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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: ASA 17/059/2004 (Public)
News Service No: 311
6 December 2004
Embargo Date: 6 December 2004
08:00
GMT
China: More activists stand up for human rights,
despite risks
As Chinese and EU leaders meet in the Hague this week,
Amnesty International is releasing a report examining
the growing numbers of human rights activists in
China, and the great risks they face in speaking out.
"We are seeing more and more individuals and
groups working to protect human rights," said
Catherine Baber, deputy Asia Director at Amnesty
International. "Yet they continue to operate in a
climate of mistrust and hostility. They may be at risk
of arrest or imprisonment at any time."
Within the last eighteen months, at least five
activists have been imprisoned for vaguely defined
'state secrets' offences, after they collected
information on human rights issues and sent it abroad.
They include:
Abdulghani Memetemin, a 40-year-old journalist and
teacher, who reported on human rights violations
against the ethnic Uighur community in the Xinjiang
Uighur Autonomous Region, in north-west China
Liu Fenggang, 45, who wrote a number of reports about
the destruction of Protestant churches and the harsh
treatment suffered by members of underground
congregations
Zheng Enchong, a 54-year-old lawyer, who represented
families who had been forcibly evicted from their
homes in Shanghai. He was accused of faxing documents
to a human rights NGO in New York.
"These three men represent a growing number of
individuals in China who stand up in the face of
repressive laws to defend people's basic human
rights," said Ms Baber. "We call on the Chinese
government to release Zheng, Liu, and Abdulghani
Memetemin, and all other activists who have been
imprisoned for their peaceful human rights
activities."
Chinese law contains sweeping definitions of
crimes, such as 'subversion' and 'stealing state
secrets', which can be used to detain and imprison
people simply for engaging in legitimate human rights
activities. Activists have also frequently been
subject to arbitrary detention, harassment, and
intimidation.
In March this year China amended its
Constitution to include the clause, "the state
respects and protects human rights". The most
powerful demonstration of this commitment would be an
end to imprisonment, arbitrary detention and
intimidation of activists on the ground.
The Constitution also guarantees citizens'
rights to petition the authorities, but a state
institution, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
recently warned that an increasing number of people
thought official state channels were no longer
sufficient to sort out their complaints about local
corruption and malpractice. It recognized that some
local governments resorted to violence to stop
petitioners making their case to central government, a
practice it described as 'appalling and outrageous'.
Activists work across a range of fields, from
Christians defending their right to worship to the
'Tiananmen Mothers' group campaigning for justice for
their children who died in the 1989 crackdown.
Economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights
-- all have become subjects for activism in China.
"The Chinese authorities have got to realize
that these individuals are working to protect the
human rights of their fellow citizens," said Ms Baber.
"They must ensure that all human rights activists are
able to work without fear of harassment, arbitrary
detention or any other abuses of their human rights."
Amnesty International is also calling on the
international community, including the EU, to urge
China to release all those imprisoned for their
peaceful human rights activities and reform the laws
used to imprison them.
The report also contains appeals on behalf of the
following individuals:
Li Dan, 26, an activist working to defend the right to
health of those suffering with HIV/AIDS in China
Yao Fuxin, 54, and Xiao Yunliang, 58, both workers
imprisoned for peacefully defending workers' rights
Zhang Shengqi, 30, and Xu Yonghai, 44, both members of
the unofficial Protestant church working to protect
the right to freedom of religion for fellow Christians
in China
The Tiananmen Mothers, a group of relatives who
campaign for justice for those who were killed in the
1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Public Document
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For more information please call Amnesty
International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20
7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW.
web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org
Human rights defenders at risk - Report summary:
http://www.amnesty-eu.org/static/documents/ASA170452004summary.pdf
Human rights defenders at risk - Main text:
http://www.amnesty-eu.org/static/documents/ASA170452004main.pdf
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