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BEIJING (AP) - More than 50 leading scholars and rights campaigners from the United States, Europe, and Australia have issued a rare public protest of Chinese policies, sending an open letter to President Hu Jintao asking him to stop the harassment of human rights activists.
The Sept. 29 open letter posted on the Web site of the New York-based Human Rights Watch organization chiefly bore the signatures of some 40 well-known China scholars, including the Council on Foreign Relations' Jerome Cohen, Harvard's Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Yahuda of the London School of Economics.
"We note with concern the sharp increase in official retaliation against such advocates and their families through persistent harassment, banishment, detention, arrest and imprisonment," the letter said. "We ... write to urge your commitment to ensuring the civil rights of advocates for social justice."
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