Amnesty International Australia

Four months until the Games -  has China delivered on promises?

In London on 1 April 2008, Amnesty International will release its latest Beijing Olympics report. These regular reports compare China's actual human rights situation to the promises made in 2001 when they bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

About the Uncensor China campaign

There are many abuses taking place in China today. Our campaign focuses on these four key areas:

• Unwarranted Internet and media censorship
• The death penalty
• Repression of human rights defenders, and
• Torture and detention without trial

More about our new campaign to end internet repression in China

There are people in China who need your support. In China, saying what you think, confronting authority, standing up for basic rights or just sharing information can result in imprisonment, torture or death.

Chinese army to guard torch from marauding Aussies?

Chinese authorities have suggested that their army is needed in the streets of our nation's capital during the Olympic torch run. The photo opportunity of torch-bearer Ian Thorpe flanked by armed Chinese military would certainly be a sight, blogs Sophie Peer, China Campaign Coordinator.

BBC uncensored - sort of

If you live in China and can read English, the BBC website is now unblocked. If you don't choose to, or cannot, read your news in English, the page returns an error message of ACCESS DENIED. Not exactly a model story of China reversing censorship, but perhaps a start, blogs Sophie Peer.

Yahoo! and the police witch hunt

Did Yahoo! learn nothing from the US Congressional Committee hammering it got over its handling of the case of jailed dissident Chinese journalist Shi Tao?

Man who asked for human rights before the Olympics is jailed

A Chinese activist who dared say “We don’t want the Olympics, we want human rights” has been jailed for five years. Yet more proof – did you need any? – that freedom of speech is an anomaly in China.

Breaking the Firewall, Tibet style

We saw it in Myanmar in 2007 and now Lhasa, 2008. Not just the violence and quashing of peaceful protest but the breakthroughs of modern technology. The images from mobile telephones, the blog posts, the emails and phone calls.

What is internet censorship?

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Search results re-routed. Websites blocked. That's Internet censorship, China's 'Golden Shield Project'. The Government is watching you.

Violence and discrimination against women

Violence and discrimination against women remains severe in China, according to our most recent reports.

Workers’ rights

Independent trade unions are illegal in China. And the country’s official All China Federation of Trade Unions frequently fails to protect its members’ welfare.

North Korean refugees

China reportedly runs a rewards system for people who turn in North Koreans illegally living within the country’s borders. It also imposes heavy fines on those found supporting North Koreans.

Migrant workers

Most of China’s internal migrant workers are treated as an urban underclass and denied their basic rights. They’re shut out of the healthcare system and state education, live in appalling and overcrowded conditions and are exploited by their employers.

Tiananmen Square protests

The bloody crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is an infamous moment in China’s history.

Corporate social responsibility

All companies and businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights.

Forced evictions

Many people have been forced out of their homes to make way for Olympics-related development in Beijing.

Sudan

China sells arms, including ammunition, tanks and helicopters, to Sudan and it also buys most of its oil. We believe it’s likely these arms are being used to commit serious human rights abuses within Sudan.

Tibet

The Central Asian territory of Tibet, home to the mainly Buddhist Tibetan people, is run as an autonomous region of China. Chinese communist troops invaded the remote Himalayan region known as the ‘roof of the world’ in 1950.

Organ harvesting

Falun Gong groups overseas have documented more than 2,000 deaths in custody since the crackdown on their group began. They claim many of the deaths are the result of enforced organ harvesting.

The Falun Gong and religious groups

China comes down hard on people who practise a religion outside the officially sanctioned channels. Members of underground Protestant house churches and unofficial Catholic churches, Muslim Uighurs from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Tibetan Buddhits are detained, ill-treated and tortured.