Human Rights Watch World Report
2005:China
(Jan. 28, 2005)In late 2004, the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
called for political reform within the Party in
order to strengthen the Party' s ability to lead the
nation. Party leaders made clear that China is to
remain a one-party state, but one based increasingly
on the rule of law. While China has made progress in
some areas in recent years¡ªstrengthening its legal
system, allowing more independent news reporting,
and sometimes tailoring public policy more closely
to public opinion¡ªit remains a highly repressive
state.
The Party¡¯s 2004 promise to uphold the rule of law
has been compromised by continuing widespread
official corruption, Party interference in the
justice system, and a culture of impunity for
officials and their families. Authorities continue
to censor news media. Civil society is also
constrained and most NGOs are government-controlled.
China prohibits independent domestic human rights
organizations and bars entry to international human
rights organizations. Chinese citizens who contact
international rights groups risk imprisonment.
In late October and early November 2004, major riots
by tens of thousands of people roiled Henan and
Sichuan provinces. The riots were widely separated
geographically and the issues precipitating them
were different, but the riots, and the state
response to them, highlighted growing rural unrest
and Chinese leaders¡¯ preoccupation with social
stability. Leaders continue to isolate areas of
discontent, and aim to prevent information about
social problems from spreading. (boxun.com)
Fifteenth Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
Crackdown
June 4, 2004, marked the fifteenth anniversary of
the massacre in Beijing, when China¡¯s leaders
ordered the military to fire on civilians who were
trying to prevent troops from entering the city and
reaching protesters in Tiananmen Square. Fifteen
years later, the government still forbids any public
commemoration of the event. Police harass and detain
those dedicated to securing rehabilitation of
victims, payment of compensation, or reconsideration
of the official verdict.
During the sensitive 2004 anniversary period,
officials again held well-known activists, including
Ding Zilin, leader of the Tiananmen Mothers advocacy
group, under house arrest. State Security officers
subjected Dr. Jiang Yanyong to six weeks of intense
thought reform. The seventy-two-year-old military
doctor had gained international renown for exposing
the official cover-up of the SARS epidemic in
Beijing. He also had attended to victims the night
of June 4, 1989, and, in February 2004, suggested in
a private letter to the government that it should "
settle the mistakes it committed" in 1989. Dr. Jiang
was released on July 19, 2004, but remained under
house arrest at this writing.
China's Legal System
In March 2004, China amended its constitution to
include a promise to ensure human rights. Although
the constitution is not directly enforceable in
China, the amendment signals a growing
acknowledgement of human rights.
Despite efforts to strengthen the rule of law in
China, the legal system itself remains a major
source of rights violations. Many laws are vaguely
worded, inviting politically motivated application
by prosecutors and judges. The judiciary lacks
independence: Party and government officials
routinely intervene at every level of the judicial
system in favor of friends and allies. Trial
procedures favor the prosecution, and despite the
public prosecution of a large number of judges,
corruption remains a widespread problem. The
criminal justice system relies heavily on
confessions for evidence, creating institutional
pressures on the police to extort confessions
through beatings and torture. According to Chinese
experts, legal aid services meet only one-quarter of
the demand nationwide. Defense lawyers may face
disbarment and imprisonment for advocating their
clients¡¯ rights too vigorously.
On a more positive note, China recently has begun to
hold qualifying examinations for judges and has
signaled its intent to amend laws to better protect
suspects in detention. However, administrative
detention, a common practice in China, still occurs
without judicial process. Persons detained on
suspicion of ¡°minor crimes¡± such as drug use are
sent to ¡°reeducation through labor¡± camps for
months or years without ever coming before a judge.
Restrictions on Freedom of _Expression
The growing dynamism of the Chinese-language
Internet and domestic media in China led to some
efforts to impose tighter controls in 2004.
Officials expanded the list of topics subject to
censorship and introduced improved methods for
enforcing compliance. In October 2004, the state
also banned all reporting on rural land seizures by
the government.
