(Reuters) - U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson Monday urged China at landmark talks on sensitive penal system reforms to scrap the ``re-education through labor'' system it has used to lock away dissidents.
But only hours later the Communist Party called for the ''complete elimination'' of the Falun Gong (news - web sites) spiritual movement which it banned as a cult in 1999 and against which ''re-education through labor'' has been a key weapon.
``If the cult is not removed...the process of China's reform, opening-up and socialist modernization drive will be affected,'' said an editorial in Tuesday's People's Daily, issued through Xinhua news agency.
Xinhua said the government gave citations to 110 organizations and 271 individuals for anti-Falun Gong work in a move underscoring national resolve ``to wipe out the cancer of Falun Gong from society.''
The official media statements did not unveil new policies in China's 19-month-long battle against Falun Gong, a ruthless campaign which has provoked strong international concern about violations of religious freedom and civil rights.
Earlier Monday Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, opened a two-day seminar on punishment of minor crimes in Beijing, calling for ``a serious review leading to the abolition'' of the extrajudicial labor camp program.
``The concept of using forced labor as a punishment is against the accepted international human rights principles embodied in many international instruments,'' Robinson told Chinese officials and legal experts.
Falun Gong spokespeople say 5,000 members of the spiritual group are undergoing re-education labor in harsh conditions.
REFORM OR ABOLITION?
Robinson's remarks echoed demands by Western human rights activists and some Chinese legal experts who say the 45-year-old practice of sending people to labor camps without trial or due process spawns widespread abuses, including arbitrary detention.
``We're very happy that Mary Robinson made this strong statement at the workshop and is standing with the people inside China who are looking at this issue,'' said Sophia Woodman, research director for the New York-based Human Rights in China.
Calls to abolish labor camps go beyond China's official recommendation of reforms that would add judicial review to the process.
Woodman cautioned that academic talk of reform ``doesn't mean that the security ministries have changed their point of view.''
Human Rights in China issued a report last week which quoted Chinese sources as saying 260,000 people were in labor camps, 60 percent of them for the catch-all offence of ''disturbing public order.''
There was no direct Chinese reaction to Robinson's call.
Addressing the seminar, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya said: ``No country's human rights record is 100 percent perfect.
``We hope not only to work hard to improve our record, but to learn from the experience of other countries,'' he said.
Olympics, Geneva Spotlight Rights
China, which insisted last week sports and politics should be kept separate as International Olympics Committee (IOC (news - web sites)) inspectors evaluated Beijing's 2008 bid, freed Wei and Wang to help its unsuccessful bid for the 2000 Games, which went to Sydney. They were jailed again later.
Several dissidents were detained during the Olympic inspection and a woman who wrote to the IOC asking it to press Beijing to free political prisoners was sent to a labor camp for two years.
The visit by Robinson, who arrived Sunday, also comes as Beijing is steeling for its annual fight to avoid formal censure at the annual U.N. rights meeting in Geneva next month.
And while she is in Beijing, the State Department will publish its annual global human rights report -- an event that has sparked furious reaction from China in previous years.
The report, due to be released at 1700 GMT Monday, is expected to raise concerns about China's crackdown on Falun Gong, its tough policies in the Buddhist region of Tibet and curbs on the Internet.