Beijing (dpa) – China has rebuffed a series of reports of torture, kidnapping and other grave abuses this month by attempting to discredit the victims and attacking international critics of its human rights record. Western critics of China's human rights displayed a “Cold War mindset” and would see a threat “as long as China remains a socialist country,” People's Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, said in a commentary on Sunday. In another commentary, the Global Times newspaper criticized the Netherlands' award of the 2011 Human Rights Defenders Tulip to Chinese activist Ni Yulan for her “extraordinary contribution to protecting and promoting human rights.” The newspaper, part of the People's Daily group, said Ni's prize would make her “another focus for Western media looking for an opportunity to criticize the human rights situation in China.” It did not mention her pending trial, previous imprisonment or disability. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal asked China last week to explain the detention of Ni's daughter, Dong Xuan, as she was about to fly to the Netherlands to receive the prize. Ni and her husband, Dong Jiqin, are detained in Beijing pending trial on charges of fraud and “disturbing public order,” which supporters say were fabricated to punish them for their recent activism. Ni, 51, lost her lawyer's license because she was twice convicted of “obstructing public business” during disputes over housing rights, charges that she denied but was not allowed to defend. She was left disabled in 2002 after she was beaten, tortured and denied medical treatment by police who detained her for 75 days for filming a forced relocation. A decade after Ni's ordeal, rights groups say there are few signs that Chinese authorities have reduced their use of torture and other abuses against dissidents, religious activists, human rights lawyers and legal petitioners. Several lawyers and activists reported police torture and intimidation last year after dozens of them were detained in a crackdown linked to calls for anti-government protests. Dissident writer Yu Jie spoke in Washington last week to detail the torture and other abuses he suffered after Beijing police seized him as he returned from a trip to the United States in October 2010. Yu, 38, said the worst incident began with police forcing him into a car with a hood over his head in December 2010. He said the police took him to a secret location where they beat him, stripped him and threatened to “dig a pit to bury you alive.” The government agreed to Yu's request to leave for the US in mid-January, but the Global Times accused him of a “hostile attitude towards today's China.” Some of the worst violations of human rights have been reported in Tibetan areas, but exile groups say the true extent of abuses is hidden by heavy security and closure of the areas to journalists and diplomats. US-based Human Rights in China said recent violence in Tibetan areas, including 16 self-immolations in the past year, was caused by “escalating repression and failed official policy.” The US government said it was “seriously concerned” by the self-immolations, but China's Foreign Ministry repeated its routine dismissal of such comments as “interference in internal affairs.” “Overseas forces distort the truth,” said the headline of a commentary on Tibet in the China Daily newspaper on Monday. The newspaper played down the significance of police shooting Tibetan protesters three times last week, killing at least one person in each incident. The apparent intransigence from the government has led some analysts to question the usefulness of open lobbying by Western governments and of official dialogue with China on human rights. But Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, believes that public pressure on China must continue “because quiet diplomacy leads nowhere.” “Being weak on human rights at a time when the situation has deteriorated markedly is also a mistake because it strengthens the hand of hard-liners within the party,” Bequelin told dpa. Following his release in June after three and a half years in prison, Hu Jia, one of China's best-known dissidents, said he believed that Western pressure had helped him to get better conditions in prison even though he had to serve his full sentence. Li Jinping, a dissident who was detained in a Beijing psychiatric unit for eight months, told dpa that international attention appeared to have led to his release in June. Activists were “unanimous in saying that public pressure is needed and that it is effective,” Bequelin said. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/uMSMO Tags: China, Tibet, Torture Section: East Asia, Human Rights, Latest News
