Document 5 of 39.
Copyright 1998 Agence France Presse
Agence France Presse
September 11, 1998
08:43 GMT
SECTION: International news
LENGTH: 676 words
HEADLINE: Dissidents hope to launch party as UN rights chief holds Tibet talks
BYLINE: Lorien Holland
DATELINE: BEIJING, Sept 11
BODY:
UN human rights chief Mary Robinson started meetings in the sensitive region of
Tibet Friday as dissidents in eastern
China held out hopes the ruling Communist Party would approve the first political
opposition party.
Robinson was scheduled to meet
"people from various circles of Lhasa" and as
well as regional leaders, according to a copy of her schedule provided by her
spokesman Jose Diaz.
Meanwhile, in eastern
China, hopes were running high among dissidents that the Communist government
appeared to be softening its hard line on dissent by preparing to approve the
first political opposition
party since it came to power in 1949.
Activists from eastern Shandong and central Hubei provinces told AFP officials
in both provinces had accepted opposition party applications for consideration
and had asked for four simple conditions to be fulfilled.
"Three activists went to Hubei Province Civil Affairs bureau this morning and
officials told them that they had to fulfill four conditions to register a
provincial branch of the China Democracy Party (CDP)," veteran dissident Qin Yongmin said by telephone from Wuhan.
The four conditions were that the party had a capitalisation of
50,000 yuan (6,000 dollars), that details of its headquarters and main
organisers were provided, and that there were at least 50 named members.
"We have thought about the possibility that the government is luring us into a
trap but we are not afraid. We will fulfill the four conditions and see what
happens," Qin said.
"We don't want to
move too fast and put too much pressure on the government," he added.
Officials in Shandong province gave the same four conditions to dissidents Xie
Wanjun and Liu Lianjun on Thursday when they tried to register the Shandong
branch of the party.
"The officials looked at all our existing documentation very carefully and
I think that it is possible that the application will be approved," Xie said in a telephone interview.
"In my judgement, such decisions are not made by local officials and it is quite
possible that they received directives from the top leadership of the Communist
party," he said.
Exiled dissidents in the
United States said they were cautiously optimistic over the development.
"We cautiously appreciate this positive gesture as any bit of progress made by
the Communist Party towards relaxation and reform is welcome," said Wang Lian, spokesman for the
Free China Movement.
"But the registration for the opposition party is
still pending and we wish to see it approved and it is obviously too premature
to celebrate developments in freedom of association in China," he added.
Over the summer, dissidents in neighbouring Zhejiang province made the first
attempt to register the party.
But that application led to several detentions.
Police
held about 20 activists associated with the party and activist Wang Youcai was
arrested for
"incitement to overthrow state power," a reference to his attempt to legally register the party.
He was later released and told to report daily to the police.
"The formal arrest has been changed to a kind of house arrest where the police
come to my house everyday and I have to tell them what I am doing," Wang said.
"I don't think the police will press the formal charges," he added.
Robinson's Tibet tour also includes a visit to the historic Potala Palace,
Jokhang monastery and a school. She leaves Tibet
for Shanghai Saturday morning.
Sources said she would not be visiting a prison for fear of reprisals against
inmates in the wake of the trip.
Overseas watchdog groups reported that prison authorities retaliated violently
against prisoners who spoke to members of the UN Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention, which visited Lhasa's Drapchi prison last year.
Chinese troops seized control of Tibet in 1951. The region's theocratic ruler,
the Dalai Lama, fled into exile eight years later during an abortive
anti-Chinese uprising.
Western critics have charged China with
"cultural genocide" in the region.
ldm/jkb/ak
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: September 11, 1998
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