Extending protection

By Yuan Yuan

White paper acknowledges environmentalism as key to human rights protection

China has adopted environmental protection as a basic national policy and the country has combined its human rights endeavors with economic, political, cultural,social and ecological development, said China’s latest human rights report.

The State Council Information Office released the Progress in China’s Human Rights in 2012 white paper on May 14. The emphasis on human rights protection in ecology is one of the highlights of the document.

It is China’s 10th white paper on human rights since 1991, detailing the world’s most populous country’s progress in human rights protection in economic, political and social development. The document also addresses cultural services and ecological progress, as well as foreign exchanges and cooperation.

“The country’s first white paper prioritized people’s rights to subsistence and development,” Zhang Wanhong, an associate professor at the Public Interest and Development Law Institute of Wuhan University, told China Radio International. “Now great importance has been attached to ecological civilization, cultural development and social construction.”

Ecological civilization is a Chinese expression referring to environmental progress.

“It shows the Chinese Government is getting increasingly closer to the actual demands of society in terms of ensuring and developing human rights,” said Zhang.

Broader rights

Faced with increasing resource constraints,severe environmental pollution and degradation of the ecosystems, China is working to raise awareness of the need to respect, accommodate and protect nature and to give high priority to making ecological progress and incorporating it as a primary goal of the government.

“The government has realized it has to be far-sighted when it comes to the protection of human rights,” said Zhou Wei, Director of Sichuan University’s Center for Human Rights Law.

During the 11th Five-Year Plan period(2006-10), China’s fiscal investment in environmental and ecological protection was 3.71 times that during the previous five years, according to the white paper.

Moreover, the Central Government has earmarked special funds for projects such as rural environmental protection and integrated prevention and control of heavy metal contamination in some key areas. Legal and policy frameworks have been established to protect citizens’ environmental rights.

Meanwhile, routine monitoring of surface water, air quality, soil acidity, dust storms, sources of drinking water, oceans and urban noise has been further tightened.

“Environmental protection matters to the human rights of not only our generation, but generations to come,” said Zhang Yonghe,a professor at the Center for Education and Study of Human Rights under the Southwest University of Political Science and Law.

The white paper also says that practical measures have been taken to ensure citizens’right to know and to be heard.

Government information, such as budgets and expenses, has become more accessible to the public. The Communist Party of China has continued to press ahead with making Party affairs public and established a spokesperson system for Party committees.

The Internet has become an important channel for citizens to exercise their rights to know, participate, be heard and supervise, said the white paper.

“Rapid development of information technology has given the public greater power to acquire information and express their opinions,”said Song Jianwu, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law.

To safeguard online information security and protect citizens’ legitimate rights and interests, China’s top legislature approved the Decision on Strengthening Online Information Protection in December 2012.

An important milestone in the development of China’s human rights was the formation of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics in 2010, according to the paper. The legal system “ensures that the country’s human rights protection is done within the framework of the law.”

In 2012, “respecting and protecting human rights” was added to the amended Criminal Procedure Law. The white paper described the addition as an example of major progress in human rights protection and of great significance in punishing criminals, protecting the public and safeguarding citizens’ right to litigation.

In the judicial field, China has enforced strict controls over and prudently applied the death penalty. Thirteen economic and non-violent crimes were no longer designated as capital of-fenses in 2011, reducing the number of crimes for which a defendant could be sentenced to death by nearly 20 percent.

By the end of 2012, nearly 2,400 of detention centers had established a security risk assessment and ranking mechanism for detainees, and over 2,500 had set up channels for handling complaints. These figures respectively represent 89 and 94 percent of China’s total number of detention centers.

“The supervision of powerful departments,such as detention centers, should be enhanced to avoid abnormal deaths of detainees,” said Zhang Wanhong. “There are lawyers’ offices in some detention houses that provide judicial aid for the detainees in some regions, and such practices should be encouraged.”

Livelihood improvement

Marked improvement has been made in public services, education and social security. Medical care coverage has been expanded and cultural services have been made more equitable, according to the white paper.

In 2012, the annual per-capita net income for both urban and rural residents increased,hefty investment was directed to poverty reduction programs, housing conditions were improved for both urban and rural residents and the state made proactive efforts to boost employment.

The country has realized full coverage of basic old-age insurance and basic medical care for both urban and rural residents.

On average, the basic pension for each enterprise retiree has been raised from 700 yuan($114) in 2004 to 1,721 yuan ($280) per month last year.

More needy people in rural areas and members of ethnic minority groups have benefited from the government’s poverty reduction efforts.

The government raised the national poverty line to an average annual per-capita income of 2,300 yuan ($374) in 2011, and by this criterion more low-income people have been included in poverty reduction programs.

In 2012, the Central Government spent almost 300 billion yuan ($49 billion) on comprehensive poverty reduction programs, and by the end of 2012 the size of the impoverished population in rural China had decreased to 99 million according to the new criterion, 23 million fewer than that at the end of 2011.

Medical insurance of various types covers over 1.3 billion people. Now 190 million people have access to national work-related injury insurance, an increase of 13 million people compared with 2011.

In 2012, while introducing pilot medical care programs for eight serious diseases such as uremia and childhood leukemia, the state also listed 12 other serious diseases such as lung, esophageal and gastric cancers into the pilot medical care programs, with the maximum reimbursement rate reaching 90 percent.

China has amended a number of laws related to workers’ rights including the Labor Contract Law and the Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Occupational Diseases.

More trade unions have been established,involving more employees. From 2009 to September 2012, the number of grassroots trade unions increased by 35 percent to 2.67 million,covering 6.17 million enterprises and public institutions, an increase of 43 percent.

China also upholds a policy of freedom of religious belief and ensures this freedom as an important part of its citizens’ human rights.

From 2010 to 2012, the government constructively participated in UN human rights activities and made active efforts to meet the obligations stipulated by the international human rights conventions it has joined, said the white paper.

Moreover, China is taking an active part in formulating international human rights instruments and related rules, and working to increase mutual understanding and learning through human rights dialogues with other countries.

In the past three years, China has held human rights dialogues with the United States, the European Union, Britain, Germany, Australia and Switzerland.

From 2010 to 2012, the China Society for Human Rights Studies held the third, fourth and fifth sessions of the Beijing Forum on Human Rights, and the forum has become an important stage for international human rights dialogues and exchanges involving both developing and developed countries. ■