Amnesty International: “Human Rights Issues should be the Core Topic for Discussion between the EU and the Chinese Premier.”

On the Monday, before the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao went to Gravenage to attend the EU summit meeting that was held on 7th and 8th of December, Amnesty International head office in London had published a press release regarding the human rights problems in China. The statement indicated that currently the human rights conditions in China have not been improved and that the leaders of the European Union should raise this issue when meeting the Chinese leader this week.

At the beginning of this month in Holland, Falun Gong practitioners filed a lawsuit against the Chinese Communist Party officials’ conduct of seriously infringing upon Falun Gong practitioners’ human rights. According to a report from Radio France Internationale on the 4th of December, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao arrived in Gravenage on the 7th of December to attend the EU-China summit meeting. On Thursday, Falun Gong practitioners filed a lawsuit at a Dutch court against Jiang Zemin, Bo Xilai and Li Lanqing. They are accused of committing Genocide and crimes of cruel torture against Falun Gong practitioners, including two Dutch Falun Gong practitioners.

According to information from the Minghui website, there are several Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured to death during November this year. From July 1999, when Jiang Zemin’s political scoundrels started to openly persecute Falun Gong, till the 30th of November 2004, it has been proved that 1150 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death.

In November the British Government indicated through the annual Human Rights Report: “The UK Government continues to have serious concerns about basic human rights in China...We also remain concerned at reports of the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners in detention and have raised this during the dialogue.” It said in the report: “Our on-going concerns include: the extensive use of the death penalty; the use of torture; the continuing harassment of political dissidents, religious practitioners and adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual movement...”

In addition, according to Radio Free Asia’s report: the prime minister Wen Jiabao will ask the European Union to release the munitions sale prohibition that applied to China for the past fifteen years. With the rapid development of the Chinese economy, the European Union’s unceasing wish is to build up a closer relationship with China. Therefore the human rights organisations worry that the European Union will pursue economic benefit more than the concern about the human rights during the development of bilateral relations.

Amnesty International Press Officer Oliver Sutton told Radio Free Asia that Amnesty hopes the European Union can raise the human rights problems to the Chinese leader Wen Jiabao. He continued, “The human rights issue should be the core topic for discussion between the European Union and the Chinese Prime minister. The European Union should urge China not to encroach on human rights activists and should not arrest and detain them. They also ask China to release all detained human rights activists.”