Beijing thwarting international organisation’s actions to monitor and protect rights, according to Human Rights Watch
A human rights group said in a report on Tuesday that China has tried to intimidate, blacklist and suppress the voices of rights advocates who operate within the UN system, calling on Beijing to stop such pressure and urging UN agencies to resist.
In the Human Rights Watch report, the group’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, said China’s influence and crackdown on civil society at home “make it a model of bad faith that challenges the integrity of the UN rights system”.
The New York-based group said the report was based on interviews with 55 people including UN officials, diplomats and civil society representatives, conducted between May 2016 and March. China holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and has growing economic and political clout.
China did not immediately comment on the report.
How China buys the silence of the world’s human rights critics
The report said that some UN officials have pushed back at “improper Chinese pressure” at times, while they “have capitulated” at others. It points to detention, travel restrictions and reprisals faced by Chinese activists, as well as efforts to hinder supporters of the Dalai Lama when he travels even within the vicinity of UN venues. It also cited efforts to minimise possible opposition to Chinese leaders.
In one instance, the group said, UN officials sent home many of the 3,000 staff members at the UN Geneva campus during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Switzerland in January and barred NGOs from attending his speech there.
The report, in essence, pieces together individual incidents into a broader whole to suggest that China is thwarting efforts to monitor and protect human rights – not just in China but abroad, too. It cites examples of China failing to ratify language on protection of individuals, working to slash funding for human rights officers in UN peacekeeping missions and refusing to affirm civil society’s role in a 2015 resolution at the UN Human Rights Council on public health.
“Taken individually, many of China’s actions against NGOs might be viewed as an annoyance or an irritant, ” the report said. “But taken together, they amount to what appears to be a systematic attempt to subvert the ability of the UN human rights system to confront abuses in China and beyond.”
The group also warns about China serving as an example that other countries might follow.
“China’s efforts to subvert the UN human rights system also need to be scrutinised because they have been adopted by other countries. China should not become a model for others that hope to hobble or obstruct UN human rights bodies, ” it said. “The dangers to human rights posed by an assertive China at the UN are likely to increase as the rights situation in China under President Xi [Jinping] worsens.”
Isolated, tortured and mentally scarred … the plight of China’s persecuted human rights lawyers
Keith Harper, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, said Beijing “absolutely” had the ability to intimidate other countries into keeping quiet about its human rights record.
“China’s response could be crippling economically and other countries know that, ” Harper said. “China will be very clear that if you vote against them, they deeply care about China’s interests and they will take steps to punish countries. Given their power economically – in Africa, for example – that matters.”
Harper said the United States all but stood alone in criticising China’s rights record, or at least leading group criticism about it, as in a council session in March 2016 when he spoke out.
“Other counties feel that they can do it as a group – whereas they can’ t be singled out, ” said Harper. “There has to be one country that has to take the leadership, and the US is the only one who can do that.”
He noted how Norway, a rich developed country, faced reaction from China that was “quite hostile for a long time” after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo in 2010 to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Liu died in Chinese custody in July.

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GENEVA (AP) — Former overall World Cup champion Lara Gut has targeted races in North America to make her comeback from a serious knee injury at the world championships. Gut posted video on Instagram of…
GENEVA (AP) — Former overall World Cup champion Lara Gut has targeted races in North America to make her comeback from a serious knee injury at the world championships.
Gut posted video on Instagram of herself skiing in training with the message: “I’ m back on the snow.” She heads to Chile next week to train.
The 26-year-old Swiss star will skip a giant slalom in Austria next month. The Olympic downhill bronze medalist could return Nov. 25 at a giant slalom in Killington, Vermont. The first downhill is Dec. 1 in Lake Louise, Canada.
Gut ruptured her left ACL in February by crashing in slalom warmups for the combined medal event in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
The injury ensured she lost her overall World Cup title to American rival Mikaela Shiffrin.
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Russia’s Putin condemns North Korea’s nuclear test as provocation, stops short of supporting more sanctions.
Latest on North Korea’s nuclear test and the world reaction (all times local) :
1: 15 p.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test as provocation.
North Korea’s detonation of a hydrogen bomb on Sunday marked its most powerful nuclear test to date.
Putin said Tuesday at a news conference in China that Russia saw the test as „provocative.“ But he stopped short of expressing support for imposing more U. N. sanctions on North Korea, and said Russia viewed them as „useless and ineffective.“
Putin said it was „ridiculous“ that the United States first slapped Russia with sanctions carried in the same bill that penalized North Korea, and „then asked us to help impose sanctions on North Korea.“
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noon
Japanese lawmakers are demanding tougher U. N. sanctions on North Korea, after it conducted a sixth nuclear test over the weekend.
