RP human rights record improving

The Philippines has made great strides towards establishing a rule of law and individual rights, a US State Department report said in its annual survey of human rights around the world.

The 2001 Country Report on Human Rights released Monday noted that Manila was in general respectful of human rights, making a distinction between the government and "members of the security services" which it said were responsible for extra judicial killings, disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrest and detentions.

Hong Kong also earned notice for its satisfactory human rights record, though China’s record remained spotty as with Myanmar’s and Vietnam’s.

As to the conflict in the Philippines, where US troops are deployed in support of local military troops, the report said: "A number of armed clashes took place during the year; several involved human rights abuses by insurgent, separatist and government forces."

Hong Kong, the former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in July 1997, "enjoys a high degree of autonomy except in defense and foreign affairs and remains a free society with legally protected rights," the survey said.

China has failed to improve its human rights record and remains quick to suppress any group seen as a threat to the government, said the US State Department report that also slammed rights abuses in Myanmar and Vietnam.

"Citizens who sought to express openly dissenting political and religious views (in China) continued to live in an environment filled with repression," it noted in its survey.

The report also decried abuses such as "extra-judicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process."

Harsh prison conditions, severe restrictions on freedom of assembly and of the press, and China’s attitude toward its minority Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs were also criticized.

"They have chosen to label all those... that advocate greater freedom as terrorists, and we don’t think that’s correct," said Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for human rights, on releasing the survey.

The report also gave poor grades to Myanmar and Vietnam as well as mixed reviews to Indonesia and Cambodia.

In Vietnam, "the government’s poor human rights record worsened in some respects and it continued to commit numerous, serious abuses," including arbitrary arrests and beatings, the report charged.

The government significantly restricts freedom of speech, the press, and assembly, and continued not to tolerate most types of public dissent.

Moreover, it said, the authorities continued to deny citizens the right to change their government.

The report equally condemned Burma’s "extremely poor" human rights record and severe repression of its citizens, who are subject to "the arbitrary and sometimes brutal dictates of the military."

As in Vietnam, citizens do not have the right to change their government, and are arbitrarily arrested for expressing dissenting political views, it said. Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, continued to be held under house arrest throughout the year.