Exactly one month before the start of the Olympic Games in Peking, Amnesty International published today the text of an open letter sent by the secretary general, Irene Khan, to the President of People’s Republic of China, Hu Jintao, asking him to take "five steps towards the development of human rights, to which the Promoting committee of the Peking Olympic Games had committed itself in 2001". "Over the last year states the document , Amnesty International has collected hundreds of thousands of voices echoing this request of mine. I join these voices to ask you to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take action". Amnesty acknowledges "the efforts made by the Chinese government" in the area of human rights, as well as the "progress seemingly made to reduce recourse to death penalty", and "the recent statements made by many Chinese government leaders, that China would be following the global trend towards the abolition of death penalty", and welcomed the news of the release of 1157 people who had been arrested during the protests in the part of China where Tibetans live". The official pledge to protect "full freedom of the press and the rules adopted for foreign journalists are one further step forward". (continued)
