Written evidence submitted by Human Rights
Watch
Thank you for inviting Human Rights Watch to
comment on key human rights issues in the People's Republic of
China as they affect UK and EU policy, and to offer recommendations
for policy initiatives.
We would be pleased to report that progress
in human rights in China has tracked the country's economic growth.
Sadly, this is not the case. Since President Hu Jintao came to
power, the human rights situation has deteriorated, particularly
in the past year. There have been sharp restrictions on freedom
of expression, crackdowns on activists, and an explosion in land
grabs, to name but a few key problems. In spite of this, many
brave Chinese continue to struggle against a one-party system
that seems to have no larger purpose than to remain in power.
For example, in November 2005, China's foremost human rights lawyer,
Gao Zhisheng, was ordered to close his law firm and stop practicing
law for one year. The measure was widely seen as retaliation for
his refusal to withdraw an open letter sent to President Hu Jintao
and Premier Wen Jiabao calling attention to the "barbaric
persecution" of Falungong members. Gao has since been subjected
to intense surveillance by security personnel and effectively
put under house arrest. Several activists who followed a call
by Gao to participate in a hunger strike movement to protest police
violence and other abuses against rights activities have recently
"disappeared" or been detained. They include Yan Zhengxue,
taken away by the police from his home on 12 February; Hu Jia,
an HIV/Aids activist who vanished while he was being closely followed
by security personnel; Chen Xiaoming, a housing rights activist;
and Zhao Xin, taken in by police for questioning on 22 February.
While seeing China increasingly as an important
economic, political and security partner, it is important to remember
that China continues to systematically violate its people's human
rights. Too often governments now mute their voices on the many
critical human rights challenges in China. In this respect, we
have a few overarching messages to the UK and other governments:
— Make human rights, once again,
the highest priority in your relationship with China. While there
have been positive social, economic, and political developments
in recent years, the human rights situation remains critical and,
in the past year, has been on a downward trend. The Chinese people
need and rely on the clear and consistent support of the international
community. Offer them your unconditional support.
— Do not be enthralled by China's
increasing economic power or enhanced international role. China
remains more dependent on its trading partners than its trading
partners are on it. You continue to have leverage. Use it.
— Speak publicly in a clear and
principled voice about human rights problems in China. Private
diplomacy is important, but is not sufficient. China's leaders
respond to public diplomacy and take note when it is absent. Find
your voice again.
Below we discuss some of the most important
human rights issues facing the UK, EU, and other governments.
Given the vast problems in China, please note that this list is
far from exhaustive.
1. UK AND EU
HUMAN RIGHTS
DIALOGUE WITH
CHINA
Human Rights Watch calls for a reform of the
UK-China dialogue on human rights. Though we are impressed with
the seriousness of the FCO staff who pursue the dialogues, the
semi-annual meetings have now largely become an end in themselves,
without relevance to on-the-ground changes in the human rights
climate. From the Chinese government's perspective, they have
been an effective tool to marginalize human rights, stonewall,
delay, and keep individual dialogue partners busy following separate
agendas and issues.
Human Rights Watch strongly urges the UK to:
— through the Berne process, join
with China's other dialogue partners in choosing a group of core
issues on which to advocate and press for action;
— recommend that all dialogue
partners work together on these issues and reinforce each other's
messages and actions;
— on each issue, present not only
expected results, but a timetable for achieving them, and clear
benchmarks that will signal progress;
— insist that Chinese government
personnel with expertise be involved in discussions on particular
issues and, insofar as is reasonable, that the same set of people
stay involved;
— insist that once a proposal
is finalised, personnel with political responsibility for the
issue become involved in the process and make a commitment to
implementation;
— consult with NGOs on issues
to be raised and strategies for implementation; and
— make it clear to China that
failure to engage in good faith efforts to improve the human rights
situation through dialogues will leave the UK with no option but
to withdraw in due course.
It is equally critical that China gets the message
that human rights dialogues are not a zero-sum game and that these
discussions are in addition to, and not instead of, sustained
diplomatic pressure from the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary,
and the UK embassy in Beijing, among others.
