Madam, - The Taoiseach's suggestion, as reported in your January 19th edition, that China is improving on human rights "in the best way that it can" ignores the fact that no significant attempt is being made to introduce the fundamental legal and institutional reforms necessary to end the very serious human rights violations. There is no difference between Ireland's and China's obligations on human rights, nor their understanding of same. To suggest otherwise is utterly disingenuous.
Tens of thousands of people continue to be detained or imprisoned in violation of their rights to freedom of expression and association. Such cases include doctors who want to highlight the enormous threat of HIV/AIDS, and people who simply want to practise their Christian, Muslim or other faiths. And in all cases, such people are at serious risk of torture, ill-treatment and even death while imprisoned. In many ways the situation is, if anything, getting worse.
Also, bear in mind that China executes over 10,000 people every year. Tax fraud is punishable by sentence of death.
The arguments the Taoiseach raised relating to the cultural relativism of human rights have long been discredited and demolished. China signed up to the Vienna Declaration after the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 and formally recommitted to the universality of rights. The Taoiseach would do well to ask Ding Zilin, one of the Mothers of Tiananmen, who was detained last March in an attempt to silence her quest for justice, if she accepts the argument that she should enjoy lesser human rights than Irish people do.
And to use these flawed assumptions to suggest that the time is coming to end the EU arms embargo imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1993 is seriously misplaced. No one has been held to account by the Chinese government for the thousands of people killed, injured, or arbitrarily detained. Unknown numbers are still in detention - and as we know, political detention in China generally involves torture and inhuman treatment. The terror of Tiananmen hasn't gone away - in fact it is being reproduced daily in many parts of the country, such as Henan, Tibet and Uighur.
Yes to engaging with China, yes to developing as positive a relationship as possible, including trade and educational exchanges. But no to misrepresenting or ignoring the plight of millions of people who depend on us to influence change. Ireland's relationship with China is not only about money, and the Taoiseach should not pretend that changes have taken place when they categorically have not. - Yours, etc.,
COLM Ó CUANACHÁIN, Secretary General, Amnesty International Irish Section, Dublin 2.