MCLC: intellectuals urge ratifying rights treaty

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: intellectuals urge ratifying rights treaty
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (2/26/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/world/asia/chinese-intellectuals-urge-rat
ification-of-rights-treaty.html

Chinese Intellectuals Urge Ratifying Rights Treaty
By CHRIS BUCKLEYPublished: February 26, 2013

HONG KONG — More than 100 Chinese scholars, journalists, lawyers and
writers urged their national legislature on Tuesday to ratify a major
human rights treaty, in the latest challenge from intellectuals seeking to
curtail arbitrary Communist Party power.

The petition calling on the party-controlled National People’s Congress to
ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
<http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/iccpr/iccpr.html> came a week before
the congress holds its annual full session, which is to install Xi Jinping
as China’s president, succeeding Hu Jintao.

Copies of the document appeared on Chinese blogging Web sites and Internet
forums, but were often often removed and quickly reappeared. It was
unclear whether government censors demanded the removals.

The proposal “was originally intended for a Thursday release through a
prominent Chinese newspaper,” David Bandurski, a researcher at the China
Media Project of Hong Kong University, wrote in a comment on a translation
of the petition. “Authorities, however, learned of the letter by late
Monday and the authors had no choice but to release it to the public” on
Tuesday, Mr. Bandurski wrote, citing unnamed sources.

Ratification of the treaty would “promote and realize the principles of a
country based on human rights and a China governed by its Constitution,”
the petition said. “We fear that due to the lack of nurturing of human
rights and absence of fundamental reverence and assurances for
individuals’ freedom, rights and dignity, if a full-scale crisis breaks
out, the whole society will collapse into hatred and brutality.”

The call, also circulated by e-mail, carried the names of 121 backers,
including several who said they lived in Hong Kong or Macau.

The petition was the latest display of the demands for political change
confronting China’s new leadership. Several people who signed it said they
hoped to press Mr. Xi and his colleagues to live up to vows of greater
respect for the rule of law and citizens’ rights that Mr. Xi and other
officials have made since he became Communist Party leader in November,
when Mr. Hu retired from that post.

“This has become increasingly important because on the one hand violations
of rights have become so common, while on the other hand citizens’
awareness of their rights has risen sharply,” said Cui Weiping, a
translator and essayist in Beijing who signed the petition. “This proposal
is really quite mild,” said Ms. Cui, who formerly taught at the Beijing
Film Academy. “I see this as giving the government a chance to show that
it is willing to make improvements.”

Since Mr. Xi came to power, Chinese advocates of political liberalization
have urged the Communist Party to abide by the Constitution, which in
theory offers some protection of free speech and other rights. Some reform
advocates see some signs of hope in the government’s vow to overhaul
“re-education through labor,” which is used to jail citizens without
trials, and some point to Mr. Xi’s own promises of greater official
accountability.

“Any organization or individual must act within the scope of the
Constitution and the laws,” Mr. Xi said Saturday at a meeting of the
Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo, the official Xinhua news agency
reported.

Mr. Xi has, however, also said that the top-down, one-party rule must
remain sacrosanct, and the drafters of the petition took care not to
challenge the party directly, instead calling on it to live up to past
vows to respect citizens’ rights.

“This is an important moment when the new leadership has expressed its
commitment to rule of law, and we want those words to be acted on,” said
He Weifang, a professor of law at Peking University and a prominent
advocate of political liberalization, who confirmed he signed the petition.

But the Chinese government appears reluctant to ratify the treaty, despite
saying over many years that it was preparing to do so, said Nicholas
Bequelin, a senior researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch.

The Chinese government signed the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights in 1998, but ratification by the legislature would bring
greater international scrutiny through a monitoring committee, Mr.
Bequelin said.

The covenant came into force in 1976, and 167 states are party to it. Yet
even North Korea has acceded to the treaty, with no discernible
improvement in its harsh treatment of its people, Mr. Bequelin said.

“What is at stake in ratification for the Chinese government is not so
much the international legal obligations that would come, but rather the
domestic pressures to live up to its own promises,” he said.