Progress in China's Human Rights in 2014
(China Daily) Updated: 2015-06-09 08:50Rapid development in education. When making educational reform and development policies, the state always gives special support to areas inhabited by ethnic minorities to develop preschool education, improve basic conditions of schools carrying out compulsory education and accelerate the development of vocational education. In 2014 the central government provided 2.4 billion yuan in the development of regular high schools at counties inhabited by ethnic minorities and with a weak educational basis. The state implements a preferential policy toward ethnic minorities and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities in college admissions, giving rural students from ethnic-minority areas easier access to high-quality higher education resources. The state adopts special measures of "preparatory classes for ethnic minorities" and "plan for high-caliber personnel of ethnic minorities" for personnel training of ethnic minorities. In 2014 there were 53,000 ethnic-minority students enrolled in preparatory classes, up 3.31 percent over the previous year.
Cultural services keep growing. Ethnic-minority areas have improved their cultural public service system. A total of 104 radio stations and television stations in ethnic autonomous areas at provincial and municipal levels run 191radio programs, including 45 programs broadcast in ethnic-minority languages, and 215 TV programs, including 42 programs broadcast in ethnic-minority languages. There are more than 50,000 cultural institutions of various types in ethnic autonomous areas. The "Cultural Volunteers Going to Border Areas" activity has attracted about 10,000 volunteers, giving and running more than 1,200 performances, lectures and exhibitions in border areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. Training courses have been held on 7,000 occasions, and several million people have benefited. The projects "Digital Cultural Corridor in Border Areas" and "Tibetan, Qiang & Yi Cultural Corridor" have been carried out in border areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, aiming to build a digital cultural service network with broad coverage and high effectiveness.
Respecting and safeguarding the right of ethnic minorities to use and develop their own spoken and written languages. The state takes concrete measures to ensure the legitimate use of ethnic-minority languages in the administrative and judicial sectors, news and publication, radio, film and television, culture and education, and other areas. China National Radio and local radio stations broadcast in 21 ethnic-minority languages on a daily basis. There are 10 Tibetan-language magazines and 22 Tibetan-language newspapers in Tibet. Tibet People's Radio has 42 programs in Tibetan. Tibet TV Station has a Tibetan-language channel broadcasting 24 hours a day. Bilingual teaching is done in the classroom in more than 12,000 schools around the country. There are more than four million students receiving bilingual education, and over 200,000 bilingual teachers. Tibet has more than 400,000 students receiving bilingual education at the stage of compulsory education, accounting for 97 percent of the total.
Cultural relics and historic sites effectively preserved. China has further enhanced the preservation of intangible cultural heritage projects and their representative inheritors in ethnic-minority areas. Tibet has nearly 800 intangible cultural heritage projects. Tibetan opera and the Gesar Epic have been included in UNESCO' s Masterpieces of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity, and 158 books have been put on the State List of Valuable Ancient Books. In 2014 the preservation and maintenance of the three key projects of the Potala Palace, Norbulingka and Sakya Monastery was completed, for which more than 380 million yuan was used. This is the largest project for the preservation and maintenance of cultural relics in Tibet, with the most funds from the central government, in which sci-tech means have been widely applied and the latest construction techniques have been used. "Silk Road: the Route Network of the Chang' an-Tianshan Corridor" has been designated as a new World Heritage Site by UNESCO, including the ruins of Beiting City and other five sites in Xinjiang.
Freedom of religious belief of ethnic minorities fully guaranteed. Currently there are 1,787 venues for religious activities of various types in Tibet, with 46,000 resident monks and nuns. Living Buddha reincarnation, as a special succession system of Tibetan Buddhism, is respected by the state. There are 358 living Buddhas in Tibet, of whom over 40 incarnated living Buddhas have been confirmed through traditional religious rituals and historical conventions. Under the special care of the government, all the monks and nuns in Tibet are covered by health insurance, pension insurance, basic living allowance and personal accident insurance. Tibet provides free physical examinations to monks and nuns annually. In accordance with the senior academic titles system of Tibetan Buddhism, by the end of 2014 a total of 110 monks had received senior academic titles and 84 had received intermediate academic titles. Ethnic minorities' religious classics have been protected and preserved. The country has provided 35 million yuan in the collating and publishing of the Chinese Tripitaka (Tibetan) over the past two decades. The Chinese Islamic Association has compiled and published Islamic scriptures in Arabic, including Sharhal-Aqeedah al-Tahawiyyah and Tafsir al-Jalalayn. The Association has also set up a website in the Uygur language, providing introduction of religious knowledge and online explanation of the scriptures to meet the religious needs of the people. In 2014 a total of 14,466 Chinese Muslims made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Relevant government departments strengthened the training of accompanying medical staff, and worked hard to improve medical care and epidemic prevention for pilgrimage groups to guarantee the pilgrims' health and safety.
