Italian MPs Write to the President of the European Commission and the Italian Premier, Calling on China to Improve Human Rights

Prior to the Summit meeting between the EU and China, Italian MP Giannu Vernetti and Senator Alessandro Forlani jointly wrote to the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, and to the Italian Premier, Berlusconi, to urge them to put the issue of China’s human rights on top of their agenda during the bilateral dialogue with China.

In the letter, they stressed that “The issue of China’s democracy may affect one fifth of the world’s population. They (the Chinese people) absolutely do not have the most basic freedom. In China, there is no freedom of belief or freedom to organise labour unions. Human rights are extensively abused, and cruel torture is widespread in China’s prisons.”

“In China, 3138 people were executed last year, which accounts for 80 % of those executed worldwide (5078 persons.) Since the spiritual movement Falun Gong has been outlawed, at least 100,000 practitioners have been arrested, and among them, more than twenty thousand people have been sent to forced labour camps; more than one thousand people have been sent to mental hospitals, and 810 people have been persecuted to death by cruel torture. The Chinese regime has also casually arrested Tibetan monks, and inflicted cruel torture on them. With China’s military intrusion and its eradication of Tibetan culture, the Tibetan language, culture and history are on the brink of extinction. Even public figures, loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, have been oppressed, and some bishops are also being incarcerated. Throughout the world, China is the only Catholic country that has established a system to force people’s loyalty to the Chinese Communist totalitarian regime.”

In the letter, the two parliamentarians also demanded that economic, technical and business cooperation should be established based on a persistent respect for human rights, and the progress and freedom of politics, religious belief and the formation of labour unions should also be rigorously monitored.

Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200311/25691.html