Access to Justice
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Last month, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese writer and democracy advocate, Liu Xiaobo, recognizing his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." Liu currently is serving an eleven-year sentence in a Chinese prison for "inciting subversion of state power," in part for his role
Henan House Church Members Appeal After Court Refuses To Hear Lawsuit
Sodmongol, an ethnic Mongol rights advocate from Chaoyang city, Liaoning province, remains in custody since authorities first detained him at the Beijing Airport in April 2010, according to a July 15 press release from Amnesty International (AI). As reported in an April 23 article from the Southern Mongolia Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), officials at the Beijing Capital International Airport detained Sodmongol on April 18 as he was waiting to board a flight to the United States. Sodmongol had planned to attend the Ninth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York as part of a delegation arranged by the U.S.-based SMHRIC.
Weeks after reportedly "resurfacing" in late March 2010, prominent Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng disappeared again in mid-April, according to an April 30 New York Times (NYT) article and a May 1 Voice of America article. In early April, Gao gave several interviews to foreign reporters, claiming he had been "released" months earlier and had ended his human rights campaigning in hope of being reunited with his family. The extent of the restrictions imposed on Gao's freedom of movement and association after this reported "release" remain unclear. Gao provided few details of his circumstances or of his 14-month disappearance, according to a March 28 BBC News article.
The Shenzhen municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB) announced on April 15, 2010, that seven categories of people, including certain groups of petitioners, would be put on a "black list of people unwelcome in Shenzhen and who would not be eligible to apply for a residence permit," according to a copy of the announcement on the municipal PSB Web site and an April 17 Xinhua editorial. The Shenzhen policy appears to restrict the granting of Shenzhen city residence permits to citizens who have engaged in specified types of petitioning behaviors:
Authorities in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), have implemented measures to curb citizen petitioning to higher levels over grievances connected to a demolition and resettlement project in the Old City section of Kashgar. According to a March 4 Xinjiang Daily report (via Xinhua), authorities in Kashgar have resolved residents' concerns about the project and have implemented a "zero-tolerance system" (lingkongzhi) to control petitions to higher level authorities. Authorities have included the rate at which officials "stop appeals and end complaints" (xisu bafang) and lower the rate of "serious letters and visits" (zhongxin zhongfang) in evaluations of "cadre effectiveness" (ganbu jixiao) and "peaceful construction" (ping'an jianshe).
On December 18, 2009, the Communist Party and central government public security leadership in Beijing held a video teleconference with members of the Party's political-legal committees, which among other things, oversee the law enforcement apparatus at the local level across the nation, according to a December 28 Legal Daily report (reprinted in Xinhua). The meeting focused on propagating the Party's public security agenda for 2010, summarized as "three key projects," an agenda which also was disseminated by the state-run media.
Shenzhen's Intermediate People's Court, Procuratorate, Public Security Bureau, and Justice Bureau reportedly jointly issued in November 2009 the "Circular Regarding the Lawful Handling of Abnormal Petitioning Behavior," (Circular) according to a November 13 Xinhua article. The Circular identified 14 types of "abnormal" petitioning behavior that would be subject to disciplinary action, according to the Xinhua article. As of January 20, 2010, while reports of the Circular and its contents have appeared widely on line and in the state-run media, the Circular itself does not appear to be publicly available. In a drive initiated by the mainland citizen group Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, over 1,000 people signed an open letter demanding the repeal of the Circular, according to a December 1 Boxun article.