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Beijing attacks Amnesty for anti-China prejudice (Adds comments by China's Foreign Ministry)

BEIJING: Only hours after Amnesty International attacked China's human-rights record in its first news conference in the country on Tuesday, Beijing accused the group of harbouring deep prejudices against China.

In the past two weeks, China has executed 16 people as part of a security operation in the name of making its capital safe for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, which opens on Monday, Pierre Sane, secretary-general of the London-based human-rights group, told reporters.

"We have heard virtually every excuse from governments to justify human-rights violations but this is simply unbelievable," he said. "To welcome the world to Beijing, must people die?"

China has a grave human-rights record, Sane said.

It was common for dissidents to be arrested and people to be executed before major festivals and international and political events in China, as well as at other times, he said.

Repression of prominent dissidents and human-rights activists has intensified since 1994, with scores held without charges and members of religious groups who refuse to join official churches harassed, fined or detained, he added.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian told a regular news briefing that Amnesty's allegations were groundless. "It is an organisation that has always harboured deep prejudices against China," he said.

He suggested Amnesty was abusing the privilege of coming to China to participate in a non-governmental forum on women.

"Any organisation or individual that attends the U.N. conference on women should not use it as an opportunity to interfere in China's internal affairs," Chen said. "Of course, this applies to Amnesty International too."

Amnesty is in Beijing to attend both the non-governmental forum and the U.N. conference that will debate and approve a blueprint for action to promote women's rights and status.

It is the first time Beijing has allowed members of the human-rights organisation to enter China openly.

Beijing dismisses accusations by Amnesty and other Western human-rights groups, saying they amount to interference in its internal affairs and ignore its achievements in feeding and clothing 20 percent of the world's population.

Sane said Amnesty held consultative status with the United Nations and had taken part in all regular preparatory meetings for the U.N. conference. It would have been very odd not to allow Amnesty to come to Beijing, he said.

Amnesty staff said they had been treated the same as other NGO participants, although their bags had been inspected at the apartments in a Beijing suburb where some were staying, while those of most other delegates had not.

They were allowed to keep all the documents they brought in, including those in Chinese, they said.

Amnesty had written to the government to ask for a chance to raise its concerns directly with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Ministry of Justice during its visit, Sane said.

Amnesty also wants a specific commitment that torture by state agents was one of the most common forms of violence suffered by women and that any state agent suspected of being responsible for torture be brought to justice.

Amnesty is in Beijing to address human-rights of women not only in China but all over the world, he added.-Reuter