The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, was yesterday embroiled in a war of words with China over its human rights record and treatment of members of the banned spiritual Falun Gong movement.
At the end of a two-day visit to Beijing, Mrs Robinson repeated her call for China to abolish its "re-education through labour camps", used to detain dissidents and Falun Gong members without trial.
But China, which was also heavily criticised yesterday by the US State Department in its annual human rights report, hit back, claiming that Mrs Robinson did not understand the dangers of Falun Gong.
In its report, the US State Department said China's human rights record deteriorated last year, with the country continuing to commit numerous and serious abuses. It condemned China's crackdown on Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong and underground Christians and the harsh treatment of political dissidents.
At a press conference, the head of the State Council Office for the Prevention and Handling of Cults, Mr Liu Jing, said of Mrs Robinson: "I think her problem is that she has too little understanding of the Falun Gong cult." He said that in the re-education camps people were treated the way teachers treat students and doctors treat patients.
Mr Liu claimed Falun Gong was responsible for the deaths of 1,600 people, of whom 139 had committed suicide as a result of the "heresies" of its leader, Mr Li Hongzhi.
At a media briefing later, Mrs Robinson said she had raised her concerns about the treatment of Falun Gong members with several Chinese leaders in the last two days. She was in Beijing to attend a seminar on punishment of minor crimes cosponsored by China and the High Commission on Human Rights.
She said she urged the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr Tang Jiaxuan, to have several individual cases of abuse investigated, including the case of a jailed prominent dissident, Mr Xu Wenli. Her office had received complaints of the ill-treatment and torture of "thousands" of Falun Gong members, including allegations of deaths.
While the foreign minister defended the controversial system of re-education through labour, he agreed to look into the case of Mr Xu.
Mrs Robinson said she was also told by Foreign Minister Tang that the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was likely to be ratified "without reservations or with as little reservation as possible" by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, possibly today.
The high commissioner said the use of forced labour as a punishment was against accepted international human rights principles, embodied in many international instruments.
She said she was aware of the timing of her visit and the fact that the International Olympic Committee had just been to Beijing on an inspection tour. "A country always wants to put on a good face when looking for the Olympics so I built in that factor," she said. She said she got the sense of a genuine engagement by the Chinese "for their own reasons".
Mrs Robinson said she wanted to encourage China to review its punishment of minor crimes taking into account international standards. Due process was necessary before a person was deprived of their liberty, she added.
A Chinese State Council statement last night denounced as "arbitrary interference" the US State Department human rights report. It said it wanted to "dispel the myth of American democracy". It highlighted US violence and what it called unfair judicial practices, the gap between rich and poor, gender and racial discrimination and poor treatment of children and minorities in the US.