China is still holding hundreds of prisoners detained during last year's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, a U.S.-based human rights group says, The group, Asia Watch, on Friday issued the most comprehensive list to date of prisoners of conscience held in Chinese jails. Most of the 1,000 prisoners profiled in the report were arrested after the military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators on June 4, 1989. Sidney Jones, executive director of the New York-based organization, said the aim of the report was to keep the prisoners from being forgotten. ``We are concerned that human rights in China as an issue is going to fade from public view. ... We want to make sure that these names become very much in the public eye,'' she said in a telephone interview. Asia Watch also hopes the report will help gain the release of those listed, she said. The group planned to try to give a copy to Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen when he attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The Chinese government did not immediately respond to the report. It generally rejects criticism of its rights record as interference in its internal affairs. Thousands of Chinese nationwide were detained or arrested immediately after last year's student-led democracy movement was put down. The Asia Watch report lists the names and backgrounds of those whose cases are known. It also enumerates other arrests and executions reported by the official Chinese media without giving names. Only 226 of the 1,000 prisoners in the report have been tried. Sixty-seven were sentenced to death or executed. Called ``Repression in China Since June 4, 1989,'' the report is far more comprehensive than those issued previously by Asia Watch and other international rights groups. It includes people from every segment of society - students, intellectuals, peasants, workers, and government officials - from all 29 of China's provinces and regions. ``The focus has been on Beijing when people think about (the crackdown), but it's been widespread throughout China,'' Jones said. The government has announced the release of 881 people in Beijing and Shanghai the past year, but it has refused to say how many remain in jail nationwide for political offenses. Among those named in the report are such well-known figures as Liu Xiaobo. He is a literary critic who was on a fellowship at Columbia University when the democracy movement began, and he rushed back to China to take part. The report mentions Wang Dan, the bookish student who became one of the main protest leaders. He has been held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison outside Beijing. The report also includes hundreds of other people who were caught up in the pro-democracy protests that spread to more than 80 cities throughout China. The report also includes dozens of Tibetans and Moslems imprisoned for separatist activities, and Christians arrested for conducting religious activities outside the state-run churches. Asia Watch plans to present the report to Congress next week during a hearing on a bill that would link future renewal of China's most-favored-nation trade status to its rights record, Jones said. President Bush extended China's preferential status for one year in June. Some legislators criticized his decision, but it is not expected to be overturned.
