WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States accused China of a broad array of human rights violations on Monday including summary executions, torture, forced confessions, suppressing political dissent and denying religious freedom.
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"The government's human rights record throughout the year remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses," the Department said in its section on China, which ran to an estimated 70,000 words.
"Late in the year, (the) positive developments were undermined by arrests of democracy activists, the imposition of death sentences without due process on two Tibetans and the trials of labor leaders on 'subversion' charges," it added.
"Authorities were quick to suppress religious, political, and social groups, as well as individuals, that they perceived to be a threat to government power or to national stability," it added. "Citizens who sought to express openly dissenting political and religious views continued to face repression."
[The] report reserved some of its harshest words for the Chinese judicial system.
"Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention and denial of due process," the report said.
'REEDUCATION-THROUGH-LABOR' CAMPS
"In many cases, particularly in sensitive political cases, the judicial system denied criminal defendants basic legal safeguards and due process because authorities attached higher priority to suppressing political opposition and maintaining public order than to enforcing legal norms or protecting individual rights," it added.
It said more than 200,000 people were serving sentences in reeducation-through-labor camps and it cited estimates that as many as 2,000 people remained in prison for their activities during the June 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations.
"As we have said to the Chinese, we have seen some slippage over the past year and it is of concern to us and we have raised it with them on a number of occasions," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters.
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http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PQY5F5KWCE30WCRBAELCFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=2482437
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