U.S. accuses China, N. Korea of human rights abuses

Asian Political News, April 7, 2003

WASHINGTON, March 31 Kyodo

The United States on Monday accused China and North Korea of continuing numerous and serious human rights abuses while slamming Iraq's human rights record as extremely poor amid the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

In its annual report on human rights practices for 2002, the U.S. State Department said China took some steps to address international concerns about its human rights record, including allowing several senior envoys from Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit the country and welcoming officials from U.N. watchdogs of torture and religious tolerance.

''Late in the year, these 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,'' the report says.

The report also says there continued to be reports of ''extrajudicial killings and disappearances'' in North Korea.

Citizens were detained arbitrarily and many were held as political prisoners, and prison conditions were harsh and torture was reportedly common, the report says.

''Female prisoners underwent forced abortions and in other cases babies reportedly were killed upon birth in prisons,'' it says.

The report says there were long-standing reports of past government involvement in the kidnapping abroad of South Koreans, Japanese and other foreign nationals.

It mentions North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's admission last September that North Korean agents had abducted 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.

There is speculation that many more Japanese residents have been abducted by North Korea, though it is not officially confirmed by Tokyo or Pyongyang, the report says.

On Iraq, the report says security forces ''routinely tortured, beat, raped and otherwise abused detainees.''

Releasing the report at a news conference, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, ''(Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein's regime is a classic illustration of the fact that such regimes, which ruthlessly violate the rights of their citizens, tend to pose the greatest threats to international peace and stability.''