By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China– Maoist writer Li Tie was sentenced to ten years in prison and three years deprivation of political rights for subversion after he wrote online articles advocating for political reform.

The sentencing of Li Tie comes within a month of activists Chen Wei of Sichuan and Chen Xi of Guizhou being sentenced to nine years and ten years respectively for “inciting subversion”.

According to the spokesman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, “[t]he very harsh sentencing of human rights defender Li Tie is the fourth verdict against a prominent human rights defender in China since last December.” He continued to state that the United Nations is “…very disturbed by this trend of severe suppression of dissent in the county, which appears to be designed to intimidate.”

The basis of Li’s conviction was a set of thirteen articles written by Li and interpreted by the court as an attempt to encourage others to overthrow the government.

Li was initially detained in September 2010 and was formally arrested a month later. During his time in custody he was denied visits from family and was pressured by authorities to accept a government appointed lawyer.

According to Li’s brother, Li Jian, “…they wouldn’t let him have his own lawyer, or rather, they didn’t ban him outright but did everything they could to obstruct him, so it was impossible to hire him.”

Dozens of lawyers, writers and activists have been detained in China since mid-February when protest advertisements began to appear on the internet following a series of uprisings in the Arab world.

The calls for protest, dubbed the Jasmine Revolution, have led the Chinese government to begin to clampdown on activists by detaining and sentencing them to long prison sentences.

Human rights groups claim that the three recent sentences handed down were far more severe than what is normally administered in such cases and is believed to reflect rising government anxiety as the one year anniversary of the uprising in the Middle East approaches.

Also contributing to Chinese anxiety is the change taking place in top-level leadership this year. Chinese authorities fear disruption during the period in which the Vice President assumes the role of general secretary of the party and then president.

According to rights lawyer Mo Shaoping, “[i]t’s now a consensus among many people that the legal environment in China is worsening; the authorities are setting up more and more obstacles.”

 

For more information, please see:

AFP – UN ‘Disturbed’  by Jailing of China Activist – 20 January 2012

The New York Times – China Sentences Another Prominent Activist to Prison – 19 January 2012

Radio Free Asia – Maoist Writer Jailed for Subversion – 19 January 2012

The Washington Post – Another Writer Sentenced as China’s Crackdown Continues – 19 January 2012

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

 BEIJING, China– A woman in China has narrowly avoided being forcibly sterilized after giving birth to her second child.

The attempt was carried out by family planning officials in the Chinese province of Fujian who held the woman down on an operating table.

The woman, Huang Yongchun, explains her experience by stating “they took me over there this morning, and about eight of them held me down on the operating table.”

Huang has already given birth to two children which exceeds the one child allowed under Chinese law. Huang reported that this attempt was preceded by an initial attempt made in 2010. While the first attempt was thwarted by Huang’s health problems, the second attempt was cancelled by a doctor after seeing Huang’s frantic reaction.

“The doctor didn’t want to do the operation because I was terrified…I was shuddering there on the operation table because I felt so helpless” reports Huang.

In response, Village chief Chen Renhe explained that, “they didn’t comply with family planning regulations…in our country the policy is that people who don’t comply are not forced, but we have to do ideological work with them.”

Forced sterilization and abortion have become common in rural areas of China where family planning officials attempt to avoid being fined for exceeding local birth quotas.

Rights lawyer Tang Jingling has reported that sterilizations, peer pressure and financial incentives are commonly used to convince women to comply with the one-child policy. For example, “if one person in a work unit has an extra child, then the whole organization…could lose out on economic benefit” stated Tang.

China’s one-child policy was instituted by the Communist government in the 1970’s to curb the growing population. Under this policy, couples living in urban areas are allowed only one child while couples living in rural areas are allowed two children if the first child is a female.

The one-child policy has sparked controversy not only internationally but nationally as well. One of China’s most well-known activists, rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng, has endured over six years of harassment, persecution and physical abuse because of his investigative reported of forced sterilization and abortion in China.

Chen and his wife are currently under house arrest and have been forbidden from leaving their home for over a year. During this time they have suffered beatings and frequent raids on their home by Chinese authorities.

In December American actor Christian Bale was criticized by the Chinese government for engaging in an altercation with Chinese police who physically thwarted his attempts to visit Chen while he was in town to attend the opening ceremony of his latest filed “The Flowers of War”.