The resolution by Japan’s parliamentary committee condemns the nuclear test, and urges the Japanese government to take leadership in pushing for tougher punishment against Pyongyang, as measures are being discussed at the United Nations Security Council.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono told lawmakers it was time to increase pressure on North Korea and eliminate loopholes that allow some countries to continue trading with Pyongyang.
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A plan President Donald Trump is expected to announce to remove a shield from deportation for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children is being embraced by some top…
WASHINGTON (AP) – A plan President Donald Trump is expected to announce to remove a shield from deportation for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children is being embraced by some top Republicans and denounced by others as the beginning of a „civil war“ within the party.
The response was an immediate illustration of the potential battles ahead if Trump follows through with a plan that would hand a political hot potato to Republicans on the Hill who have a long history of dropping it.
Two people familiar with Trump’s decision making said Sunday that the president was preparing to announce an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, but with a six-month delay intended to give Congress time to pass legislation that would address the status of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants covered by the program.
The White House has said Trump’s decision would be announced Tuesday. The Justice Department announced late Monday that Attorney General Jeff Session would address the program at a morning briefing.
Trump’s decision would come after a long and notably public deliberation. Despite campaigning as an immigration hard-liner, Trump has said he is sympathetic to the plight of the immigrants who came to the U. S. illegally as children and in some cases have no memories of the countries they were born in.
But such an approach – essentially kicking the can down the road and letting Congress deal with it- is fraught with uncertainty and political perils that amount, according to one vocal opponent, to „Republican suicide.“
Still other Republicans say they are ready to take on a topic that has proven a non-starter and career-breaker for decades.
„If President Trump makes this decision we will work to find a legislative solution to their dilemma, “ said Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham.
Officials caution that Trump’s plan is not yet finalized, and the president, who has been grappling with the issue for months, has been known to change his mind at the last minute ahead of an announcement. It also remains unclear exactly how a six-month delay would work in practice, including whether the government would continue to process applications under the program, which has given nearly 800,000 young immigrants a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the country in the form of two-year, renewable permits.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and a handful of other Republicans urged Trump last week to hold off on scrapping DACA to give lawmakers time to come up with a legislative fix.
But Congress has repeatedly tried – and failed – to come together on immigration overhaul legislation, and it remains uncertain whether the House would succeed in passing anything on the divisive topic.
The House under Democratic control passed a Dream Act in 2010, but it died in the Senate. Since Republicans retook control of the House in late 2010, it has taken an increasingly hard line on immigration. House Republicans refused to act on the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill in 2013. Two years later, a GOP border security bill languished because of objections from conservatives.
Many House Republicans represent highly conservative districts, and if the president goes through with the six-month delay – creating a March deadline – the pressure is likely to be amplified as primary races intensify ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
One cautionary tale: the primary upset of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to a conservative challenger in 2014 in a campaign that cast him as soft on illegal immigration. That loss convinced many House Republicans that pro-immigrant stances could cost them politically.
The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 as a stopgap as they pushed unsuccessfully for a broader immigration overhaul in Congress. Many Republicans say they opposed the program on the grounds that it was executive overreach.
Legislation to legalize the so-called Dreamers has been lingering in Congress for years, with a handful of bills currently pending in the House and Senate.
The one that has received the most attention, introduced by Sens. Graham, R-S. C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would grant permanent legal status to more than 1 million young people who arrived in the United States before they turned 18, passed security checks and met other criteria, including enrolling in college, joining the military or finding jobs.
It’s unclear, however, whether the president would throw his support behind that or any other existing legislation. He could encourage the writing of a new bill – tied, perhaps, to funding for his promised border wall or other concessions like a reduction in legal immigration levels. But it’s unclear how much political capital the president would want to put on the line given his base’s strong opposition to illegal immigration, his campaign rhetoric blasting DACA as illegal „amnesty“ and his reluctance to campaign hard for other priorities, like health care overhaul.
Graham said in a statement Monday that he would support the president if he decided ultimately to go through with the plan as outlined.
„I have always believed DACA was a presidential overreach. However, I equally understand the plight of the Dream Act kids who – for all practical purposes – know no country other than America, “ Graham said in a statement.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., agreed, saying that it should be up to Congress, not the White House, to set immigration policy.
„We must confront the nation’s out-of-date immigration policy and finally resolve the issues of strong border enforcement and merit immigration, “ he said. „It is right for there to be consequences for those who intentionally entered this country illegally. However, we as Americans do not hold children legally accountable for the actions of their parents.“
But Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who believes that DACA is unconstitutional, warned that pushing the decision to Congress would be a big mistake.
„That would cause a great big civil war among the Republicans, “ he said last week. „We’ve got enough of never-Trumpers in Congress that are undermining the president’s agenda.“
„Ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide, “ he added on Twitter late Sunday night.
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Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
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