May 12, 2004

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The Abu Ghraib incident is having wider ramifications.

China announced a campaign to weed out government officials who torture and maltreat prisoners, the latest in a string of moves apparently aimed at the United States over the abuse of Iraqi inmates.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate said it would investigate and punish anyone who "commits crimes connected with infringement of human rights"...the campaign would focus on five key human rights areas including illegal detention, torture and maltreatment of prisoners, and malpractices that cause serious losses of people's lives and property.

In an unusually frank admission, the Procuratorial Daily said 1,064 cases of human rights violations by officials were carried out last year, largely illegal detention and police extorting confessions through torture. It said 66 people died or were injured in these cases, without going into details.

At the same time China is putting out stories expressing outrage on the Iraq prison abuse. In an attempt to gain the "upper hand" in the morality stakes they end up looking hypocritical instead. 66 people died through prison abuse according to China's own figures - no doubt the real number is higher. Clamping down on prison abuse is to be applauded and can be seen as the silver lining in the cloud. As always there is great irony of China taking the US to task on human rights issues.

The problem is I don't recall China being in a war. These are regular prisoners, not prisoners of war. That's not to excuse the abuse in Iraq, merely to set each in context.

posted by Simon on 05.12.04 at 07:15 PM in the




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Comments:

It's just China taking a mick out of the US.

posted by: Adam Morris on 05.12.04 at 09:12 PM [permalink]

It's only been a couple of days since I posted a story on the alleged death of a woman at the hands of police. "31 year old woman beaten to death"

You mentioned "no doubt the real number is higher" It is a common practice for severely injured "detainees" to be released so that they die away from the prison/police system as in this young woman's case. As well you always have the ubiquitous "falling down stairs/out of windows" and "pneumonia" deaths that are not caught in "official statistics"

It is obvious that they are attempting to "stick it to" the Americans but if such shallow point scoring saves just one life then they can stay on this particular "high horse" for as long as they like.

posted by: Stephen Sullivan on 05.12.04 at 10:24 PM [permalink]




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