Published by: World Tibet Network News,Friday, Mar 15, 1996

By Carrie Lee

HONG KONG, March 15 (Reuter) - The international human rights organisation Amnesty International urged the world's tycoons on Friday to join it in a battle against human rights violations in China.

Unveiling a new strategy for its human rights campaign in the country, Amnesty's secretary general Pierre Sane said the world's business moguls should lobby Chinese leaders to improve the situation.

"Business leaders and investors around the world, and of course here in Hong Kong, can and should engage in a human rights dialogue with Chinese officials," Sane said.

Many Hong Kong business people, dazzled by the vast investment opportunities in the Chinese hinterland, were often silent about human rights abuses to avoid offending Beijing, Hong Kong political analysts say.

Sane urged businessmen to use their leverage to help improve respect for human rights, not only for altruistic reasons but for their own long-term commercial benefit.

"The arbitrary use and abuse of the law poses a major threat to human rights and it certainly constitutes a major threat for the development and growth of a sound and safe business environment," Sane said.

"Amnesty believes business in China stands to benefit from greater transparency, less arbitrariness and a strengthened rule of law," he said.

"Systematic human rights violations, as history has shown, lead to political instability and rebellion and ultimately endanger investments.

"The business community has therefore a vested interest in pressing for a legal environment that will conform to international standards not just in matters of trade, but also in matters of human rights protection."

The London-based group made its plea two days after issuing a report in which it said China's dramatic economic reform had made people richer and freer but that Beijing still persecuted all its political opponents.

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

Targets of Chinese abuses included 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.

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

Jean Haesen, another Amnesty representative, told Friday's news conference that respect for human rights and human dignity would enhance business productivity and management creativity, boost product quality and innovation, attract better job applicants, and spruce up company images.

Companies should seek to protect the human rights of their workers in the workplace, encourage freedom of expression, ban trade in goods made with child labour or forced labour, improve safety and health, and protect employees against the arbitrary use of power by government and security officials, Haesen said.

They should lobby Beijing for legal reform to discriminalise political activity, spread the message that rights abuses deter trade and investment, and lobby for the release of people wrongfully jailed.

China has angrily rejected Amnesty's criticisms.

Amnesty said it was seeking a dialogue with the Chinese government and would attempt to deliver a copy of the report to Beijing's de facto embassy, Xinhua news agency, in Hong Kong. It would also meet business organisations in the British colony.