Weekly Exclusive:

The Pasadena Human Relations Commission decided on Wednesday to recommend that City Council members make a strong statement decrying human rights abuses in China and present it to officials of Pasadena's Chinese sister city, Xicheng.

The commission also recommended by a 5-0 vote that council members arrange a meeting involving human rights advocates, the Tournament of Roses and supporters of a controversial float designed to represent the People's Republic of China and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Such a meeting is expected to result in tournament officials and float sponsors taking action to support human rights, making the float less offensive to rights advocates, or including a pro-human rights figure or group in the parade.

Critics of the controversial float have argued that celebrating the accomplishments of the Chinese government while ignoring widespread religious and political persecution and torture of prisoners would constitute an endorsement of such abuses. These include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, Los Angeles Friends of Tibet and, leading the effort, members of the Caltech Falun Gong Club.

Club members, who petitioned the city for action because of its sister city relationship with the Xicheng district of Beijing, include people who have been sent to forced labor camps in China for practicing their exercise- and meditation-based faith — one of them in a Xicheng detention center. The Chinese government outlawed the practice of Falun Gong in 1999, the same year Pasadena forged its bond with Xicheng, an administrative district of Beijing which borders the Forbidden City area and Tiananmen Square .

Float supporters have included Tournament officials, the float's sponsors — the Roundtable of Southern California Chinese-American Organizations and Pasadena-based Avery Dennison Corp., which operates numerous factories in China — and the Caltech Chinese Student Association.

A draft copy of the Human Relations Commission's report to the City Council, approved in concept and set to be finalized Tuesday, rebuked supporters for their argument that a celebration of China's economic rise and role as Olympic host is not political.

“The commission is troubled by the position expressed by this majority of float supporters. To equate the expression of concerns over basic human rights violations as mere expressions of political viewpoint … suggests a profound insensitivity to the plight of fellow Chinese,” it reads.

The commission's request for the council to host a meeting of float supporters and activists is expected to result in “a lasting and improved understanding of the vital role of human rights … ultimately reflected in expressed statements and other concrete action by various individuals and organizations,” states the report.

Concrete action, it suggests, may include the naming of a human rights advocate such as the Dalai Lama as a co-grand marshal for the parade, a float entry representing human rights activists, or changes to the controversial float.

Getting both sides of the issue to reach any agreement may be difficult.

After the meeting, members of the Roundtable of Southern California Chinese-American Organizations — who have objected to human rights concerns as an attack on all Chinese — engaged in a short but heated debate with John Li, president of the Caltech Falun Gong Club.

May Hsu, a Roundtable member who gave $20,000 to help build the float, expressed antipathy toward Falun Gong practitioners. “It must be that you people are doing something wrong,” she told Li. “Go forward. Don't go back. China is improving. Join our team. Leave the Falun Gong.”

Commission Chair Ken Hardy, the primary author of the body's recommendations, recognized these tensions during the meeting. “Almost all attention [by float supporters] was paid to Falun Gong, even though there were other groups,” he said.

Neither Avery Dennison nor Tournament of Roses officials were not present at Wednesday's meeting.

Just as it may be difficult for people like Li and Hsu to find much common ground, Pasadena City Council members have also voiced opposing views.

Councilmen Chris Holden and Victor Gordo were first to urge council action about human rights abuses in China and its Chinese sister city, expressing discomfort with their diplomatic ties to human rights violators.

Mayor Bill Bogaard, however, sent a very different statement last month to commission members: “I am an advocate for a float that spotlights the Olympic Games 2008 because I support the values represented by this longstanding global tradition of athletic competition,” it read. “My sense is that the human values that the United States holds dear will have a greater impact in our own country and around the world if we openly seek the opportunity to dialogue with persons of foreign countries.”

As if responding to that statement, the commission recommendation states that “even under a theory that interaction with China is the course that will most likely lead to progressive development, no such theory justifies a blanket ban … on respectfully requesting some adjustment or action on the part of those affiliated with Chinese interests.”

Li said he was pleased with the commission's recommendation and is planning to organize a news conference in support of it.

“Human rights is a core issue of the Olympics,” he said, “and should be considered when we invite the Beijing Olympics into Pasadena.”