VI.
Rights of Women, Children and Senior Citizens
In 2014 the Chinese government further implemented the basic national policy of equality between men and women, and the principle that "the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration," and built up a system of old-age services and related businesses, so as to better protect the legitimate rights and interests of women, children and senior citizens.
Women's right to participation in public affairs management protected in accordance with the law. The mechanism for assessing relevant laws and policies concerning gender equality was improved. By the end of 2014 Beijing and Tianjin cities, and Shanxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei and Sichuan provinces had established their own mechanisms for assessing the effects of regulations and policies from the perspective of gender so as to avoid institutional gender discrimination caused by improper stipulations. Efforts were made to include rural women into the village branch committees of the CPC and the villagers' committees when a new round of election of these two committees was conducted, and to improve the work of women's deliberative councils, boards of women directors, mutual-assistance groups of women in the countryside whose husbands are seeking employment in cities, and women volunteers. In 2014 more than 33,000 such mutual-assistance groups were set up, and 2.22 million women volunteers were registered.
Employment of women effectively increased. In 2014 some 217.275 billion yuan of small-sum secured loans were granted to women, and 18.681 billion yuan of subsidies for interest discount were issued from central and local government budgets, benefiting 4.59 million women. Training of a new type of professional women farmers was offered to enhance their market competitiveness. Some 17,000 modern agricultural scientific and technological demonstration bases at various levels run by women received government support, more than 4,000 domestic service training bases were built for women, more than 580,000 women received training, and more than 600,000 women found jobs as domestic helpers. Efforts were made to help more than 500,000 female students in 227 colleges and universities find jobs or start businesses through publicity of employment policies and by provision of information on job vacancies.
The rights of the person of women and children better protected. In 2014 the people' s courts at various levels concluded 1,048 criminal cases involving the kidnapping of women and children and sexual assault on minors, resulting in 876 criminals sentenced to five years' imprisonment or more, with some receiving the death penalty. The Opinions on Law-based Handling of Crimes of Domestic Violence was enacted to provide legislation for the punishment of domestic violence in accordance with the law. In February 2014 the Supreme People' s Court held a press conference focusing on domestic violence cases handled by the people' s courts in recent years, citing 10 typical cases as examples, which improved the consistent application of the laws in tackling domestic violence. By the end of 2014 a total of 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government had enacted local regulations and policies to prevent and deter domestic violence. The Anti-domestic Violence Law of the People's Republic of China (draft) was published to solicit the public's opinions.
Efforts were made to improve the joint response mechanism for protecting minors, which featured "monitoring for prevention, timely reporting of clues, and assistance and intervention," to build a nationwide social protection network for minors, and to explore a guardian system with "family guardianship as the basis, public supervision as the guarantee, and state guardianship as the supplement," so as to form a working structure for the protection of minors that integrates efforts of family, society and government.
In December 2014 the Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Civil Affairs jointly released the Opinions on Law-based Handling of the Infringement of the Rights and Interests of Minors by Their Guardians, which made explicit stipulations, created a mechanism for reporting and handling the infringement as soon as it occurs, specified the requirements for the trial of cases involving guardianship transfer, and defined the duties of civil affairs departments, courts, prosecution organs and public security organs. The Tongshan District People's Court of Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, concluded the first case in China that stripped the parents of their guardianship of their minor child. The practice of "round-table trial" of cases involving minor suspects was improved, and the system of sealing up criminal records of minors was followed.
I’ve lived in China for quite a considerable time including my graduate school years, travelled and worked in a few cities and still choose my destination taking into consideration the density of smog or PM2.5 particulate matter in the region.
