Authorities Cancel Plans to Subject Uyghur Woman to Forced Abortion (Updated)

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) released from the hospital a Uyghur woman who is six months pregnant with her third child, after cancelling plans to subject her to a forced abortion for violating the region's population planning regulations, according to reports from Radio Free Asia (RFA). Unable to pay a 45,000 yuan (US$6,591) fine for exceeding the number of births permitted under the region's population planning system, Arzigul (Arzugül) Tursun, a villager from Ghulja county, initially fled home to avoid being forced to have an abortion in place of paying the fine, RFA reported on November 13. After pressuring Arzigul Tursun's family to locate her, authorities also coerced Arzigul Tursun's husband into signing papers to approve the abortion, RFA reported. After authorities took Arzigul Tursun to the hospital, hospital staff postponed the abortion from November 13 to November 17, according to RFA. Kept under guard, Arzigul Tursun fled the hospital on November 16 but was found the next day and taken to another hospital, RFA reported on November 17. Authorities later released her from the hospital without carrying out the abortion, according to a November 18 report from RFA.

An official cited in the article said Arzigul was not healthy enough to undergo the abortion. An official cited in the November 13 RFA report said Arzigul Tursun "should undergo an abortion" because she violated population planning requirements. Article 15 of the XUAR Regulation on Population and Family Planning permits urban ethnic minority couples to give birth to two children and rural couples to give birth to three. Where one member of the couple is an urban resident, urban birth limits apply. According to RFA, although Arzigul Tursun is a rural resident, her husband has urban residency status. Article 41 of the regulation requires those in violation of Article 15 to pay a fine equivalent to a multiple of a locality's average per capita income as a "social compensation fee." The regulation does not stipulate that pregnancies must be terminated if the fee cannot be paid, nor do separate procedures on paying the fees stipulate this. Item 6 of the procedures permits people facing economic hardship to apply to stagger payments of the fee. Article 39 of the national Population and Family Planning Law and Article 52 of the Xinjiang regulation provide sanctions for government officials who infringe on citizens' rights or abuse their power in carrying out population planning requirements.

As noted in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2008 Annual Report (via the Government Printing Office Web site), China's system of population planning, along with abuses like forced abortion engendered by the system, violate international human rights protections China is bound to uphold. For more information on China's population planning system, see section III--Population Planning in the 2008 CECC Annual Report.

For information on conditions in Xinjiang, see Section-IV--Xinjiang. Advocacy on Arzigul Tursun's behalf by Members of the U.S. Congress has included, for example, a November 17 press release by Representative Joe Pitts and a November 13 press release by Representative Chris Smith.