China's Human Rights Radio

China announced on Tuesday it will launch a radio series on human rights, amid a police sweep of pro-democracy activists attempting to establish China's first opposition party.

The radio series, China's first on the subject, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Wenhui Daily said.

The program is to consist of interviews with government officials and Chinese human rights scholars interlaced with historical background on the development of human rights concepts and international rights covenants, the paper said.

Interview subjects will underscore differences between Chinese and Western concepts of rights, and the future of human rights in China, the article said.

China's authoritarian government raised hopes at home and abroad that it had accepted the universality of human rights when it signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty incorporating the 50-year-old universal declaration.

However, since the October 5 signing, government officials have made statements defining rights on Beijing's terms and police have rounded up leading pro-democracy activists and domestic rights monitors.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, 20 police in southeastern Fujian province detained pro-democracy activist Zhang Baoqin, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.

According to the center, police kicked down the door to Zhang's home in Changle city, apprehended him, and confiscated his telephone lists, books, and documents related to the Chinese Democratic Party -- a self-fashioned opposition party which Beijing has refused to register.

Zhang, who founded the party's branch in Fujian, is one of several dissidents within the party to have been detained across China this month.

Five others, including veteran activists Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin, and Wang Youcai, remain in police detention, according to the Information Center.

Wang will go on trial later this month and could face a term of up to life in prison, his lawyer said.

Xu and Qin could also face jail sentences if tried.

Last week, almost 200 dissidents accused Beijing of "hypocrisy" in a letter sent after the latest government round-up of prodemocracy activitsts began.

The dissidents said there was a contradiction between China's international pledges and the arrests, which Beijing charged were for inciting the overthrow of the state.

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