BEIJING, March 15 (Xinhuanet) -- The amendment to the Chinese Constitution adopted by the Chinese legislature on Sunday has won applause from experts for enshrining human rights protection.

    "The Constitutional amendment signals an overall protection of human rights in political, economic and cultural areas while the country continues prioritizing people's rights to survive and develop themselves," said Prof. Chen Zhishang from Beijing University on Monday.

    The amendment states "the state respects and safeguards human rights", which is the first time that the words "human rights" were added to the Chinese Constitution since it was issued in 1954.

    "It was a big event in China, where the concept of 'human rights' was regarded as 'bourgeois' 20 years ago," said Prof. Zhu Guanglei, with Tianjin-based Nankai University.

    "The development of Chinese society and the progress China madeto protect human rights in the past two decades led to the amendment," he said.

    China has succeeded in feeding about 20 percent of the world's population with around 7 percent of the world's total farmland in the past two decades while grass roots democracy improved considerably in both rural and urban areas.

    By amending the Constitution, China has promoted "human rights"from a political concept to a legal one for the first time and raised it from a provision of the Party and government's policy toa principle of the state's fundamental law, said Dong Yunhu, vice-president of the China Human Rights Research Society.

    It is the fast-growing Chinese society that brought the moves to add human rights protection into the Constitution, to adopt a human-based development pattern and to build a public welfare-oriented government, Zhu said.

    Liu Hainian, director of the Human Rights Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said,"This amendment means theConstitution protects the rights of all humans, not only citizens,and all human rights no matter whether they are listed in the Constitution or not," Liu said.

    "But it takes time from being added to the Constitution for people to enjoy the rights in real life," he said.

    Laws and regulations need amending and new ones will be issued to meet the Constitutional amendment and development in political,economic and culture areas should be ready, he added.

    The public consciousness of human rights will improve with the Constitutional amendment, Prof. Chen Zhishang said.

    "First we should improve the consciousness of human rights of officials and law enforcement organs," he added. Enditem