China/Australia – trade before human rights? - 10 December 2009

On International Human Rights Day Australia should reconsider its relationship with a country that is a notorious abuser of human rights. With reports from China that prisoners of conscience are being killed for their organs and ethnic groups such as Uighurs and Tibetans are being persecuted unjustly as ‘terrorists’, Australia must act to stop the abuses.

“ Credible reports from China, including from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, suggest that practitioners of the spiritual practice Falun Gong are being killed for their organs to be sold for transplants,” says Ian Cohen, Greens MLC.

“In the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) authorites have imprisoned without trial many Uighur people who protest the brutal suppression of their culture. They have closed down mosques, detained Islamic clergy, limited the use of the Uighur language and placed severe restrictions on freedom of religion and association.

“The Chinese arrest and arbitrarily detain thousands of Uighurs on charges of “terrorism, separatism and religious extremism” as a way to contain a population that never wanted to be part of China. In the last two months, 14 people have been executed in connection with the riots that erupted after a police crackdown on Uighur protesters in Xianjing in July.

“China’s appalling human rights abuses in Tibet are always aggressively denied. Pressure on foreign governments against the Dalai Lama’s visits is an indication of China’s aggressive and intolerant attitude toward its ethnic minority groups.

“Australian authorities are aware of the human rights abuses in China. The Dalai Lama visited last week and Nobel Peace Prize nominee and celebrated Uighur human rights activist Ms Rebiya Kadeer has visited Australia and given evidence of what is happening there.

There are many Australian residents who are Falun Gong practitioners and former Chinese citizens who fled persecution and have direct experience of the torture and abuse in the appalling labour camps where they experienced ‘re-education through labour’.

“I support the action of four Australian Falun Gong victims who are bringing lawsuits against high-ranking Chinese officials in the NSW Supreme Court. I hope it shows China that Australians are watching and that the rule of law does not tolerate human rights abuses.

”As a major trading partner, Australia is hesitant to raise human rights issues with the Chinese Government. Yet the Harper administration in Canada has made public criticisms of China on human rights and, on analysis, the trade relationship between the two nations remains unchanged. Trade interests should not be made more important than human rights abuses and the Canada example shows that we can talk about human rights and still do business.

“The bystanders of the Holocaust have been judged by history. Will Australia stand by and allow persecution, torture, concentration camps and murder for the ‘crime’ of practising a spiritual discipline or being from a different ethnic group?”