 

For more information, please see:

Radio Free Asia – Woman Flees Forced Sterilization – 12 January 2012

Lifenews – Biden to Head Obama China Policy but Ignored Forced Abortions – 3 January 2012

New York Daily News – China Says Christian Bale Should be Embarrassed – 21 December 2011

The Guardian – Chen Guangcheng: Amnesty Urgent Action – 12 November 2011

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China –A confrontation between Chinese authorities and a group of Uighurs fleeing China resulted in at least seven deaths and the detention of children as young as seven years old.

According to the chief of one of the Mukula village hamlets, Memet Eziz Hapiz, two of those killed and at least two of those detained were from his hamlet.

Hapiz states that “[a]ll of them were firm in their beliefs. That is why they were unhappy and unsatisfied with the country’s religious policy.”

Minever Ehmet, Mukula village chief, told Radio Free Asia that two of the seven individuals killed were women and “their bodies are being held by the county Public Security Bureau.”

Minever Ehmet also stated that “the four captives are children aged seven to seventeen years of age. One child is an elementary school student in second grade. They are being interrogated by the county.”

When asked about the condition of the seven year old child, the village chief responded that he was “still alive” giving the impression that the child may have been seriously injured in the clash.

According to accounts by government authorities, the police attempted to block the “traitors”, who they accused of being terrorists, from crossing the border into an “enemy” country and opened fire when the Uighurs resisted arrest.

Although the police were civil, an argument eventually ensued and resulted in the stabbing of a police officer who grabbed the wife of one of the individuals.

Despite the official account, doubts have been raised about the legitimacy of official statements regarding events in Xinjiang.

For example, in 2008 officials claimed that two Uighur men were responsible for killing sixteen paramilitary officers by using machetes, explosives and trucks. Witnesses, however, claimed that it appeared that government actors had been the aggressors.

The Uighurs, which are the Turkish speaking and Muslim population in China, have often been accused of being the source of terrorism due to their resentment of Chinese rule and the control the government exercises over their religion and culture.

For more information, please see:

China Daily – Seven Kidnappers Killed, Police Officer Dies – 30 December 2011

New York Times – Reports Describe Deadly Clash in Restive China Region – 30 December 2011

Radio Free Asia – Women Killed, Children Captured in Standoff – 30 December 2011

By: Hibberd Kline
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – On Monday, an intermediate level people’s court in Guiyang, the capital of China’s southwestern Guizhou province, sentenced 57 year-old activist Chen Xi to ten years in prison for “subversion of state power” and “inciting subversion of state power.”

The court also announced that Chen will be “deprived of his political rights” for three years.

According to a statement by Amnesty International, neither “subversion” or “incit[ing] others to subvert state power,” which are common charges leveled against activists in China, is adequately defined by Chinese law  or related regulatory interpretations.

Chen Xi is a former soldier and factory worker, who was previously jailed for three years in 1989 for his support of the student protests in Tiananmen Square. Chen served an additional ten year jail term from 1995-2006 for “organizing and leading a counter-revolutionary group.” Chen is also a prominent member of Guizhou Human Rights Forum, which was outlawed inside China on December 5.

Chen’s conviction follows his arrest on November 29 in what activists claim to be a response to his authoring 36 online articles critical of the state and Communist party. The articles were published both domestically and abroad and called for political reform and improvement of human rights inside China. Chen has also recently incurred the ire of officials by campaigning for the election of independent candidates to the local people’s congress.

Chen Xi’s sentence is one in a series of lengthy prison terms recently handed down to human rights activists by Chinese authorities. Many analysts believe that the arrests, speedy trials, and imprisonments have been deliberately timed to coincide with an annual window of low-key diplomatic activity in the West during the Christmas holiday in order to minimize criticism.

The trial reportedly lasted only a few hours and was punctuated by frequent interruptions of the defense counsel by the judge, whom Chen’s wife, Zhang Qunxuan, claims ignored every point made in Chen’s defense. Though Chen was able to express his contention that he was innocent of all charges, he was prevented from reading out his final statement to the court. According to Zhang, the judge pointed out that Chen was a “repeat offender” deserving of a long prison sentence and said that Chen’s crime was “major” and “had a malign impact.”

Chen Xi’s family was informed of his trial on Saturday. However, according to Zhang the authorities refused to inform her what her husband had been charged with, citing rules against sharing information with family members. Additionally, the family was instructed that only three family members would be allowed to attend the court’s proceedings.

Many activists have suggested that the speed and consistency of the results of the Christmas trials prove that the trials were merely for show and that the verdicts were predetermined.

During the past year, Chinese authorities have clamped down on free expression and have arrested more than 130 activists and human rights lawyers. The government’s crackdown has come largely as a response to the popular pro-democracy protests that broke out across the Middle East. Authorities fear that the “Arab Spring” may spark copycat uprisings, which could undermine governmental authority in China.

