Amnesty report lists Chinese ‘violations’

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 8

Amnesty report lists Chinese ‘violations’

NZPA-Reuter London Amnesty International said yesterday thousands of Chinese faced execution or long jail sentences after last June’s military crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrations.

The human rights group accused China of using mass arbitrary arrests, torture, summary trials and executions. It appealed to the Premier, Li Peng, to halt what it called a continuing wave of repression and stop using executions as a political tool.

Amnesty said it had asked the United Nations to take “effective action” to combat human rights violations in China.

“Amnesty International has appealed to the international community to try to protect the thousands of Chinese who face execution or long-term imprisonment after unfair trials in the wake of the June massacres,” the Lon-don-based group said. China has denied any massacre of demonstra-

tors by its troops, saying that the Army cleared protesters peacefully from Peking’s Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3 to 4.

But Amnesty said at least 1000 civilians were killed and several thousand injured by troops firing indiscriminately into crowds in Peking between June 3 and 9. At least 300 were reported to have been killed after student protests on June 5 in Chengdu, southern China. But the true death toll in Peking and elsewhere was impossible to discover, it said. In its first detailed report on last June’s events, Amnesty said some troops deliberately opened fire whenever they met obstructions or large groups of people in Tiananmen Square. The victims were mostly unarmed.

“Some were shot in the back among crowds of people running away from troops firing at them; some were crushed to death by military vehicles. Those killed in-

cluded children and old people,” it said.

Amnesty said it believed the number of people arrested since June could run to tens of thousands. Many were believed to be held incommunicado, without access to relatives or lawyers.

“Some are reported to have been severely beaten by police or soldiers and it is feared that detainees may still be put under strong pressure, including the use of illtreatment and torture, to confess to crimes or to denounce others involved.. .“There is some evidence to suggest that detainees have been routinely beaten and tortured with electric batons by police,” the report said.

Amnesty said there were credible reports of judicial killings taking place in secret. These were twinned with a number of well-publicised executions designed to cow further political dissent.