2. EU ARMS EMBARGO
Human Rights Watch remains greatly concerned
by the apparent willingness of some EU countries to consider prematurely
lifting the embargo on arms sales to China. At the time of its
imposition, EU ministers acted in response to the "brutal
repression taking place in China" and requested "Chinese
authorities to stop the executions and to put an end to the repressive
actions against those who legitimately claim their democratic
rights."
Human Rights Watch strongly urges the UK to
make clear to fellow EU members that it will not vote to lift
the 1989 EU arms embargo until the Chinese leadership seriously
addresses the bloody crackdown in Beijing's Tiananmen Square 15
years ago by:
— undertaking transparent, credible
investigations into the Tiananmen killings;
— establishing who ordered the
army to fire on unarmed and peaceful demonstrators, and initiating
transparent prosecutions of those people;
— establishing how many individuals
were killed;
— establishing how many individuals
were sentenced for their peaceful participation in the 1989 pro-democracy
demonstrations throughout China and ensuring their unconditional
release;
— providing appropriate compensation
to victims;
— allowing relatives and friends
of the victims to publicly mourn their dead; and
— unfreezing funds donated to
help victims' families.
It is vital that the UK and EU make these demands
publicly and at the highest level. In light of some of the weaknesses
in UK and EU human rights advocacy with China in recent years,
it is not clear that China still takes UK and EU concerns over
human rights very seriously. Lifting the embargo without meeting
these basic conditions would further erode the UK's and the EU's
credibility as serious advocates for human rights in China.
3. A DETERIORATING
HUMAN RIGHTS
SITUATION
Given the continuing critical human rights situation
in China, we urge the UK to address a number of these issues,
described in some detail below.
Although there are many other areas of concern,
Human Rights Watch has chosen a group of issues we believe merit
the UK's special attention. Some are subjects the EU has consistently
brought to the attention of Chinese officials; others are longstanding
human rights violations that have acquired a new urgency. These
are:
(a) Torture
It is urgent that the Chinese government act
to quickly address the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture's
conclusion that while torture is "widespread, but declining",
more must to be done to hasten its elimination. His observation
that there was "a palpable level of fear and self-censorship"
on the part of detainees interviewed is also cause for alarm.
Human Rights Watch urges the UK to call on China
to:
— ensure that the reform of the
criminal procedure law conforms to ICCPR fair trial provisions,
including the right to remain silent and the privilege against
self-incrimination, the right to cross-examine witnesses and the
effective exclusion of evidence extracted through torture, and
timely access to counsel;
— establish an independent complaints
mechanism for detainees subject to torture and ill-treatment;
— change the Chinese definition
of torture to fully correspond to the international standard contained
in the Convention Against Torture; and
— insist that Section 306 of the
Criminal Law be repealed and retribution against criminal defense
lawyers cease.
(b) Death Penalty
The recent government's decision to have all
death sentences reviewed by the Supreme Court is a welcome move—but
the fundamental problems of transparency and due process remain.
As long as China refuses to disclose death penalty statistics,
reform efforts cannot be substantiated.
We urge the UK to:
— continue insisting on the abolition
of the death penalty; and
— in the meantime, press China
to announce a moratorium on its use while the criminal law is
amended to allow use of the death penalty only for the most serious
crimes, the judiciary is allowed to act independently of Chinese
Communist Party dictates, and observance of fair trial standards
becomes the norm. The UK could offer technical assistance to China
once China agrees to implementation.
(c) Reeducation-through-labour
We appreciate UK efforts to end the reeducation-through-labour
system in China, which has been used to detain millions of Chinese
citizens without a trial or recourse to the judiciary. The law
on "Correcting Illegal Behaviour" that the legislature
plans to adopt at the upcoming National People's Congress Session
in early March 2006 will shorten the maximum detention length
to eighteen months and introduce limited judicial review mechanisms,
but it ultimately solidifies and prolongs the life of the reeducation-through-labor
system.
We urge the UK to:
— intensify its efforts to convince
the Chinese government that it must completely abandon this retrograde
legal practice and similar forms of administrative detention and
sentencing; and
— continue to work with reformers
within China's legal community to eliminate not just reeducation-through-labor,
but all forms of administrative detention and sentencing.
