Amnesty Calls China's Jiang a Rights "Scoundrel" [Excerpt]

Sonya Hepinstall

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amnesty International on Wednesday named Chinese President Jiang Zemin as one of its human rights "scoundrels" of 2000 in a condemnation of China's rights record that the group said did not appear to be improving with expanding trade ties.

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The five "human rights scoundrels" cited were not the worst offenders but were representative of the many who fail to protect and respect human rights, William Schulz, the group's U.S. director, told a news conference to release a global report on rights abuses in 2000.

"We include Jiang Zemin for maintaining the Chinese [party' name omitted] Party's grip on power through the widespread use of torture, persecution of minority groups and the denial of freedom of speech, association and religion," Schulz said.

In particular he cited the crackdown on the spiritual movement Falun Gong and the detention of about a half dozen academics of Chinese descent, including U.S. resident Gao Zhan whose husband spoke at the news conference.

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Schulz was not able to say whether the human rights situation in China was generally improving but said expanding global trade ties did not appear to be making a difference.

According to the human rights watchdog's calculations, last year in China some 1,000 people were executed, 1,500 convicted and sentenced to death, 230,000 people were in prison without trial and hundreds were tortured in Tibet.

"There is no evidence that trade ties have improved the situation," Schulz said.

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Amnesty had no position on whether China should host the 2008 Summer Olympics but Schulz added his group had kept in contact with members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which will decide the winning bid on July 13.

"We certainly would hope that ... the Olympic Committee would be willing to use its leverage in terms of raising concerns with the Chinese about some of our (prisoner) cases," he said.

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