The Foreign Service Journal, May 2008

10 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 8 The China Factor in State’s 2007 Human Rights Report On March 11, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jonathan Far- rar, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, released the department’s “2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” ( www.state.gov/g/ drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/ ). Among the changes from the pre- vious year was the addition of Syria and Uzbekistan to the list of the world’s worst offenders — and China’s removal from that same list, where it was prominently located in 2005 and 2006. The latter change has raised a furor among rights activists, who say they have documented a “sharp up- tick,” as Human rights Watch re- searcher Phelim Kine put it in the March 13 Washington Post , in human rights violations in China during the run-up to the Olympics ( www.wash ingtonpost.com ) . Asked by the press about the PRC’s status change, Farrar begged the question, noting that the report’s introduction states that the country’s human rights record remains poor and that the 63-page section detailing developments in China gives a “frank appraisal” of the status of human rights there ( www.state.gov/g/drl/ rls/rm/2008/102116.htm ). But Kine and other human rights advocates say the boost for Beijing is ill-timed, undercutting activists and other dissidents in China who are pressing the government to relax restrictions on free speech, release political prisoners and improve hu- man rights protections. Bejing’s bru- tal crackdown on the uprising among Tibetans has been in the headlines for weeks as we go to press. Reporters Without Borders called the report a “major setback” for human rights organizations in China. “The situation in China is not, of course, comparable to the one in North Korea or in Eritrea, but Washington’s decision occurs at the worst possible time,” RWB stated on March 11 ( www.rsf.org/article.ph p3?id_article=26180 ). “U.S. au- thorities are depriving themselves of yet another effective way to pressure China, without having achieved any goodwill gesture from Beijing.” State’s adjustment of China’s status in the report “is actually encouraging the Chinese authorities to continue the practices they are undertaking,” Amnesty International USA’s advoca- cy director for Asia and the Pacific, T. Kumar, told the Christina Science Monitor ( www.csmonitor.com/20 08/0313/p03s05-usfp.html ). — Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor A “TIP” on Human Trafficking An estimated 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders and millions more are trafficked within their own countries every year. So reported Shereen Faraj, an international pro- grams officer in the State Depart- ment’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, during a talk on March 25. The special program on human trafficking was part of an Internation- al Women’s Day Celebration at the International Finance Corporation- sponsored Artisan Market and Café in Washington, D.C. A month before, on Feb. 13-15, C YBERNOTES Site of the Month: www.yourdictionary.com About 300 of the 6,800 known languages are represented by online dictio- naries. Most of them can be found at yourdictionary.com, along with a host of other free, very helpful language aids, such as industry-specific dictionaries, grammar guides, translation sites and free search of Webster’s New World College dictionary. The site also offers links to a wide range of the top word games. Yourdictionary.com , with more than one million visitors per month, describes itself as a language products and services company that maintains the most comprehensive and authoritative language portal on the Web. In addition to dictionaries, grammars and games, the site has a forum (The Agora) for dis- cussing language issues with the logophile community. As Editor & Publisher recently put it, YourDictionary.com “defines the state of the art and . . . is mak- ing a powerful bid to anchor the reference shelf in the new millennium.” — Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor