The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, has appealed to China to "seriously review" its controversial "re-education through labour" camps used to detain dissidents including members of the banned Falun Gong movement.
Opening a two-day seminar on punishment of minor crimes in Beijing, Mrs Robinson said the idea of using forced labour as a punishment was against the accepted international human rights principles embodied in many international instruments.
There was no official comment to Mrs Robinson's call last night but a senior government official is due to hold a press conference on Falun Gong in Beijing today. Mrs Robinson is expected to expand on her views on China's human rights record at a media briefing.
The practice of sending people to labour camps without trial has been in place for nearly 50 years, and human rights activists yesterday welcomed Mrs Robinson's comments.
The New York-based Human Rights in China group said it was very happy that she made this strong statement at the workshop and was "standing with the people inside China who are looking at this issue".
The groups issued a report last week, which quoted Chinese sources as saying 260,000 people were in labour camps, 60 per cent of them for "disturbing public order".
Falun Gong claims that 5,000 members of the spiritual group, banned in China since 1999, are in labour camps.
The Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister, Mr Wang Guangya, said at the punishment seminar yesterday that no country's human rights record was 100 per cent perfect. "We hope not only to work hard to improve our record, but to learn from the experience of other countries."
Earlier, Mrs Robinson was briefed on China's position on human rights by Mr Li Tieying, a member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
She was also sent a letter yesterday from pro-democracy activists appealing to her to ask the Chinese government to grant medical parole to a prominent jailed dissident, Mr Xu Wenli.
Mr Xu has served two years of a 13-year jail sentence for his role in the short-lived opposition China Democracy Party. He is said to be in bad health.
Meanwhile, China is likely to ratify a key UN covenant on economic, social and cultural rights during Mrs Robinson's visit this week.