Amnesty International Steps Up Pressure on China

[SidDithers]

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-08-voa60.cfm

Amnesty International is stepping up its criticism of China's human rights record as the opening of the summer Olympic Games approaches. With just three months to go before the opening ceremony, Amnesty said Thursday that China is intensifying its crackdown on human rights activists and those critical of the Beijing government. VOA correspondent Meredith Buel reports from Washington.

T. Kumar, the Advocacy Director for Asia at Amnesty International, told reporters during a teleconference that there has been a significant erosion of human rights in China as the beginning of the games approaches.

"It is only three months until the Olympic Games begin in Beijing and China's human rights landscape remains as bleak as ever. In fact hosting the Olympic games has become a thinly veiled excuse to crackdown on freedom of expression and assembly," he said.

Kumar says a quarter of a million people have been arrested and held without charges or trial in labor camps during China's so-called patriotic re-education campaign.

emphasis added

But, hey! The Olympic Torch was carried to the top of Everest by a Tibetan woman! (who then unfurled a Chinese flag)

Sid

[Kaleko]

1. Patriotic re-education slave labor camps

You know almost every one of us here would be eligible if we were Chinese...

[SidDithers]

2. A single self-serving kick...nt

Sid