(Clearwisdom.net) On February 9, 2009, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) began the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedures to look into the human rights situation in China. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is an independent review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years.á UPR was a program created by the Human Rights Council, intended for all states to use to openly show the various actions that they have taken to improve their domestic human rights situation and the challenges they have to overcome to ensure human rights.

Prior to this UPR, more than twenty independent non-governmental organizations had submitted reports on China's human rights situation to UNCHR. However, after comparing the UN summary report and the NGOs' original reports, the Conscience Foundation found that the UN summary report played down the complaints by the NGOs about the Chinese Communist Government's large-scale and systematic human rights violations against multiple groups.

In response to this discovery, the Conscience Foundation, headquartered in California, US, issued a detailed analytical report and sent a letter to the UN requesting that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) take corrective measures to ensure the credibility of the UPR of China.

The analytical report by the Conscience Foundation exposes the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) behind the scenes manipulation, and reveals the techniques that were used to present a false picture of peace and prosperity. It analyzed in detail how the CCP agents cunningly cut down the reports submitted by the international independent NGOs to cover up the CCP regime's large-scale and systematic human rights suppression against multiple groups. The Conscience Foundation pointed out that the official information provided by those groups connected to the CCP, including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Law Institute, Human Rights Research Center of Nankai University, China Tibetology Research Center, and China Disabled Persons' Federation shifted the attention and criticism of the international community away from the CCP's human rights violations.

China's domestic organizations that are attached to the Chinese Government, such as China Women's Federation and All China Federation of Trade Unions, are under the leadership of the CCP. The main contents of the reports they submitted tried to shift people's attention from China's terrible human rights records, and classified them as "technical problems." They commonly use expressions like, "Though we have made great improvements, we still face challenges," and offer suggestions on "technicality."

In response to this whitewash, the Conscience Foundation wrote an open letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, and Members of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The letter requests that Mr. Pillay investigate this incident and that the UNHRC take corrective measures to ensure the credibility of the UPR of China. At the same time the Conscience Foundation issued a press release which has been translated into five languages and reprinted worldwide on various media websites. Many human rights groups have also stepped forward to sign this letter.

Reuters also reported that Amnesty International stated that the report the Chinese Government provided to the United Nations didn't mention any persecution in China. Amnesty International in London claimed that the report provided by China intentionally omitted the crisis in Tibet, the crackdown on the Uyghur ethnic group in the western area of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the persecution of different religious groups such as Falun Gong. The report China provided avoided any controversial issues that would bring criticism from the outside world.

Link to the Conscience Foundation:
http://consciencefoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=101:an-analysis-of-the-un-ohchr-compilation-of-ngo-reports-on-the-upr-of-china&catid=55:commentary-global-concerns&Itemid=128

Chinese version available

Category: April 25 Events