Minister disappoints on human rights

Minister disappoints on human rights
- William Nygaard and Hege Newth Nouri of Norsk PEN, for example, had called on Helleland to mention concrete cases of human rights abuses in China. They’ve grown in recent years, they claim, and the situation now is “even worse” than it was when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010. That infuriated Chinese leaders and set off a diplomatic freeze between Norway and China that only now has thawed.
Nygaard, the former publishing executive who survived an assassination attempt believed tied to his release of a Norwegian version of The Satanic Verses, and Nouri had claimed it’s important for Chinese authorities to get the message from international partners that human rights must be respected. Helleland ignored their pleas, at least for now. Like the prime minister and fisheries minister who also have visited China in recent weeks, Helleland didn’t feel the time was right to take up such a thorny issue. It’s more important, they all feel, to rebuild mutual confidence before launching into areas of conflict.

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