Published by: World Tibet Network News,Thursday, Mar 14, 1996

By Paul Eckert

BEIJING, March 13 (Reuter) - China's dramatic economic reforms have made its people richer and given them more personal freedoms, but Beijing still systematically persecutes all political opponents, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

"Despite the dramatic changes that have taken place in China in the past decade, human rights violations continue on a massive scale," the independent human-rights watchdog said in a new report on China.

"Overall, economic development has led to few improvements in China's human rights record," said the 121-page report, titled "No One Is Safe: Political Repression and Abuse of Power in the 1990s."

London-based Amnesty credits China with "remarkable achievements" in meeting many of the unique challenges posed by developing a multi-ethnic country of 1.2 billion people.

But Beijing breaks both Chinese and international human rights laws with heavy-handed measures to uphold Communist Party rule, subordinating the rule of law to "higher political goals, including the defeat of perceived political enemies," it said.

"Time and again the authorities have demonstrated that they are willing to use any means, whether legal or illegal, to protect the established order, particularly when confronted by rising levels of criticism," said Amnesty.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the report was "not even worth refutation."

"Amnesty International has always harboured prejudices against China and often fabricates rumours about the so-called abuses of human rights in China," the spokeswoman said.

The report came as China fended off censure on human rights from the U.S. State Department and the European Union and faced global condemnation for intimidating rival Taiwan.

Chinese officials have said its critics have the "ulterior motives" of splitting China and subverting its government.

In an angry rebuttal to a U.S. State Department report that accused China of persistent and widespread human rights abuses, Beijing cited U.S. crime, racial tensions and poverty as problems it said showed Washington's human rights hypocrisy.

China's accusations "do nothing to mitigate China's own record and suggest that the authorities are seeking to avoid responsibility for their own behaviour," Amnesty said.

China is party to seven U.N. human rights treaties, but uses cultural, economic and national stability and sovereignty arguments to avoid accountability for violations, it said.

Targets of Chinese abuses include human rights advocates, political dissidents, labour activists, Tibetans, Moslems, Christians, prisoners and some pregnant women -- "anyone who speaks out for their rights in China," Amnesty said.

Among the abusive practices were harassment and surveillance, arbitrary arrest and "verdict first, trial second" judicial procedures. Those incarcerated face cruel treatment, including torture and forced labour, Amnesty said.

China has meted out the death penalty for a wide range of non-violent and relatively minor crimes -- including gambling, bigamy and stealing cows -- and executions are made more "cruel and degrading" by public humiliation rallies and by the use of executed prisoners' organs for transplants, it said.

Amnesty called on China to end arbitrary arrests, torture and executions, to review its human rights policies and protections and to cooperate with U.N. human rights bodies.

It urged the international community to insist that China uphold its human rights obligations, arguing that "the world cannot ignore the human rights of a fifth of its people."

The United States is set to co-sponsor, and the EU to support, a resolution deploring human rights abuses in China at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva this month.