No one in China is safe from government torture, imprisonment and political repression, Amnesty International said Tuesday in its latest report condemning the nation's human rights record.
The London-based human rights group's report comes a week before a U.N. Human Rights Commission session that is likely to focus on China. Last week, a U.S. State Department report spoke of a "nightmarish human rights situation in China," with increased repression of dissent and widespread mistreatment of prisoners.China angrily rejects criticism of its human rights record, insisting that its treatment of its citizens is no one else's business and issuing reports saying the Chinese enjoy freedoms superior to those in Western democracies.
The latest of such reports, issued Sunday, contended the United States has a much worse human rights record, citing its large prison population, racial tensions, drug abuse and AIDS. China's report avoided such issues as a free press, the right to assembly, religious freedom or freedom of expression.
Amnesty International said despite China's increased contacts with the outside world and its economic reforms, "human rights violations occur on a massive scale."
The report charges that government abuses affect all in China, from prominent intellectuals and politicians to young children in Tibet - where Buddhists are punished for their religious practices - and even the unborn, victims of China's stringent family planning program.
Cases range from the little-known, such as accused chicken thief Liang Rihua, beaten to deathby police in May 1993; to that of leading dissident Wei Jingsheng, a democracy advocate sentenced to 14 years in prison last December for allegedly trying to overthrow the government.
The report charges that torture is commonly used in detention centers and prisons to extract confessions or as punishment. Despite laws against torture, preventive measures are weak and violators are rarely brought to justice, the report said.
China's development as the world's fastest-growing economy has led to few improvements, it said.
Although most documented human rights abuses are against urban Chinese, the report says rural unrest in a dozen provinces in 1993 indicated widespread peasant anger over official abuses of power such as unfair tax levies.
"The world cannot ignore the human rights of a fifth of its people," it said. "What happens in China is an important measure of the state of human rights internationally."