"The government continued to commit widespread and well documented human rights abuses in violation of internationally accepted norms. These abuses stemmed from the authorities' extremely limited tolerance of public dissent aimed at the government, fear of unrest, and the limited scope or inadequate implementation of laws protecting basic freedoms."     - From the new State Department Report on Human Rights in China

Contact Gail Rachlin at Rachlin Management and Media Group: 212 501-8080

·        WAR OF WORDS: UN, US BLAST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN CHINA

·        ANOTHER PRACTITIONER DEAD: GROUP CHARGES POLICE MURDER

·        CHINA's PARLIAMENT OPENS THIS WEEK; PROTESTS FEARED WAR OF WORDS ON HUMAN RIGHTS: US, UN, INDICT CHINA, BEIJING RAGES

HONG KONG (AP) - The U.N. high commissioner for human rights today deplored China's ``deteriorating'' rights record and urged Hong Kong to set up its own independent human rights monitoring body.  Mary Robinson, who stopped in Hong Kong en route to Beijing, said the situation in mainland China has deteriorated over the past two years. She said she will raise concerns about ``the repression of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and severe sentences'' for activities related to political and religious expression. China's recent crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation movement - which Beijing views as a dangerous cult - has drawn widespread condemnation from international human rights groups.

CHINA RESPONDS TO INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: "HEAR NO EVIL"

BEIJING, Feb 29, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) China Tuesday warned UN Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson on the eve of her visit here not to pressure the country over its crackdown of the Falungong spiritual movement. "The tolerance of such a cult will not mean the protection of the Chinese people," foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said. "The Chinese government is strongly opposed to any country and any international organization making irresponsible remarks about the internal affairs of China."

US STATE DEPARTMENT CONDEMNS DETERIORATION IN RIGHTS, FALUN GONG ABUSE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's human rights record worsened noticeably in 1999 as authorities hit at the China Democracy Party, the Falun Gong spiritual movement, the media, and unregistered churches, the United States said on Friday. Beginning in the spring, Communist Party leaders moved quickly to suppress what they believed to be organized challenges that threatened national stability and Communist Party authority,'' the State Department said in its annual report on the state of human rights around the world. ``The government's poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout the year, as the government intensified efforts to suppress dissent,'' the report on China said. Several thousand people are in Chinese jails, in violation of international conventions, for peacefully expressing their political, religious and social views, and in 1999 fewer political prisoners than usual were released early, it said. On the Falun Gong movement, an irritant in relations for many months, the report said tens of thousands of members have been detained. Quoting ``some reports,'' it said the government has started putting members in psychiatric hospitals.

CHINA's REACTION TO WASHINGTON: MORE RAGE, MORE ANGER, MORE THREATS

BEIJING (Reuters) - China reacted angrily on Saturday to a U.S. report that alleges deteriorating human rights in the country, and accused Washington of distorting facts and ignoring its own rights violations.  China is strongly displeased with and firmly opposed to the United States' action of distorting other countries' human rights situation,'' state media quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao as saying.

ANOTHER PRACTITIONER BEATEN TO DEATH,  CHINA SAYS: "NOT OUR FAULT"

BEIJING (AP)--China denied a report that a jailed member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement died following a police beating, saying that the woman was never mistreated and died from a heart attack.  Chen Zixiu was at least the 11th Falun Gong practitioner to die in police custody since the communist government banned the group seven months ago as a public menace. Some of those who died had been on hunger strikes.  The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported Monday that after detaining Chen, police in eastern Weihai city demanded her family pay a $120 fine. [Family members of those detained are forced to pay costs for the duration of their stay.]  When they couldn't, police beat Chen to death, leaving her family a bruised, bloodied corpse to retrieve on Feb. 21, the group said.

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: The daughter of Ms. Chen Zi-xiu , Zhang Xue-ling (not a Falun Gong practitioner) has written a detailed statement describing the circumstances of her mother's arrest, harassment at the hands of the police and death. It is one of many gripping first person accounts now available on line at http://truewisdom.net/messages/9/13805.html   It is the type of credible description of brutal treatment of practitioners that rarely receives coverage.

CHINESE PARLIAMENT OPENS THIS WEEK, POLITICIANS BRACE FOR MORE PROTESTS

BEIJING, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Beijing is cleaning its sidewalks and ridding its streets of undesirables to get ready for the descent upon China's capital of thousands of lawmakers for the National People's Congress. The NPC, China's 2,900-plus member parliament, will open its annual full session on March 5, sitting for two weeks to discuss the nation's budget, economic development plans and public concerns about crime, corruption and unemployment. Security at the Great Hall of the People venue is expected to be especially heavy this year after a series of protests by members of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong. The NPC was the focus of peaceful protests last year after it rubber-stamped a tough anti-cult law the government has used to jail hundreds of members of what it says is an ``evil cult.'' An NPC joke circulating in Beijing is of the ``three fakes'': fake statistics, fake newspaper reports and fake speeches."

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