China claims "tremendous" progress on its human rights record

China today claimed to have made "tremendous achievements" on human rights with legal reforms to ensure impartial trials, higher incomes, even as campaign groups point to a crackdown on dissidents who challenged the ruling Communist Party.
"The tremendous achievements China has made in its human rights endeavours fully demonstrate that it is taking the correct path of human rights development that suits its national conditions," the white paper, published by Chinese government under the title "Progress in China's Human Rights in 2014", said.
China's legal reform gained momentum when the Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership adopted a comprehensive plan to promote rule of law at a key meeting last October, it claimed.

"The fundamental purposes of the blueprint are to protect civic rights, to defend human dignity and to put basic human rights into practice," the report said refuting criticism by the international rights groups of persistent crackdown against dissidents who questioned the CPC with long term imprisonments.
Famous among the dissidents who remained imprisoned is Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
The paper claimed that judicial justice and transparency were greatly improved in 2014 thanks to reform measures in the judicial system.

Courts, procuratorates and police worked hard to prevent and correct unjust, false and wrongful practices from investigation and prosecution to trials, it said adding that in 2014, courts nationwide reheard 1,317 cases and corrected a number of wrongful ones.

Unlike previous reports, this year's white paper has a single chapter about protecting people's right to impartial trials, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Zhu Liyu, deputy director of the Center for Human Rights Studies of the People's University of China, said legal reform has been one of the most notable progresses for human rights protection in China in the past two years.
"A number of new measures were made to improve the transparency and efficiency of judicial departments, empower them to better supervise administrative power and protect civic rights, which are of profound significance," Zhu said.