(d) Freedom of Expression
To stop its citizens from learning about the
reality of life in China or communicating with the outside world,
or indeed among themselves, China has regularly added layers of
regulations censoring news reports and commentary, and has created
the most ambitious and sophisticated Internet firewall in the
world. In recent months, the crackdown against newspapers and
magazines which challenge official views has mushroomed, and challenges
to a free-wheeling worldwide web have multiplied. [4]
We urge the UK to press the Chinese government
to:
— amend its criminal law and national
security laws to conform to international standards so as to ensure
that the peaceful expression of political and other views is protected;
— amend the State Secrets Law
to narrow its scope, such as by eliminating the practice of declaring
public material a "secret" only after someone has been
arrested for its dissemination or ending the practice of classifying
information in the public domain as a state secret when it is
disseminated abroad;
— stop jailing journalists, editors,
and Internet users for the peaceful expression of their political
views;
— stop closures of newspapers,
magazines, journals, and websites engaged in peaceful political
expression;
— remove restrictions on Internet
message boards and blogs, and cease censoring and filtering email
and websites; and
— stop requiring Internet companies
such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! who operate in China to
serve as censors or identify users in political cases.
The stakes here are much greater than the future
of a Chinese free press. China is already exporting technology
for monitoring the Internet to other repressive governments, Zimbabwe,
for example. Such governments are watching to see if China can
bend Internet providers to its will. Should China succeed, other
countries will insist on the same degree of compliance, and the
companies will be hard-pressed to refuse. There will be two Internets,
one for open societies and one for closed societies. A worldwide
web, one which opens doors and empowers people, will disappear.
In its place, we will find a virtual Iron Curtain.
Media censorship is all the more invidious owing
to its usefulness to the government for prosecuting cases of alleged
state security and state secrets crimes. The vaguely defined crimes
of "subversion," "endangering state security,"
and "leaking state secrets" make it remarkably easy
to detain, indict, and sentence intellectuals, academics, journalists,
and dissidents who criticise the government or CCP or raise issues
that China's leaders prefer to keep out of the public domain.
(e) Religious Repression
China's new "Regulations on Religious Affairs"
became effective 1 March 2005, but it is already clear that the
changes are little more than a continuation of long-established
policies that limit religious freedom.
Independent, unregistered religious groups,
still viewed as threats to the state, are illegal and their clergy
and adherents subject to monitoring, harassment, arrest, and severe
ill treatment. In addition, China has reserved for itself the
right to distinguish between a "religion" and a "cult"
and to severely limit the activity of the latter. Since March,
several large-scale raids on unregistered churches have targeted
leadership training sessions, bible classes, and missionary activity.
Although government-recognised and controlled religious organizations
do not suffer the same harassment, they must agree to "adapt"
to socialist society, turn over their membership lists, have their
leaders vetted for "patriotism," their finances inspected,
and their literature censored. For Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang
and Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan communities
in Chinese provinces, the state-sanctioned crackdown on religious
activities is stricter than in other parts of China. Throughout
China, there appear to be unspecified limits on religious education
for minors.
We ask that the UK press the Chinese government
to:
— release immediately and unconditionally,
from any form of detention, all those held for peaceful practice
of activities associated with religious beliefs (Please note that
Chinese authorities insist that no one is incarcerated for their
religious beliefs but for breaking the law.);
— remove all references to "sects"
and "evil religious organisations" from China's criminal
code and rescind all applicable explanations, interpretations,
and decisions;
— adopt an explicit provision
guaranteeing freedom of belief and religious practice for those
under eighteen and the right of parents to educate their children
in the belief system of their choice;
— clarify the ambiguities ("normal
religious activities" and "religious extremism")
present in the 2005 "Regulations on Religious Affairs";
and
— allow access for members of
the Committee on the Rights of the Child to the Panchen Lama designated
by the Dalai Lama.
