PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - Despite Efforts, China Fails to Make Top 10

U.S. Drops China From List of Top 10 Violators of Rights

By HELENE COOPER
March 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — The State Department no longer considers China one of the world’s worst human rights violators, according to its annual human rights report released Tuesday, a decision that immediately earned the ire of human rights groups.

In the annual report on more than 190 countries, the State Department did say that China’s “overall human rights record remained poor” in 2007. China, the report said, tightened media and Internet curbs and increased controls on religious freedom in Tibet and the Xinjiang region. The report said China’s abuses also included “extrajudicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor.”

But the report dropped China from a list of 10 countries that it deemed the worst offenders: North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan.

At a news conference, Jonathan D. Farrar, acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, did not answer questions about why China was dropped from the list. “I think the report highlights that generally the human rights record remains poor,” he said.

When asked repeatedly why China was dropped from the list of worst abusers, and whether that had anything to do with the Beijing Olympics this summer, Mr. Farrar said: “I would say China is listed under a section dealing with authoritarian countries undergoing economic reform where the democratic political reform has not kept pace. And that is a completely accurate assessment.”

Damn you newcomer, Syria. Better luck next non-Olympic year, Bejing