GENEVA April 11 (Reuters) - The United States put forward a resolution at a U.N. forum Tuesday denouncing political and religious repression in China, U.S. diplomats said.
The text, obtained by Reuters, rebukes China for violating basic freedoms and urges Beijing to release political prisoners and permit all religious groups to worship.
The United States presented the resolution at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which is holding its annual six-week session in Geneva to examine abuses worldwide.
Voting is set for April 18.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called in a speech in Geneva last month for the forum to adopt the motion.
The four-page resolution expresses concern at "severe restrictions" on Chinese citizens' freedoms of non-violent assembly, association, expression, conscience and religion.
It voices unease at the "harsh crackdown during the past year on members of the China Democracy Party" and on "increased restrictions on the exercise of cultural, religious and other freedoms of Tibetans."
It also rebukes China for "severe measures taken to restrict the peaceful activities" of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual movement banned last July.
China, which has wide support among developing countries at the 53-member forum, has escaped scrutiny every year despite the killings of protestors in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989.
Eager to avoid international censure, China has said the U.S. resolution is doomed to fail. It has announced it will put forward its own motion to take no action on the U.S. text.
Beijing's delegation has been lobbying hard to marshal support for its motion, whose adoption would quash all substantive debate on the U.S. text, Western diplomats say.
Albright said in March: "We owe it to the Chinese people and to the credibility of this commission and its members not to shy away from the whole truth, or to hide behind procedural motions."
Jaime Gama, foreign minister of EU president Portugal, has said the EU is committed to dialogue with China on human rights.
But he expressed concern over China's use of the death penalty, restrictions on fundamental freedoms, harsh sentences imposed on political dissidents and persecution of religious minorities. He also noted insufficient cooperation with the United Nations over human rights.
The European Union has yet to say whether it will co-sponsor the U.S. text. Seven EU members -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain -- have voting rights at this year's U.N. rights forum which ends on April 28.