THE United States has blocked US$20 million (HK$154.58 million) in payments to a United Nations body that critics claim is helping support China's controversial sterilisation and abortion policy.
The Justice Department filed an order late last week withholding the payments to the UN Population Fund, even though the Government had already approved the grant.
The official move came in response to a lawsuit taken out earlier this month by the Rutherford Institute, a US civil rights group, claiming that the UN fund violates congressional laws because it promotes Beijing's one-child policy, which reportedly includes forced abortions and sterilisation of both men and women.
''There is strong evidence the . . . fund aids China's oppressive and brutal population control programmes'', said the institute's Craig Parshall.
He said the next move would be to turn the Justice Department's temporary order - which lasts until February 1 - into a permanent ban. Also at stake is a further US$40 million earmarked for the fund for the next financial year.
The order marks the second incidence in a week of American legal action over the one-child policy.
Lawyers representing illegal immigrants from the stricken vessel Golden Venture have filed a class action to try to reverse the White House policy of not recognising fear of forced family planning in China as a qualification for political asylum.
