(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
Anti-Chinese government activists have condemned the election of China to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Amnesty International, which has been highly critical of China's human rights record, says it's also concerned about how China may behave as a member of the Council.
But at least one Chinese Australian community leader describes it as a positive opportunity.
Hannah Sinclair reports.
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The United Nations General Assembly replaced 14 seats on the 47-member Human Rights Council earlier this week.
Inclusion of China has prompted fierce criticism from groups which say the Chinese government regularly persecutes its people.
One group that regularly accuses the Chinese government of persecution is the Falun Dafa sect.
Michael Pearson-Smith is a spokesman for the Falun Dafa Association of Australia.
"If you scratch the surface and what's been going on behind closed doors in recent years is absolutely appalling. I mean not only are they persecuting the likes of Falun Gong practitioners, and when we say persecuting. We're talking about old ladies being tortured. I mean this is how appalling the human rights situation in China is."
But Michael Hayworth from Amnesty International Australia says the inclusion of China illustrates the UN's attempt to be an inclusive body.
"The election of China has demonstrated that the body is determined to be inclusive of players from all regions. And while we've got China's which has come to be elected in the Human Rights Council this time round yet again, we do have some concerns about their domestic human rights record and them being on there at all. So some concerns about the role that they might play on the Council in terms of being determine to protect state sovereignty at the expense of human rights."
Another group concerned about China's election to the Human Rights Council is the Tibetan Community of Australia.
New South Wales President of the group, Phurbu Khonnyi Tsang says human rights abuses are being overlooked in Tibet.
"There's many countries suffering under the Chinese Communist Party, not even Tibet itself and even in Tibet, till now it's 100 and nearly 130 people who have given their lives and self-immolated because they haven't been given basic human rights. Nobody cares. They only care about the money."
But Chinese Australian community leader Jieh-Yung Lo says China's election to the Human Rights Council is a positive move.
He says China has an important role to play in international discussions on human rights.
"I guess a lot of people critique China for its human rights position is because from a cultural perspective, human rights is not something that the Chinese are quite familiar with. Human rights is, from the views of the Chinese, a Western concept. It's a Western philosophy similar to democracy, so therefore it's never been high on the agenda for China to actively embrace it. But given that China has been elected to the Human Rights Commission at the UN they can play a really active role in promoting the issue across the globe."
Michael Pearson-Smith from the Falun Dafa Association of Australia says the UN has lost credibility over its inclusion of China on the Council.
"There are 107 countries who actually saw fit to vote China onto the Human Rights Council and the UN. Which makes an absolute mockery of the whole system. I mean how can we take the UN seriously when countries like China, and other human rights abusers can be elected onto the Human Rights Council? I mean talk about the lunatics running the asylum."
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