China Human Rights and Rule of Law Update - No. 6 - December 9, 2009

Since mid-September 2009, authorities in Shanxi province have forcefully suppressed a local unregistered Protestant congregation through beatings and detention of church leaders and demolition of the church facility. Several church leaders have since been sentenced to prison terms or ordered to serve reeducation through labor. National regulations on religious affairs require Protestant groups and other recognized religious communities to register with the government and affiliate with a "patriotic religious organization" that oversees their affairs on behalf of the government. Many refuse to register, as registered congregations are subject to state monitoring of church members, interference in clergy appointments, mandatory political study sessions for pastors, and restrictions on theology and topics for preaching. Police raids against unregistered congregations and forced closure and demolition of their churches persist in many localities.

In October 2009, a court in Jiangsu province sentenced Guo Quan to 10 years in prison for his attempts to organize the "China New Democracy Party" and to use the Internet to seek members and disseminate his political views. Chinese citizens who attempt to form independent political parties and use the Internet to organize and peacefully express their opposition to the Communist Party frequently are targeted for harassment, detention, and imprisonment by the Chinese government.

Chinese authorities have prevented Chinese citizen Feng Zhenghu from returning home to Shanghai from Tokyo, in contravention of the right to return to one's own country set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Since November 4, Feng has been living at Tokyo's Narita Airport, refusing to enter Japan and demanding his right to return to China. Feng has become a cause celebre -- a symbol for the right to return home; he is receiving food, daily necessities, and moral support from the Chinese diaspora as well as mainland Chinese.

As the Commission noted in its 2009 Annual Report, Chinese authorities continue arbitrarily to deny some Chinese citizens the right to return to their country in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In mid-October 2009, the Chinese government blocked freelance writer and activist Li Jianhong (a.k.a. Xiao Qiao) from returning to her home in Shanghai after a stint in Sweden as the "Guest Writer of Stockholm" with the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN). Chinese officials in Shenzhen twice refused Li entry into mainland China from Hong Kong. Hong Kong authorities would not permit Li to remain in Hong Kong, and thus she had no choice but to fly back to Sweden, where she is today.

Authorities have executed nine men, mostly Uyghurs, found guilty by a court in the far-western region of Xinjiang of committing violent crimes during unrest in Xinjiang in July. Amid controls over the free flow of information from Xinjiang, available information indicates the trials were marked by violations of international standards for due process including judges selected for "political reliability" and curbs on defendants' right to independent counsel. Authorities also reported in recent months on steps to detain and initiate prosecution against other people for acts connected to events in July.

A senior Communist Party official has made statements in an interview with a European magazine indicating that the Party has introduced what appear to be additional preconditions that it expects the Dalai Lama to meet before the Party will resume discussions ("dialogue") with the Dalai Lama's representatives. The preconditions seek to force the Dalai Lama to accept responsibility for the dialogue stalling in late 2008, and pressure him to curtail his international travel. The introduction of the new preconditions is concurrent with increasing Chinese government demands that governments of other countries should bar the Dalai Lama from entering their countries if those governments wish to develop or maintain good relations with China.

The discovery of lead poisoning in children, due to heavy metal pollution from a metal smelter, led to protests by hundreds of residents in Shaanxi province in August 2009. The case highlights ongoing lax compliance with environmental laws and policies, government accountability gaps, and insufficient protection for citizens' environmental rights, including that of access to environmental information in China. In response to the highly visible and contentious Shaanxi lead poisoning case and the wave of other lead poisoning cases in several provinces, the central government announced a provisional plan to better manage heavy metal pollution across China without making details of the plan public.

China's State Council Information Office reportedly issued a secret directive in July 2009 ordering Chinese news Web sites, many of which now allow users to post comments on news items, to require new users to provide identifying information before posting comments. Although government officials denied a report about the directive, news portals appear to be complying with the new policy. The Chinese government has punished citizens who have used the Internet to, among other things, peacefully criticize the Communist Party and the Chinese government. By making it easier for officials to identify the source of such comments, the new policy may lead to self censorship. Internet companies operating in China and Chinese Internet users have expressed opposition to similar policies in the past.

In April 2009, the Ministry of Public Security launched a nationwide campaign to combat the abduction and sale of women and children. As of October 28, over 6,000 victims reportedly had been rescued through the campaign. The growing problem of human trafficking in China has been linked to, among other issues, imbalanced gender demographics resulting from the government's one-child policy and a traditional preference for male offspring, and continued demand for inexpensive labor.

Authorities in the far-western region of Xinjiang have passed a new regulation on "informatization" promotion that includes provisions against using the Internet to incite ethnic separatism, threaten state security, or spread false information. While the ban is similar in some respects to prohibitions found elsewhere in China, Xinjiang authorities also have stressed the importance of the regulation in upholding stability following demonstrations and outbreaks of violence in the region in July and September. The regulation follows earlier efforts in Xinjiang to limit and punish people for online activity.

In a November 2009 speech, top Party official Li Changchun marked Journalists' Day in China by reminding reporters of their obligations to serve the Party's interests. Because they remain subject to the control of the Communist Party, Chinese journalists and news media do not enjoy freedom of the press.

The Chinese government has taken steps in recent years to pass more legislation to regulate religion. Since the central government implemented a national regulation on religion in 2005, a number of provinces have followed suit with their own regulations, including three provinces which passed new or amended regulations this summer or fall. Such regulations provide a measure of protection for some religious activities, but such protection is limited in scope and applies only to state-sanctioned religious communities. In addition, while the new pieces of legislation, which incorporate national requirements, lend a measure of transparency and consistency to government regulation of religion, they also articulate tighter controls in a number of areas, as compared to the older regulations they amend or replace.

Chinese officials do not allow persons entering mainland China to bring in books considered by officials to "attack the Communist Party" or "harm China's politics," among other things. Thus, persons who obtain books in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or any other place, run the risk of having them confiscated at the Chinese border. One Chinese citizen, the noted professor Feng Chongyi, sued a customs office in Guangdong province for confiscating several books he purchased in Hong Kong, including books on political topics such as democracy in China and former Party general secretary Hu Yaobang. A court began hearing the case in mid-October 2009. Feng argued that in applying a policy of confiscating books at the border on the basis of vague categories and a list of banned books that is not publicly available, Chinese officials violated Article 4 of the PRC Administrative Punishment Law, which requires administrative penalties to adhere to "principles of fairness and openness," and failed more generally to adhere to fundamental principles of the rule of law.