BEIJING, July 16 (AFP) - The head of a government-sanctioned human rights group defended China's human rights record, saying the country has been misunderstood, the Xinhua news agency said Wednesday.

Zhu Muzhi, president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), said the lack of knowledge about the situation in China and "numerous rumors" had resulted in serious misunderstandings.

He said China had made much progress in human rights and its attitude toward the issue has won sympathy and support from many countries, including some in the West.

"We stressed that we do not ask others to accept our opinions. We just hope they know what our opinions are and why we have them," Zhu told the state-owned news agency after returning from a trip to Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain.

Zhu led a human rights delegation and met with various governmental and non-governmental organizations in the four countries last month to discuss China's views on human rights. He also met with Amnesty International representatives in Norway.

It was the first such trip by a Chinese human rights group to discuss the issue with foreign countries.

Zhu said active and extensive dialogue should be conducted among different countries to "deepen mutual understanding, eliminate misunderstanding, reduce differences, strengthen cooperation and finally to promote human rights."

"This will benefit not only the mutual understanding of the human rights issue, but also the nation-to-nation friendly relations," he said, adding China strongly opposes confrontation on the human rights issue.

Zhu also said the contentious issue of Tibet and the Dalai Lama had been "misinterpreted" by the West.

He said Tibet under the Dalai Lama's rule was a "serf society more oppressive than Europe in the Middle Ages."

"The public does not know that the Dalai was the leading serf owner in Tibet under whose rule numerous Tibetans and people of other nationalities were killed. The Dalai is absolutely not an angel of peace who could not hurt a fly," Zhu told the news agency.

Western countries have strongly criticised China for its human rights record and for its repression in the troubled provinces of Moslem Xinjiang and Buddhist Tibet.

Although Beijing said it guarantees freedom of worship in Tibet, it has effectively barred all reference to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader who now lives in exile in India, accusing him of promoting "splittism."