MB Civic

Actor Gere asks US, EU to forge common human rights policy for China
(AFP)
———————————————-WASHINGTON, Mar 14 (AFP) – Hollywood
actor Richard Gere on Tuesday called on
the United States and the European Union
to have a common human rights policy for
China that would strike a balance between
promoting investment and upholding
freedom.

“If we are uniform in our point of view, in
our rules of engagement with China, it will
have an enormous effect,” said Gere, a long
time human rights campaigner, especially
in pushing for “genuine autonomy” in Tibet.

The 57-year-old silver-haired actor said
international businesses fuelling China’s
burgeoning economic growth could play a
key role in pushing Beijing to improve its
human rights record, including better
conditions for workers.

“We want to stop business in China? No,
we really don’t. The point is having rules of
engagement. What are the rules for
businesses going there, what are the rules
of employing, what are the rules of
conduct,” he said at a US congressional
hearing on Tibet.

The versatile actor, who has been denied a
visa to visit China since 1993, starred as a
victim of a grossly corrupt Chinese court
system in one of his movies, Red Corner, in
1997, that was banned in China.

When a US lawmaker related various
human rights abuses in China, Gere
quipped, “Why don’t we make everyone
stand up?

“This is the argument that I have whenever
I go to Europe. If all of us — all of the
countries in the EU and the United States —
decide this is the way we are going to do
business with China, things will change
radically overnight,” he said.

Gere said the world, and the United States
in particular, should press Beijing to take
steps to improve human rights in the
country ahead of its hosting of the 2008
Olympics.

“As China rises to accept its very public role
as host to the 2008 games, our political
leaders have a responsibility to help us
understand China and prepare us for the
sure-to-be-radically changed post-
Olympics China that will follow,” he said.