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US attacks China's record on civil rights

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But Beijing urges America to stop using the issue to interfere in internal affairs

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The United States has described China's human rights record as disappointing.

In the State Department's annual critique of countries, issued late on Monday, China is branded an authoritarian state where citizens have no right to change the government. It says assembly and association are strictly controlled to stifle dissent, especially on sensitive dates such as the anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the democracy movement at Tiananmen Square.

The report's list of human rights violations includes the authorities' use of the crime of 'leaking a state secret' to harass intellectuals and religious activists. It also accuses the mainland of using the international 'war on terror' as a pretext for cracking down on Uygur separatists in Xinjiang .

The fact that respect for human rights had been included in the constitution for the first time - and continued progress on legal reform - were welcomed by the report.

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However, the mainland's 're-education through labour' camps were singled out as a form of human rights abuse. About 250,000 to 310,000 inmates are held in such camps without judicial review.

'The report is not conducive to improving Sino-American relations,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said yesterday. He added that the United States should 'stop using human rights to interfere in China's internal affairs ... and look at problems of human rights abuses existing domestically'.

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