The State Department issued a report Wednesday sharply critical of China’s human rights record, despite the Obama administration’s decision to take a different approach to the Asian country. “The government of China’s human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas,” the report said in reviewing the last year, finding Chinese authorities “committed extrajudicial killings and torture, coerced confessions of prisoners and used forced labor.” The “2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” the annual report of human rights around the world, also accused China of “severe cultural and religious repression” of minorities in Tibet and other regions and increasing harassment and detention of dissidents and activists who signed a petition calling for respect of human rights. China limits the rights of citizens to privacy and freedom of speech, assembly, movement and association, the report said.