In September, New York Times research assistant and
author Zhao Yan was arrested on charges of passing
state secrets to foreigners, apparently for his work
uncovering leadership changes in the Communist
Party. In early 2004, authorities banned a
best-selling non-fiction book, Investigation of
Chinese Peasants, which documented cases of official
corruption, excessive taxation, and police brutality
in rural Anhui province. Numerous newspapers tested
the limits of the possible in 2004, and some came
under attack. Staff of the parent group of the
Southern Metropolis Daily received long prison
sentences on charges of corruption; the former
editor-in-chief was fired. The charges were widely
viewed as politically motivated, as the newspaper
had been the first to report on several stories of
national significance.
The tension between promoting Internet use and
controlling content escalated in 2004, with Chinese
authorities employing increasingly sophisticated
technology to limit public and private _expression.
Despite the restrictions, the Internet is emerging
as a powerful tool for the sharing of information
and mobilization of social activism in China.
HIV/AIDS
China faces what could be one of the largest AIDS
epidemics in the world. According to official
statistics, 840,000 men, women, and children are
living with HIV/AIDS, but the real number could be
much higher. Many Chinese citizens lack basic
information about AIDS, and some AIDS activists face
state harassment and detention.
Chinese authorities have taken steps to address the
AIDS crisis. In late 2003, national authorities
promised to provide antiretroviral (ARV) treatment
to all impoverished HIV-positive persons. The State
Council, China¡¯s highest executive body, issued a
circular in May 2004 ordering local officials to
implement a range of AIDS prevention and control
measures. A revised national law on the protection
and control of infectious diseases, passed in August
2004, prohibits discrimination against persons with
infectious diseases. But as documented in a
September 2003 Human Rights Watch report, Locked
Doors, lack of basic rights and abuses by local
authorities have hampered efforts to help
HIV-positive Chinese citizens.
At this writing, there still had not been an
investigation of the government¡¯s role in the
transmission of HIV to villagers in Henan and other
provinces through unsanitary but highly profitable
blood collection centers. No official has been held
accountable; some who were involved in the scandal
have been promoted. Henan authorities regularly
detain HIV-positive activists in advance of visits
by international dignitaries, and have recently
built a prison to segregate detainees with HIV. They
also continue to impede the activities of some NGOs
that provide services to people with AIDS: in 2004,
Henan officials closed three NGO-run orphanages for
AIDS-affected children, and briefly detained staff
of the Dongzhen Orphans School. People living with
HIV/AIDS in Henan continue to allege corruption and
abuses in the government¡¯s distribution of ARV
treatment.
Labor Rights
Chinese workers have yet to reap the benefits of the
country's rapid economic development. Employers
routinely ignore minimum wage requirements and fail
to implement required health and safety measures.
Many former employees of state-owned enterprises
lost their pensions when their companies were
privatized or went bankrupt. Millions of citizens
who have left the countryside to seek work in cities
face serious problems. Without official residence
permits, these migrant workers lack access to basic
services and are vulnerable to police abuse.
Workers are limited in their capacity to seek
redress by the government¡¯s ban on independent
trade unions. The only union permitted is the
government-controlled All China Federation of Trade
Unions. Some NGOs in the Pearl River Delta educate
workers about their legal rights and assist them
with lawsuits against employers, but they too are
forbidden to discuss, let alone organize,
independent trade unions.
Many regions have witnessed massive labor protests.
In May 2003, after trials lacking basic procedural
safeguards, Liaoning province labor activists Yao
Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang were given seven and
four-year sentences respectively. Family members
report that both men are seriously ill. In October
2004, after flawed trials, five workers were
sentenced to terms of between two and
three-and-a-half years for destroying company
property at a shoe factory in Guangdong during a
massive protest.
Forced Evictions
A March 2004 Human Rights Watch report, Demolished,
discussed how local authorities and developers are
forcibly evicting hundreds of thousands of residents
in order to build new developments. With little
legal recourse, those evicted have taken to the
streets in protest, only to meet severe police
repression, detention, and imprisonment. Ye Guozhu,
a prominent advocate, was arrested after he applied
for formal permission to hold a protest march. A
Shanghai court sentenced lawyer Zheng Enchong, who
had defended many evicted residents, to three years
in prison for ¡°circulating state secrets¡± after he
faxed information about his activities to an
international human rights organization.
Legal experts and some government-controlled news
media have openly criticized the government's
failure to protect housing rights. The government
has responded with some policy and constitutional
reforms, but widespread corruption and a weak
judicial system obstruct implementation.
