Wednesday April 11 10:11 AM ET
US Presents China Resolution at U.N. Rights Talks

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States presented a resolution Wednesday accusing China of abuses, including repressing its Tibetan minority and banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, and calling on Beijing to permit freedom of religion.

The U.S. delegation submitted the text -- which also urged China to release all political prisoners and to eliminate its re-education through labor system -- to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

It was released in Geneva as the White House announced an agreement had been reached with Beijing for China to release the 24-member crew of U.S. spy plane who have been held after making an emergency landing on Hainan Island on April 1.

The 53-member state U.N. rights body, holding its annual six-week session in Geneva to examine violations worldwide, is scheduled to vote on a host of country resolutions on April 18.

European Union member states support the resolution, but have not co-sponsored it officially, EU diplomats said. However, China enjoys wide support among Asian and other developing countries, who traditionally back it in the talks.

But many Western diplomats and U.N. sources doubt the U.S. resolution would even be debated, as China is expected to present its own motion calling for ``no action'' on the U.S. text.

China's delegation, by using this controversial procedural maneuver, has successfully avoided examination of its record every year since the June 1989 killing of student protesters in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

The U.S. resolution expresses concern at continuing reports of China's ``failure to protect internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms.''

In particular, it cites ``severe restrictions on the rights of citizens to the freedoms of assembly, association, expression, conscience and religion, and to due legal process and a fair trial as well as at reports of harsh sentences for some seeking to exercise their rights.''

Increased Restrictions

The three-page U.S. text expresses concern at ``increased restrictions on the exercise of cultural, linguistic, religious and other fundamental freedoms of Tibetans and others.''

It also notes the ``continuing arrests and harsh sentencing during the past year of members of the China Democracy Party.''

The U.S. resolution criticizes China's ``severe measures'' to restrict the peaceful activities of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and others who try to exercise their rights to freedom of conscience, belief and peaceful assembly.

It also expresses concern at China's ``increasingly severe measures taken against adherents of movements such as Falun Gong who, in pursuing non-violent activities, sought to exercise their internationally recognized rights of freedom of conscience, belief and peaceful assembly.''

The U.S. text welcomes China's efforts in some areas, but calls on Beijing to ``accelerate efforts to reform, with a view to rapid elimination, (of) the re-education through labor system and
forced labor.''

It also calls for releasing ``political prisoners, including persons imprisoned for the non-violent expression of their political, religious or social views.''

The U.S. resolution welcomes China's efforts to increase the transparency of the judicial system and its expressed intention to ratify a major U.N. rights instrument, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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