China plans to improve human rights

By Li Yang

BEIJING - China will draft a new national program for human rights development for the period from 2012 to 2015 to improve people's basic rights, said Wang Chen, minister of the State Council Information Office, on Thursday.

The new national human rights action plan, the second of its type in China, will set up detailed goals and measures related to people's rights in sectors including employment, social security, health and education, Wang said at a two-day seminar in Beijing.

The first such action plan for 2009 to 2010 has been fully implemented, with all tasks completed, he said.

The seminar, themed "development and creation of Chinese human rights theory and practices", will end on Friday.

Wang urged some 70 Chinese experts on human rights studies attending the seminar to be innovative, enrich Chinese human rights theories, and make China's path of human rights development "able to be understood by more people from the international community".

Disregarding the monumental progress that China has made in human rights, some Western people still criticize the condition of human rights in China without supporting facts, experts said.

Wang said that the country will "make active responses" to the international community's concerns about China's human rights.

"The construction of Chinese human rights theories still cannot meet the requirements of modernization and Chinese human rights practices. It is important to communicate with the international human rights circle in a language that they can understand," he said.

The minister also required institutions and mass media to play a role in human rights education to raise the public's ability and awareness to defend their basic rights.

Researchers at the seminar agreed that a social consensus on respecting and protecting human rights will not only maintain social stability, but also contribute to the cause of world human rights.

Luo Haocai, chairman of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, which sponsored the seminar, said China still needs to improve legislation to balance rights and obligations and therefore better protect human rights.


(2011-8-26/China Daily)