aprodicio A. Beyond Metropolis: The Planning and Governance of Asia's Mega-Urban Regions, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. ISBN 0801881765
• Lasater, Martin L. & Conboy, Kenneth J. "Why the World Is Watching Beijing's Treatment of Tibet", Heritage Foundation, October 9, 1987.
• Luard, Tim. "China rethinks peasant 'apartheid'", BBC News, November 10, 2005.
• Macleod, Calum. "China reviews `apartheid' for 900m peasants", The Independent, June 10, 2001.
• Neville-Hadley, Peter. Frommer's China, Frommers.com, 2003. ISBN 0764567551
• Robinson, Thomas W. & Shambaugh, David L. Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198290160
• Rosenthal, A.M. "China's 'Apartheid' Taiwan Policy." The New York Times, December 4, 1995.
• Snow, Phillip. "Third World Report: 'Chinese apartheid' threatens links with Africa", The Guardian, January 20, 1989.
• Waddington, Jeremy. Globalization and Patterns of Labour Resistance, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0720123690
• Whitehouse, David. Template:PDFlink, Paper delivered at the Colloquium on Economy, Society and Nature, sponsored by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, March 2, 2006. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
• Wildasin, David E. "Factor mobility, risk, inequality, and redistribution" in David Pines, Efraim Sadka, Itzhak Zilcha, Topics in Public Economics: Theoretical and Applied Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 0521561361
• Yao, Shunli. "China's WTO Revolution", Project Syndicate, June, 2002

See also

• Human rights in Hong Kong
• Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China
• Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
• Human Rights in China (organization)
• Tangshan Protest
• Laogai

External links

General links

• MacLeod, Calum, China reviews 'apartheid' for 900m peasants, Jun 10, 2001, The Independent, London
• Better World Links on Human Rights in China and Tibet
• White Papers of the Chinese Government on Human Rights in China and own assessments in progress.
• Human rights can be manifested differently
• UN Human Development Report 2003 on China
• US State Department's 2004 Human Rights Report on China
• JURIST China - Chinese law, legal research, human rights
• Olympic Watch: Human Rights in China and Beijing 2008 - Campaign for human rights improvements in China before the 2008 Olympic Games
• Human Rights In China - International NGO based in New York and Hong Kong
• Human Rights Watch: China and Tibet
• International Freedom of Expression eXchange - monitors freedom of expression in China
• The China Support Network
• The Progress of Human Rights in China - Statement by PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Who shows more respect for human rights? - Editorial published by the People's Daily
• Tiananmen Vigil - Remember the victims of the June 4 1989 massacre by lighting a candle in your window on June 3
• Asia Death Penalty blog focuses on the death penalty in Asia, including the People's Republic of China
• Free China 2008 campaign to encourage human rights in China by having foreign visitors and athletes wear a symbol to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

Video

• The Tank Man - 2006 PBS documentary on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 as well as other human rights issues in China
• China land grab - A Sky News report on abuses of eminent domain powers in China
• Chinese soldiers shooting at Tibetan pilgrims - Pro TV footage via YouTube of an alleged Chinese military attack on Tibetan pilgrims

• Mainland China
• Human rights by country
• Politics of the People's Republic of China
• Chinese law
• Political repression in the People's Republic of China