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China clamps limits

on free speech at

UN women's forum

BEIJING: China clamped limits on free speech on Tuesday in the well-guarded site of an international grassroots women's forum, banning protests that infringe on Chinese sovereignty or slander the communist leadership.

Expanding on earlier edicts barring unauthorised protests in Beijing, a senior security official said anti-China demonstrations were also forbidden inside the venue of the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) forum in rural Huairou.

Public Security Vice Minister Tian Qiyu, the security chief for the forum and the United Nations World Conference on Women, said protests were allowed in a middle-school athletic field in the NGO site, which is closed to the Chinese public.

"Inside the site, NGOs are permitted to have demonstrations and processions but these should not infringe on the sovereignty of the host country and should not slander or attack leaders of the host country," Tian said at a Beijing news conference.

Tian declined to explain who would determine which speeches comprised slander or violations of sovereignty, saying rules governing entry of foreigners to China were clear.

Protests involving violence were banned and police permission was required in advance for any demonstrations outside the NGO forum site, he said.

NGO officials were not immediately available for comment.

Tian and other Chinese officials said NGOs could hold news conferences, subject to approval by foreign and Chinese organisers, and said there were no restrictions on what could be said.

As Tian was speaking, leaders of the London-based human rights group Amnesty International attacked China's rights record at a news conference across town.

Chinese organising committee vice president Huang Qizao told the official news conference she was unaware of members of overseas NGOs being denied visas to attend the forum on account of their political views.

This conflicted with a statement last week from Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian, who said he knew of four cases in which visas had been denied. He gave no details.

Tian said China reserved the right to take whatever steps -- including security measures -- needed to assure the success of China's biggest international gathering.

The new edict reiterated China's sensitivity to dissent at the NGO forum, which was shunted to rural Huairou from Beijing in April after senior leaders -- Prime Minister Li Peng reported among them -- grew alarmed that Chinese might see foreign women denouncing Chinese policy in central Tiananmen Square.

Chinese sources say Li was shocked by non-governmental activists in Denmark who were not prevented from mocking him publicly during the U.N. Development Summit in Copenhagen.

China's constitution enshrines citizens' right to free speech and other forms of expression.

But the communist government, brooking no challenges to its absolute authority, rarely permits public dissent and routinely imprisons dissidents who dare to criticise it.

Customs officials made China's hard line clear on Sunday when, after a two-hour search of luggage belonging to the People's Decade for Human Rights Education, they refused to return a book until a member of the organisation tore out a cartoon that mocked paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.-Reuter