China Releases Human Rights Plan

China’s cabinet released on Monday what it called a human rights action plan, a lengthy document promising to improve the protection of civil liberties, which are often neglected and sometimes systematically violated in China.

Under the two-year plan, China promised to protect the rights to a fair trial, to participate in government decisions and to learn about and question policies. It calls for measures to discourage torture, like requiring interrogation rooms to be designed to physically separate interrogators from the accused.

The civil liberties mentioned in the action plan are already guaranteed by Chinese laws or the Constitution. Human rights groups say many are nonetheless ignored or suppressed by the authorities at their own discretion, without any practicable grounds for appeal through the Communist Party-controlled judiciary.

The document does not propose any fundamental reforms of the country’s one-party system, like making the courts independent of party control or allowing other parties or political groups to hold power. Instead, it focuses on trying to advance respect for human rights within the existing bureaucracies.