china prepares for Summer olympics
what will be with those summer olympics?
Read this!!!!
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI I ndex: ASA 17/ 044/2004 ( Public)
News Ser vice No: 215
27 August 2004
China: Olympic Games and Human Rights
As the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics come to a close, preparations for the 2008 Beijing Summer
Olympics are well underway.
“Amnesty International welcomes the intense spotlight that will be focused on China in the four
years until 2008,” said the organization. “Severe abuses of fundamental human rights are a daily
occurrence in China. If this spotlight can curtail or even end these abuses, then the Olympic Charter, with
its commitment for the ‘preservation of human dignity’ might be relevant in China by 2008.”
After Beijing was awarded the Games in 2001, Chinese and Olympic officials asserted that
human rights in China would improve as a result of hosting the Olympics.
For example, Francois Carrard, executive director of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
said he was “taking the bet” that human rights would improve; Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC said:
“we are convinced that the Olympic Games will improve the human rights record in China”; and Wang Wei,
Secretary General of the Beijing Organising Committee said “We are confident that the Games coming to
China not only promotes our economy, but also enhances human rights.”
“So far at least, li ttle has been delivered to support these confident assertions,” said Amnesty
International. “However, we intend to use the spotlight of the Olympics to push as hard as we can in the
remaining years to see human rights in China improved above and beyond the assertions made by
Chinese and Olympic officials.”
Since Beijing was awarded the games in 2001, there has been negligible improvement in China’s
human rights record. The impending arrival of the Olympic flame has had little positive impact on human
rights. Rather, the forced relocation of whole communities with little or no compensation to make way for
Olympic venues in Beijing is an example of how human rights have actually deteriorated as a direct result
of the Olympic preparations.
Construction projects the Beijing authorities have put out to open tender under the banner “New
Beijing, New Olympics – The Opportunity for China and the World” include an execution chamber where
those sentenced to death by the Beijing High People’s Court will be killed by lethal injection.
“Amnesty International believes an execution chamber clearly negates the ‘preservation of human
dignity’ that Beijing as the Olympic host city has committed to uphold.”
Hosting the Olympics is a major international boost for the Chinese people. It is now incumbent on
the Chinese government to uphold “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and deliver major
improvements in human rights for the people of China.
Background
Areas of human rights in desperate need of improvement in China include:
The death penalty: China continues to execute more people each year than the rest of the world
combined. A senior legislator from south-west China recently said China executes “nearly 10,000″
people per year. Amnesty International is calling for an immediate moratorium on the death
penalty as a step towards abolition.
“Re-education through labour”: More than 250,000 people in China are being detained in
labour camps on vaguely defined charges having never seen a lawyer, never been to a court, and
with no form of judicial supervision. Amnesty International is calling for “re-education through
labour” to be abolished immediately.
Torture: Torture is endemic in China, and people are highly likely to suffer torture or other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment at some point of their passage through the criminal justice
system. Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to cooperate fully with the
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, and to implement all recommendations that are made as a
matter of urgency.
Freedom of expression and religion: Thousands of people are detained and sentenced each
year for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and freedom of
religious belief. Amnesty International is calling for Constitutional guarantees to freedom of
expression and religion to be recognised and practised in law, and for the immediate release of
people detained for exercising these freedoms.
news.amnesty feature
In a special video feature on news.amnesty, dissident Wang Dan, student leader during the 1989
Tiananmen crackdown, speaks about his experiences
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGASA178272004.
Public Document
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For more information please call Amnesty International’s press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413
5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org
