Sweden to press China on rights during Hu visit

by Pia Ohlin

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Chinese President Hu Jintao kicked off China’s first state visit to Sweden on Saturday, meeting King Carl XVI Gustaf for talks as Swedish government officials vowed to press China on human rights.

Hu arrived at Stockholm’s royal palace in a horse-drawn carriage.

Chinese President Hu Jintao(L) and Swedish King Carl Gustaf walk together at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. Hu kicked off China’s first state visit to Sweden on Saturday, meeting the King for talks as Swedish government officials vowed to press China on human rights.(AFP/Sven Nackstrand)

Military units in parade dress lined the final stretch of the procession route, and hundreds of Chinese and Swedish members of the public crowded outside the royal palace under sunny skies to catch a glimpse of the dignitaries.

In the palace courtyard, the Chinese leader and the king inspected the royal honour guard before Hu was introduced to members of the Swedish government. They then went inside the palace for talks.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt have indicated that they plan to raise human rights issues with Hu and his delegation, which includes Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, in talks on Sunday.

On Saturday, Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister Maud Olofsson, who is also trade and industry minister, said she too would raise the subject in a meeting Sunday with Commerce Minister Bo Xilai.

“I’m going to speak about the importance of an open economy, that an open economy requires democracy and leads people to demand that human rights be respected,” Olofsson told Swedish news agency TT.

“We must have an open dialogue with regimes… That is why it is important not to let these regimes isolate themselves,” she said.

Not far from the palace, in the Kungstraedgaarden park, members of the spiritual group Falungong held a quiet protest against human rights violations in China.

Some 40 members clad in yellow T-shirts carried out their morning exercises to the strains of traditional Chinese music.

Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin banned the spiritual group in 1999, accusing Falungong of spreading rumours in a bid to undermine “social stability” and Beijing’s international relations.”We want to try to touch (Hu’s) heart by showing him that this is what it used to look like in China,” a Swedish Falungong member, Mats Karlsson, told AFP.

Swedish Falungong members were to later file a complaint to police in Stockholm accusing Bo, a close ally of Jiang Zemin, of planning, authorising and ordering the kidnapping, torture and murder of Falungong members in China during the period 2001-2004 when he was governor of Liaoning province.

A previous complaint filed against Bo in September 1996 [experts are telling Peace and Freedom the correct year is 2006] was rejected by the Swedish prosecutor’s office because of diplomatic immunity regulations.

Falungong spokesman Dan Alfjorden told AFP that the group would this time argue that Sweden should not allow diplomatic immunity rules to apply, given the serious nature of the accusations against Bo.

Amnesty International was also due to hold a demonstration in the southwestern city of Gothenburg on Saturday to protest against China’s death penalty record and restrictions on freedom of expression.

Hu visited Gothenburg to pay a visit to Swedish truck manufacturer Volvo.

He also participated in ceremonies welcoming the return of the East Indiaman Goetheborg, a replica of the Swedish 18th century merchant ship that sank in Sweden on its way home from China in 1745.

Finally, 13 of the 18 members of the Swedish Academy, which each year awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, appealed to the Chinese president to “put an end to the persecution and imprisonment of dissidents in China”.

The appeal was published as an article in Sweden’s biggest daily Dagens Nyheter.