The 2017 edition of the Europe-China Seminar on Human Rights opened Sunday, gathering over 50 researchers to discuss various topics on protecting the rights of persons with disabilities.
"When delivering a speech at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva this January, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the concept of building a human community with shared destiny in a comprehensive and systematic way," said Cui Yuying, vice minister of China's State Council Information office, in her opening speech at the seminar.
"China is not only the initiator of this concept, but also a firm advocator and practitioner," said Cui. "China pursues a path of development in keeping with its national conditions. We always put people's rights and interests first and have worked hard to advance and uphold human rights," she added.
"The rights to subsistence and development are the primary, basic human rights. China adheres to the comprehensive, inclusive and sustainable development of human rights, actively takes part in global human rights governance, brings a Chinese solution on human rights to the international community and makes its own contribution to the cause of international human rights and to the realization of the UN (United Nations) human development program," she said.
The Chinese official presented the progress that China has achieved in protecting the rights of people with disabilities and called on Chinese and European scholars to further promote exchanges in the field of human rights on the basis of the principles of mutual understanding, learning from each other, respecting differences and making progress together.
The Europe-China Seminar on Human Rights is a platform established by the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) for in-depth exchanges and mutual learning. Since 2015, China and Europe have taken turns to hold the seminar with one set issue of human rights each year.
This year's two-day seminar was co-hosted by CSHRS and VU University Amsterdam, and co-organized by the Human Rights Institute of Southwest University of Political Science and Law and Cross-Cultural Human Rights Center.
In accordance with this year's theme of protecting the human rights of persons with disabilities, scholars from China and European countries not only discussed general theories, but also matters relating to the employment, education, accessible facilities, medical care and social security of the disabled.