Hong Kong
In April 2004, the Chinese government unilaterally
ruled out universal suffrage for Hong Kong until
2012-13 at the earliest. Through a reinterpretation
of the Basic Law, Hong Kong¡¯s mini-constitution,
Beijing went a step further, reserving for itself
the power to void any proposal for electoral change.
Even the power to initiate reform, formerly in the
hands of Hong Kong¡¯s Legislative Council (LegCo),
was ceded to Hong Kong¡¯s chief executive, chosen by
an election committee composed largely of Beijing
appointees. China¡¯s legislature, the Standing
Committee of the National People¡¯s Congress which
is responsible for the changes to the Basic Law, has
ignored repeated requests for consultation by
representatives of Hong Kong¡¯s electorate.
At the time of Hong Kong¡¯s 1997 incorporation into
the People Republic of China as a Special Autonomous
Region (SAR) under the principle of ¡°one country,
two systems,¡± Hong Kong was promised a ¡°high
degree of autonomy.¡± As a result of Beijing¡¯s
newly self-arrogated powers, there is concern in
Hong Kong, expressed in massive protest marches on
July 1, 2003, and on January and July 1, 2004, that
China will continue to erode basic human rights
protections.
LegCo elections in September 2004 were marred by
political interference from Beijing and intimidation
of several prominent critics.
Xinjiang and the ¡°War on Terror¡±
China used its support for the U.S.-led "war against
terrorism" to leverage international support for, or
at least acquiescence in, its own crackdown on
Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim population in
China¡¯s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region. Some Uighur groups press peacefully for
genuine political autonomy or for independence;
others resort to violence. Chinese authorities do
not distinguish between peaceful and violent dissent,
or between separatism and international terrorism.
The crackdown in Xinjiang has been characterized by
systematic human rights violations including
arbitrary arrests, closed trials, and extensive use
of the death penalty. In September 2004, the
region¡¯s Communist Party leader reported that
during the first eight months of the year fifty
people were sentenced to death and twenty-two groups
targeted for separatist and terrorist activities.
Official sources subsequently clarified that none of
the fifty were executed, but have provided no
additional information on their fate.
Cultural survival for Uighurs, along with other
ethnic groups on China's borders, is a constant
struggle. Officials have curbed observation of
traditional holidays and use of the Uighur language,
and closely control religious education and _expression.
Controls include a prohibition against those under
eighteen entering mosques or receiving religious
instruction at home; political vetting and mandatory
patriotic education for all imams; restrictions on
public calls to prayer; and instructions aimed at
making Koranic interpretation consistent with
Communist ideology.
Tibet
For China, the term "Tibet" is reserved for the
Tibetan Autonomous Region. However, many Tibetans
speak of a "greater Tibet," including Tibetan areas
in Qinghai, Yunnan, Gansu, and Sichuan. More than 50
percent of ethnic Tibetans under Chinese authority
live in these regions.
The Chinese leadership continues to limit Tibetan
religious and cultural _expression and seeks to
curtail the Dalai Lama's political and religious
influence in all Tibetan areas. Severely repressive
measures limit any display of support for an
independent Tibet.
In 2002 a Sichuan provincial court sentenced Tenzin
Delek Rinpoche, a locally prominent lama, to death
with a two-year suspended sentence on what appear to
have been trumped up charges of "causing explosions
[and] inciting the separation of the state." His
alleged co-conspirator, Lobsang Dondrup, was
executed in January 2003.
Tenzin Delek's arrest and conviction represent the
culmination of a decade-long effort by Chinese
authorities to curb his efforts to foster Tibetan
Buddhism and develop Tibetan social institutions.
His case, documented in a March 2004 Human Rights
Watch report, Trials of a Tibetan Monk, remains a
focal point for Tibetans struggling to retain their
cultural identity. Several of Tenzin Delek's
associates remain in prison. Close to a hundred
others were detained for periods ranging from days
to months, most for attempting to bring information
about the crackdown to the attention of the foreign
community. Credible sources report that many of
those held were subject to severe ill-treatment and
torture.
Religious Belief and _Expression
Although religious practice is tolerated, official
Communist Party doctrine holds that religion, as a
belief structure and an organizational arrangement,
will eventually wither and die. Until such time, the
Chinese government believes religion must be
strictly controlled to prevent it from becoming a
political force or an institution capable of
competing with the state for the loyalty of China¡¯s
citizens. The state¡¯s policy is to avoid alienating
believers or driving them underground, but rather to
harness their energies toward China¡¯s development
along the lines envisioned by the Party.
