The Bush administration announced last week that it will not target human rights abuses in China at this year’s meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. Human rights group criticized the decision.

The announcement not to sponsor a resolution this year, made on March 17, coincided with the release of the high-profile prisoner of conscience, 2004 Rafto Memorial Prize recipient Rebiya Kadeer. Kadeer, who was freed on medical parole, was sent into exile and arrived in the United States Friday.

“We’re very happy to see Rebiya freed, but China shouldn’t get any political credit for letting her go when they kept her behind bars for so many years,” said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch in a statement released by the group.

Kadeer, 58, is a prominent businesswoman and human rights activist from the Uighur Muslim minority in the northwest region of Xinjiang. She was arrested in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of “leaking state secrets” after she sent newspaper clippings to her husband in the United States. Since then, human rights groups and government officials around the world have been pressing China to release her.

“Letting her go now is yet another instance of China’s ‘revolving door’ policy of releasing a few prominent political prisoners before important international events to head off criticism,” said Adams. Last year before the UN meeting, China released a Tibetan nun who had served 16 years of the 17-year-sentence she was given.

The 53-nation UNCHR began its six-week annual meeting on March 14. The United States has sponsored a resolution on China in 10 of the past 15 years, but none of them have passed. Rights groups say the reason for past failures is that the United States has not lobbied as aggressively as China has.

Other Concessions

According to Deputy State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli, however, a key impetus for the administration’s decision not to sponsor a resolution was a series of other concessions China has made recently regarding human rights.

“In the last couple of weeks, we have seen some important steps that China has taken and agreed to take,” said Ereli at a press briefing on Thursday. “And as a result of those steps, we have decided not to introduce a resolution on China this year at the Human Rights Commission.”

These steps include an agreement to give political prisoners the same rights to sentence reductions and paroles that are available to other prisoners. The Chinese government also promised to host visits by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

But human rights groups say these promises are unreliable and should not be mistaken for concrete changes on the ground.

“The Special Rapporteur on Torture was scheduled to visit this past June, but China withdrew the invitation at the last minute. Is there any reason to believe that this year will be different?” said Chen Shizhong, founder of the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group that works with the United Nations to document abuses suffered by practitioners of the spiritual practice.

According to Chen, since 1999, when Falun Gong was banned in China, the verified count of those who have died due to persecution and torture has continued to rise exponentially, recently surpassing the 1500 mark. He says the actual death toll is probably much higher, but China’s tight control of information makes confirmation difficult.

“[Of the death toll] 389 were during the past 15 months. That is an average of almost a death a day,” said Chen. “We are happy for Rebiya Kadeer and her family, but the release of one prisoner cannot justify turning our backs on millions of others.”