BEIJING—China's human rights record has deteriorated in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, with thousands of people being executed after unfair trials, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
The human rights watchdog sent its latest findings to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and said Chinese authorities would have to act quickly if they were to fulfil their pledges to improve matters.
"The serious human rights abuses that continue to be reported every day across the country fly in the face of the promises the Chinese government made when it was bidding for the Olympics," Amnesty's Catherine Baber said in a statement.
Beijing's campaign to host the 2008 Olympics was shadowed by criticism of its rights record from international groups and Western capitals. The Beijing committee pledged that by allowing the city to host the Games, the International Olympic Committee would help advance human rights in China.
But Amnesty said that was not happening.
With less than 700 days to go before the Games, Amnesty said in a report that the Chinese government needed to work fast to make good on its promises to the Olympic movement.
Media Suppression
Amnesty said the past year had seen a renewed crackdown on journalists and Internet users in China, undermining pledges by Beijing's bid committee to give reporters full freedom.
It also said grassroots activists, including those working with residents forcibly evicted from buildings on Olympic construction sites, were harassed and imprisoned.
It said reform of China's system of "re-education through labour" – a kind of imprisonment without trial that Chinese legal reformers say should be scrapped –might actually be hindered by Beijing's preparations for the event.
"The forthcoming Olympic Games may be acting as an incentive for the authorities to retain the system in the name of maintaining public order in Beijing," the report said.
Amnesty called on the IOC to use its sway to hasten change before 2008, but the committee said it was not its place to pressure governments.
"It is unrealistic to expect the IOC to pressure on such complex matters," its communications director, Giselle Davies, told Reuters.
"It is premature to say China has failed to live up to the promises two years before the Games."
But Corinna-Barbara Francis, a China researcher for Amnesty International, said the group was not seeing the progress it hoped for.
"We have certainly been disappointed given the expectations we had and the promises made by the Chinese authorities," she told Reuters.