Last winter, calls for a “Jasmine revolution” in China did circulate on the internet. However, the online pleas drew little visible support inside China and did not succeed in bringing about any large-scale protests.

Nonetheless, the Chinese Government has continued to tighten its control over free-expression, especially on the internet. The state has strengthened its nationwide firewall to further reduce the number of potentially “subversive” websites available for domestic consumption and has installed new monitoring equipment at many internet cafes.

Additionally, Chinese authorities have tightened restrictions on popular social networking service Twitter, which has been used around the world to advocate and coordinate protests against national governments. Though the use of Twitter in China is officially prohibited, many Chinese have found ways to access Twitter by circumventing the firewall through the use of private networks or other means. Accordingly,  many large cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have recently passed laws requiring domestic Twitter users to register for the service using their real names. However, enforcement of the new laws may prove difficult.

The United States has been joined by the EU and several human rights organizations in repeatedly criticizing China’s decreasing tolerance for dissent. On Monday, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay criticized the Chinese judiciary following the sentencing on Friday of human rights activist Chen Wei to nine years in prison.

Like Chen Xi, Chen Wei was also charged with “subversion” after engaging in political speech critical of the Chinese government on the internet. Pillay called Wei’s sentence “extremely harsh” and indicative of a “further tightening of the severe restrictions on the scope of freedom of expression in China that has been seen over the last two years.” Pillay called upon China to release “any person detained for exercising his or her right to freedom of expression.”

During his trial, Chen Wei asserted that he had merely exercised his right to free expression, which is protected by China’s constitution. Both Chen Xi and Chen Wei claim that the one-sided nature of China’s legal system make appealing their verdicts futile.

Though the two activists are not as well-known as recent Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiabo, who was sentenced to eleven years in prison in 2009, both activists have held prominent positions in human rights movements inside China. Additionally, both Chen Xi and Chen Wei joined Liu Xiabo and thousands of other activists in China in signing the so-called “Charter 08,” which called for political reform.

For more information, please see:

Aljazeera — China Jails Veteran Activist for Ten Years? — 27 December 2011

BBC News — China Imprisons Veteran Activist Chen Xi — 26 December 2011

The Guardian — China Jails Dissident Chen Xi for Ten Years — 26 December 2011

The Telegraph — China Continues Christmas Crackdown on Activists as Chen Xi Given Ten Years in Prison —  26 December 2011

Amnesty International — China: Harsh Sentence for Activist Chen Wei Condemned — 23 December 2011

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China- Chinese officials have announced that rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for almost two years, will be forced to serve three years in prison for allegedly violating the terms of his probation.

Gao was arrested and sentenced to probation in 2006 for defending practitioners of Falun Gong which is a banned religion in China. After being sentenced Gao disappeared three times and, in the period between his disappearances, informed reporters that he had been tortured.

He reported that he had been beaten with electric batons and handguns. He also reported that he had been forced to sit still for sixteen hours with a hood over his head while being told to forget that he was human and threatened with death.

Human rights activists have been angered by the announcement of the revocation and have used it to illustrate the abuse faced by dissidents in China.

They emphasize that although missing for twenty months, the Chinese government had maintained that Gao Zhisheng was free on probation since 2006. Some believe that the recent revocation indicates that the lawyer has secretly been in state custody despite claims by authorities that they were unaware of his location.

Renee Xia, a director of Human Rights Directors, asserts that the courts revocation “…is the clearest acknowledgement to date by the Chinese government that it has secretly detained Gao for the last twenty months despite its repeated denials.”

Chinese authorities have not identified what probation violations were committed by Gao but it is known that his five year probation would have expired earlier this week prompting some to believe that the government re-imprisoned him solely to prevent him from being freed.

Gao Zhisheng’s brother, Gao Zhiyi reported that he has not seen his brother since April 2010 and fears that he may be dead.

This fear has been substantiated by Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, who stated that “[t]he people who saw him more than twenty months ago described him as a ghost. We have absolutely no details about his condition now.”

Chinese authorities have been pressured by Western nations and the United Nations to release Gao but have refused to do so.

In response to international concern, the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated that other nations do not have the right to interfere in China’s internal affairs.

 

For more information, please see:

China Daily – China Opposes Interference in Legal Case – 23 December 2011

The New York Times – China Revokes Probation of Missing Human Rights Lawyer – 16 December 2011

The Washington Post – China Jails Lawyer Gao Zhisheng  for Three More Years, Confirming Status After Long Disappearance – 16 December 2011