U.K.'s Brown urged to press China on human rights

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown should use his visit to China starting on Friday to press Beijing on a range of human rights issues ahead of this year's Olympics, according to rights groups.

They include domestic issues such as the detention of activist Hu Jia, as well as international ones such as China's sale of weapons to the military government in Myanmar, Human Rights Watch said in an open letter to Brown.

And Brown should urge China to stop repression in the far Western, mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang, said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress.