"Tibetans repatriated from Nepal reportedly suffered torture, including electric shocks, exposure to cold and severe beatings, and were forced to perform heavy physical labor," a US State Department´s annual human rights report said Thursday. [break]
The report said that China also imposed "tight government controls" on Tibetans, who faced restrictions on practicing their religion and severe repercussions if they tried to escape to Nepal.
Nepal has been under growing pressure from China to clamp down on Tibetans who try to cross the Himalayan country en route to India, where Tibet´s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama lives in exile.
The annual report said China´s human rights record worsened last year as authorities increased harassment of activists and repression in the Xinjiang region.
"The government´s human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas," the annual report by the State Department said.
It said Beijing "increased the severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities" in Xinjiang, the western region that last year saw deadly clashes between China´s Han majority and the local Uighur people.
The State Department said China "continued to repress Uighurs expressing peaceful political dissent and independent Muslim religious leaders," by trying to associate the predominantly Muslim people with terrorism.
"Uighurs were sentenced to long prison terms, and in some cases executed, on charges of separatism," the report said.
The State Department took note of China´s release last year of an action plan on human rights, which addresses issues such as prisoners´ rights and the role of religion.
But the State Department said authorities did not implement the action plan and found that critical voices across China faced growing problems.
"The detention and harassment of human rights activists increased, and public interest lawyers and law firms that took on cases deemed sensitive by the government faced harassment, disbarment and closure," the report said.
China regularly protests the State Department´s human rights report, describing it interference in its domestic affairs, and has often hit back with criticism of the United States´ own treatment of its people.
Touching on an increasingly controversial issue, the State Department reported that China stepped up restrictions on the Internet by blocking controversial sites and jailing bloggers who voiced criticism.
But the report noted: "Given the limitations of technical censorship, self-censorship by Internet companies remained the primary means for authorities to restrict speech online."
In January, Internet giant Google announced it would consider pulling out of the fast-growing market due to attacks from China on the accounts of dissidents.
The State Department report said that China also continued its clampdown on the Falungong, a spiritual movement loosely based on Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian philosophies.
China banned the Falungong in 1999 after its members silently gathered in Beijing and has since branded the group as an "evil cult."
The report quoted Falungong sources as saying that nearly 3,000 Falungong practitioners had been tortured to death since 1999.
The report cited foreign observers as saying that nearly half of the 250,000 inmates officially in China´s labor camps were linked to Falungong.
"Even practitioners who had not protested or made other public demonstrations of belief reportedly were forced to attend anti-Falungong classes or were sent directly to RTL (re-education-through-labor) camps," the report said.
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