Beijing 'relents on human rights'

HUMAN rights activist John Kamm said yesterday that the Chinese Government had bowed to domestic and foreign pressure and made concessions on human rights issues.

Mr Kamm said Beijing's decision last week to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to its prisons was only made after ''prolonged consideration''.

''It is becoming apparent to me that the Chinese Government only made that announcement after very careful consideration and internal debate.

''The decision could date back perhaps as long as one year,'' he said.

Mr Kamm claimed that he was advised while on a recent trip to Beijing that the ''counter-revolutionary'' prison population had been segregated and placed into one or two prisons in every mainland province in the past year.

Speaking to reporters while attending a human rights conference at the Chinese University, he added that he had been told that the Chinese Government had recently paroled about 560 counter-revolutionaries chiefly for medical reasons.