Chinese officials curb the growth of religious
belief and its _expression in practice through a
series of laws and regulations. To be legal,
religious groups must register with and submit to
close monitoring by the appropriate authorities, and
even that option is limited to the five officially
recognized belief systems: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam,
Catholicism, and Protestantism. Registration brings
monitoring and vetting of religious personnel,
congregant activities, finances, and publications.
In spite of the law, unregistered religious activity
continues to flourish.
Religious groups not recognized by Chinese
authorities are subject to stringent penalties under
China¡¯s criminal law. Claims by Falungong
spokespeople that practitioners face continuing mass
incarceration and ill-treatment are difficult to
assess because of lack of independent confirmation,
but there is no doubt that authorities have targeted
practitioners for imprisonment, ¡°reeducation
through labor,¡± and abuse. During 2004, evidence
began to accumulate that the same laws and
regulations used against Falungong practitioners
were being used to rein in so-called house
churches¡ªevangelical Protestant groups that refuse
to register with the government.
The Rights of Women and Girls
Women continue to be underrepresented in China's
political leadership and in senior positions in
business. A cultural preference for boy children,
combined with state population control policies, has
resulted in a shortage of women and girls in rural
areas, creating a lucrative market for traffickers.
While the state has cracked down on some trafficking
rings, many Chinese women and girls, especially
those from rural and ethnic communities, are
kidnapped and either sold as wives or trafficked
into the sex industry. During 2004, major stories in
the domestic press also highlighted police brutality
against suspected sex workers.
Key International Actors
China played an increasingly prominent international
role in 2004. In the United Nations Security Council,
China helped block renewal of a U.S.-backed
resolution seeking immunity from international war
crimes prosecution at the International Criminal
Court (ICC) for troops from non-ICC states serving
in any U.N. force. However, China was in part
responsible for the Security Council¡¯s failure to
impose sanctions on Sudan for its complicity in
violence in the Darfur region. China has major oil
interests in Sudan.
At the 2004 annual meeting of the Commission on
Human Rights, China again blocked consideration of a
resolution condemning its human rights record by
calling for a ¡°no-action¡± motion. In 2004, as it
had in the past, China suspended its dialogue with
the U.S. in retaliation for the American sponsorship
of a resolution. During talks in Beijing in October
and November, both countries agreed to discuss
resuming regular dialogues. Human Rights Watch has
called on all of China¡¯s bilateral dialogue
partners to implement rights benchmarks and
establish a timetable for meeting those benchmarks,
and ensure transparency about the process.
China¡¯s cooperation with U.N. human rights
mechanisms has been thorny. After almost a decade of
discussion, China extended an invitation to the U.N.
special rapporteur on torture, but two weeks before
the June 2004 visit was to take place, the
government postponed it indefinitely. China has been
unwilling to agree to the standard U.N. terms for
such a visit, which include unannounced visits to
prisons and confidential interviews with prisoners.
The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (WGAD)
visited China in September 2004. As it had after its
previous mission in 1997, the WGAD urged China to
bring national laws into compliance with
international human rights standards. Although the
WGAD noted more cooperation in 2004 than during
1997, it cut short its visit to Tibet¡¯s Drapchi
prison after the state refused requests to meet with
prisoners who were severely injured during and after
the 1997 visit.
China has ratified a number of international human
rights treaties including the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the
Convention against Torture, and the Convention on
the Rights of the Child. It has signed but not
ratified the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. China is due for its first review
by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights in April-May 2005.
The U.S. increasingly cooperates with China on
counter-terrorism and anti-drug trafficking efforts
and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations
maintains an office in Beijing. However, the U.S. in
2004 refused to hand over to Chinese authorities a
group of Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay for fear
they would face torture or execution.
The European Union is weighing whether to rescind an
arms embargo imposed after the 1989 Beijing massacre.
Human Rights Watch opposes lifting the embargo until
China addresses issues of accountability,
reparations for victims, and trials for those
responsible. (boxun.com)
http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/english/
2005/01/200501281353.shtml
