China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update - January 2008

Beijing's bid in 2000 to host the 2008 Olympics promised a "Green Olympics" and the "greatest Olympic Games environmental legacy ever," yet concerns remain over Beijing's transparency and progress toward fulfilling the specific commitments underlying these promises, especially with regard to air quality. In its bid, Beijing promised to achieve objectives in the city's environmental master plan three years ahead of schedule with the completion of 20 major projects by 2007.

The 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which concluded on October 21, 2007, resulted in the promotions of two high-ranking Party officials, Zhou Yongkang and Liu Yandong, whose recent posts associate them with harsh policies that contribute to the repression of human rights such as the freedoms of religion and expression, and that undermine ethnic minority rights guaranteed by China's Constitution and system of regional ethnic autonomy.

A year after China's Regulations on Reporting Activities in China by Foreign Journalists During the Beijing Olympic Games and the Preparatory Period went into effect, a Beijing-based association of foreign journalists noted "improved overall reporting conditions for foreign journalists" but also "hot spots where journalists have experienced repeated violations" of the regulations, according to a January 1 Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) press release. The temporary regulations, effective from January 1, 2007 to October 17, 2008, give foreign journalists greater freedom to report in China, something the International Olympic Committee required China do in order to host the 2008 Olympics.

At a Politburo study session held December 18, Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao reaffirmed the Party's policies for controlling religion and called on religious communities to play a "positive role" in promoting state goals and to "closely unite" around the Party. Hu's statements, which outlined direction for carrying forward Party policy on religion, also continued a trend in mentioning a "positive role" for religious communities at high levels of the Communist Party.

The Central Propaganda Department (CPD) of the Chinese Communist Party recently issued a notice to Chinese news editors restricting domestic coverage of topics relating to China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics, including air quality and food safety, according to a November 13 South China Morning Post (SCMP) report (subscription required).

The state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), which oversees China's registered Catholic church, ordained three bishops in late 2007 who had received approval from the Holy See, continuing a trend that was interrupted in 2006 by several bishop ordinations without Holy See approval.

Local governments and educational institutions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued in 2007 to impose religious restrictions on Muslims' observance of the holiday of Ramadan. Local governments and schools called for increased controls over religious activities during Ramadan, banning students from fasting, forbidding teachers and other state employees from engaging in religious activities, and requiring local restaurants to remain open during the holiday.

Relatives of four Tibetan men -- two nomads, a monk, and a school teacher -- traveled from a Tibetan area of Sichuan province to the provincial capital, Chengdu City, to submit appeals to the Sichuan High People's Court following the men's sentencing on November 20, 2007, on splittism and espionage charges, according to a December 4 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. The Ganzi (Kardze) Intermediate People's Court, located in Kangding (Dartsedo), the capital of Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, sentenced the four men to prison terms of up to 10 years on charges of splittism, espionage, or both, for actions linked to an August 1 incident at a horse-racing festival in Litang (Lithang) county in Ganzi TAP, according to a Xinhua report published the same day as the sentencing.

A Guangzhou court sentenced rights defender Yang Maodong (who uses the pen name Guo Feixiong) to five years in prison for "illegal operation of a business," a crime under Article 225 of China's Criminal Law, according to a November 16 Guangzhou Daily article (in Chinese, via the Web site of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government). A November 14 Human Rights in China (HRIC) press release said that the Tianhe District People's Court, in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, handed down the sentence on November 14 and also fined him 40,000 yuan (US$5,400).

State security officials in China released Internet essayist Wang Dejia (whose pen name is Jing Chu) on bail on January 12, the Chinese rights advocacy Web site Minsheng Guancha reported on the same day. The report said that Wang had been released from the Quanzhou County Detention Center in Guilin city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Wang was originally detained in Quanzhou on December 13, 2007, on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power."

China's National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) has altered its population planning slogans to reflect a less strident tone, according to an October 11 Xinhua article and a July 19 circular posted on the NPFPC Web site. The NPFPC eliminated older slogans like "Raise fewer babies but more piggies" and "One more baby means one more tomb" that drew controversy and created a "misunderstanding about the [population planning] policy and even tarnish[ed] the image of the government," according to the NPFPC, as cited in the Xinhua article.

The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) issued measures that standardize the disclosure of environmental information by government agencies and enterprises, and provide the public with the right to request government environmental information, according to an April 25, 2007, SEPA press release. SEPA issued the Measures on Open Environmental Information (the Measures) on April 11, and was the first government agency to release its own implementing measures after the State Council issued the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Open Government Information on April 5.

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued this year to force students in the region to pick cotton and do other physical labor, despite China's obligation to bar such work as a state party to international conventions addressing child labor and despite objections from both students and parents. As previously noted by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), the XUAR government, acting under central government authority bolstered by local legal directives, promotes the use of student labor, including labor by young children, via work-study programs to harvest crops and do other work. The XUAR government reportedly developed work-study programs to address labor shortages during the autumn harvest. Students do not receive pay for their work, and their performance in the work-study programs influences their promotion to higher grades.

A court in Sichuan province convicted Tibetan nomad Ronggyal Adrag on October 29, 2007, on charges of attempting to "subvert state power" and "split the country" by standing before a crowd gathered at a horse-racing festival and yelling slogans calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet and greater Tibetan freedoms, according to an October 30 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. The judge presiding over the Ganzi (Kardze) Intermediate People's Court, located in Kangding (Dartsedo), the capital of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, said that sentencing would take place within six or seven days.