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China and Tibet: China’s government, through a series of Party policies and government regulations, including the March 1, 2005 “Regulations on Religious Affairs,” sharply curtails both freedom of religious belief and the freedom to express one’s belief. Religious activities that are banned include publishing and distributing texts, selecting leaders, raising funds and managing finances, organizing training, inviting guests, independently scheduling meetings and choosing venues, and communicating freely with other organizations. In China today, all such activities are subject to regulatory state interference and even imprisonment and severe mistreatment of offending believers and practitioners. AIDS still poses a fundamental challenge to China's top-down, hierarchical system, even if Chinese officials deserve praise for finally beginning to confront the epidemic with a raft of new public statements and policies. In order to fight HIV/AIDS, Beijing must give up its stranglehold on civil society, and let a hundred organizations bloom. A regional security group of Central Asian countries along with Russia and China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization should condemn the Andijan massacre committed by government forces of its member state Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch said before the group meets on Tuesday in the Kazakh capital Astana. The Chinese government should stop its harassment of AIDS activists and remove restrictions on civil society groups working to fight the country's burgeoning HIV/AIDS epidemic, Human Rights Watch said in a 57-page report released today. A major theme of the campaign is the arbitrary way Chinese authorities use and abuse their country's laws. Arbitrariness means no one is safe in China; neither political dissidents nor ordinary people. Sometimes laws are disregarded -- such as those forbidding torture or ill-treatment of detainees -- while others, such as the repressive provisions in criminal laws, are used as a political tool. People are being executed as a way of dealing with social and economic problems, such as embezzlement, tax evasion or drug smuggling. Also shocking is the massive scale of the human rights violations that take place in China. Under the system of administrative detention, hundreds of thousands of people are detained every year without charge or trial. Yet, China has so far escaped criticism at the international level. The UN Commission on Human Rights has never taken action to hold China accountable. Many governments are more concerned with the economic benefits gained from increased trade with China than the human rights of a fifth of the world's population. 16 years after the bloody crackdown that took place in and around Tiananmen Square, Human Rights Watch calls on China to stop trying to rewrite history. Until China’s leaders are willing to seriously confront the events of 1989, that cannot happen. Chinese security agents have launched what appears to be a politically motivated crackdown against the family and associates of Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent advocate of the rights of China’s Muslim Uighur community, Human Rights Watch said today. Testimony of Human Rights Watch to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on the human rights situation of Uighurs in the People's Republic of China (PRC), prepared by senior researcher Mickey Spiegel and delivered by Asia division advocacy director Veena Siddharth. The Chinese government is directing a crushing campaign of religious repression against China’s Muslim Uighurs in the name of anti-separatism and counter-terrorism, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China said in a new report today. Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, testified before Congress regarding the 2004 State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Malinowski testified that this year's reports live up to the tradition of candid and comprehensive reporting the Department has established over the years. He draws particular attention to the reports on China, Nepal, Burma, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Egypt, and the Sudan, as well as the U.S. practice of "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects to countries which the State Department condemns for torture of detainees. The Commission on Human Rights should adopt a resolution condemning China for violations of rights to free expression, association and assembly, religion and belief; for repression of minorities in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia; and for continuing rights abuses related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The resolution should urge reforms to China’s judicial system to ensure fair trials consistent with international standards. The Commission should also urge China to cooperate fully with U.N. monitoring mechanisms. China's grim 19th century style mines -- many of them little more than holes in the ground -- claimed yet more lives this week. A gas explosion ripped through the Sunjiawan coal mine in the northeastern province of Liaoning on Monday, killing at least 210. And a blast at an illegal coal mine in Fuyuan County in the southwestern province of Yunnan claimed at least five more lives Tuesday. They were just the latest casualties in a familiar story of mining accidents, which routinely claim the lives of dozens of young miners every month. China must begin to supervise these companies and the international community must ensure that they do. The Nepalese government should allow the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office to reopen and continue assisting thousands of Tibetan refugees in Nepal, Human Rights Watch said today. The Chinese government today commuted the death sentence of Tenzin Delek, a highly respected Tibetan monk renowned for his efforts to protect Tibetan culture and lifestyle, Human Rights Watch said today. Tenzin Delek was imprisoned in 2002 for allegedly “causing explosions and inciting the separation of the state.” Chinese authorities should immediately provide urgent medical care to Tashi Phuntsog, a Tibetan monk who was released from prison on January 6, Human Rights Watch urged today. In a first for an international human rights group, Human Rights Watch was invited to Shanghai in December to participate in a conference on AIDS, law and human rights, organized by the Shanghai University School of Law and Aizhixing Health Education Institute. China should immediately release Li Guozhu, a farmers' rights advocate who was detained in early November after he investigated deadly ethnic clashes in Henan province, Human Rights Watch said today.