According to official media, A'an Zhaxi, also known as Tenzin Delek, died of sudden cardiac arrest in a county hospital in Southwest China's Sichuan Province on July 12.

He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2002 for being involved in a series of terrorist bombing incidents in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, that killed one and injured a dozen. The verdict was commuted to life imprisonment in 2005.

According to Chinese law, criminals serving a life term are not allowed medical parole, however, he was given active treatment during the time including being sent to the county hospital for inspection and treatment. Medical experts were also summoned to prison, though A'an Zhaxi many times refused the medical treatment.

Despite his criminal records, A'an Zhaxi was guaranteed his rights to medical care in prison, but the facts of him committing a crime cannot be denied because he is a monk. The penalty A'an Zhaxi received was based on the felony he committed, and has nothing to do with his religious background.

Since his death, some Western media and overseas human rights advocacy groups have accused Chinese authorities of denying him medical care in prison. Human rights protection is a convenient excuse Western countries use against China. However the accusations rarely touch on public welfare issues which Chinese people care most. Criminals, even terrorists, who have disrupted public order or instigated ethnic clashes through violent means in China, are often targets of human rights protection of the West. "Human rights", when used against Chinese authorities, are meant to grant exempt to those anti-Chinese system criminals from legal punishment.

China is making continuous progress in human rights protection. The public also has higher requirement over the rule of law. Authorities have been more scrupulous in dealing with sensitive cases, for example, making distinctions between making politically provocative speech and actually committing a crime. Meanwhile, it is clearer to the Chinese public that human rights is a political tool for the West to maliciously intervene in Chinese internal affairs or use as leverage to bargain with Chinese government.

Making an issue of human rights is also a way for the Western governments to keep their confidence in dealing with a rising China. Accusing China's human rights record is easy for them to strike political points without the need to pay any concrete price. If the Western governments truly cared about human rights in China, they should pay more heed to innocent lives killed in terrorist attacks by those they are trying to "protect."

The Chinese government has been sparing no efforts to improve human rights and enhance public's livelihood in recent years. Human rights should not just be a political gimmick played by the West.