(f) Forced Evictions and Land Takings
In the rush to modernize and develop Chinese
cities, Chinese local authorities and developers are forcibly
evicting hundreds of thousands of homeowners and tenants without
due process or proper compensation. Evicted residents and housing
rights activists have increasingly taken to the streets to protest,
only to meet harsh police repression. In rural areas, there has
been violent repression against farmers objecting to local officials
selling communally-held property to developers. Farmers complain
that they are improperly compensated and are left with no reasonable
way to earn a living.
In Beijing, the number of cases of illegal forced
evictions is likely to increase in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics
as venues are built and the city intensifies its modernization
efforts. Senior legal experts and even some government-controlled
news media have openly criticised the government's failure to
protect the rights of homeowners and tenants. In response, the
Chinese government has enacted some legal reforms, including a
constitutional amendment to protect property rights. However,
provisions of the Chinese constitution are not directly enforceable
and courts have not generally upheld the rights of evicted residents.
The situation in rural communities is further
complicated by the fact that land is held communally. At issue
is who has the right to negotiate for the community. In addition,
the suspicion of corruption on the part of local officials clouds
the process of land transfers.
We urge the UK to assist the Chinese government
to:
— establish laws and regulations
consistent with the provisions of the Chinese constitution protecting
private or communally-held property from being taken arbitrarily
or without appropriate compensation; and
— ensure that the courts and administrative
tribunals uphold the rights of individuals and hold officials
accountable for failure to enforce existing regulations that protect
the rights of evicted residents.
(g) Petitioners
Due to the multiple weaknesses and failures
of the Chinese legal system, particularly at the local level,
impoverished rural Chinese often attempt to obtain redress for
forced eviction, police brutality, or corrupt practices through
the intervention of higher ranking officials. However, the system,
although regularised, often leads to further abuse, detention,
and administrative sentencing.
Until such time as China has an independent
an independent judiciary, appropriate protections for plaintiffs,
and a fully-functioning legal aid system, we urge the UK to:
— assist the Chinese government
in addressing the failures of local-level legal systems;
— insist to Chinese central authorities
that they investigate the use of police and private enforcers
to abuse petitioners; and
— urge that criminal and administrative
measures are employed to hold accountable the individual police
officers and provincial authorities who are responsible for such
attacks.
(h) HIV/AIDS
Two decades after the first case of HIV/AIDS
was diagnosed in China, the country faces what could be the largest
AIDS epidemic in the world. In recent years, senior Chinese officials
have shown a growing awareness about the need to confront the
epidemic. However, AIDS activists continue to be harassed and
bureaucratic restrictions continue to be imposed on civil society
groups fighting the epidemic.
We urge the UK to press the Chinese government
to:
— revise national regulations
to remove burdensome restrictions that limit the registration
and growth of non-governmental organizations, working against
the spread of HIV/AIDS;
— invite grass-roots HIV/AIDS
organizations to share their input on policy and legal reform
and to monitor implementation of government aid programs;
— enact and enforce national legislation
prohibiting discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS;
and
— cease detaining AIDS activists
for protesting or advocating for access to treatment and care.
We are aware that this is a large and ambitious
human rights agenda. However the failure of the Chinese authorities
to address these and other human rights violations requires the
international community to persist in drawing attention to these
abuses at the highest levels of the Chinese government and the
Chinese Communist Party. We hope the Foreign Affairs Committee
will raise these issues with the government and press them for
clear and consistent action.
Brad Adams
Executive Director
Asia Division
Human Rights Watch
2 March 2006
4 In December 2005, Chinese authorities replaced the
top editors of one of the most daring newspapers, the Beijing
News. In January 2006, the government shut down Freezing Point,
a four-page weekly section of the state-run China Youth Daily,
which often challenged the party line. On 6 February 2006, Wu
Xianghu, deputy editor of the Taizhou Wanbao, a local newspaper
in the eastern coastal city of Taizhou, Zhejiang province, died
after sustaining serious injuries in October 2005, when a number
of policemen attacked him in revenge for reports he had published
exposing corruption in the police force. On February 24, 2006,
the journalist Li Yuanlong was formally indicted on charges of
"incitement to subvert state power." Li worked as a
reporter for the Bijie Daily for eight years. He apparently
ran afoul of the local authorities after publishing a series of
reports on unemployment and rural poverty. Back
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