People’s Republic of China : The Olympics countdown – crackdown on activists threatens Olympics legacy

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Introduction

With little more than four months to go before the Beijing Olympics, few substantial reforms have been introduced that will have a significant, positive impact on human rights in China. This is particularly apparent in the plight of individual activists and journalists, who have bravely sought to expose ongoing human rights abuses and call on the government to address them. Recent measures taken by the authorities to detain, prosecute and imprison those who raise human rights concerns suggest that, to date, the Olympic Games has failed to act as a catalyst for reform. Unless the Chinese authorities take steps to redress the situation urgently, a positive human rights legacy for the Beijing Olympics looks increasingly beyond reach.

It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics, but actually because of the Olympics. Peaceful human rights activists, and others who have publicly criticised official government policy, have been targeted in the official pre-Olympics ‘clean up’, in an apparent attempt to portray a ‘stable’ or ‘harmonious’ image to the world by August 2008. Recent official assertions of a ‘terrorist’ plot to attack the Olympic Games have given prominence to potential security threats to the Olympics, but a failure to back up such assertions with concrete evidence increases suspicions that the authorities are overstating such threats in an attempt to justify the current crackdown.

Several peaceful activists, including those profiled in this series of reports, remain imprisoned or held under tight police surveillance. Despite some high profile releases, many more have been detained over the last six months for doing nothing more than petitioning the authorities to address their grievances or drawing international attention to ongoing human rights violations. Several of those detained have reportedly been subjected to beatings and other forms of torture or other ill-treatment. Those who have linked China’s human rights responsibilities to its hosting of the Olympics have been among the most harshly treated.

Foreign journalists continue to be obstructed from reporting on issues deemed sensitive by the authorities despite the introduction of new regulations last year, ostensibly aimed at increasing their freedom to cover news stories in China. Chinese journalists continue to work under conditions of tight control and censorship and those that publish articles critical of the authorities or official policy risk prosecution and imprisonment. Over recent months, new measures have also been introduced to increase official controls over the Internet, with several HIV/AIDS news websites among those most recently targeted in Beijing. Reports suggest that information controls are also being extended to cover SMS text messaging in Beijing.

Despite long-standing efforts to substantially reform or abolish “Re-education through Labour” (RTL), the system remains intact and available for use by the Beijing police as a tool to sweep ‘undesirables’ off the streets. Recent targets have included activists and petitioners, some of whom have reportedly been assigned to RTL after being detained in Beijing and forcibly returned to their home provinces. Recent reports of round-ups of petitioners in Beijing suggest that the authorities are resorting to methods similar to ‘Custody and Repatriation’ (C&R) - an abusive system of administrative detention the abolition of which in 2003 was presented by the authorities as a major human rights improvement.

While the authorities have claimed that the restoration of Supreme People’s Court (SPC) review led to a significant reduction in the number of executions in 2007, they have failed to support their assertions by publishing full national statistics and other detailed information on the application of the death penalty in China. Such information is essential to allow Chinese and other independent observers to accurately assess the impact of SPC review, and to allow the Chinese public at large to debate and come to informed opinions on the death penalty. Recent reports indicate that the review process itself is beset by significant problems, including a lack of clarity on procedures for defence lawyers to access the SPC. No efforts have been made to reduce the large number crimes punishable by death, and two recent SPC judicial interpretations on damage to electric power facilities and the production or sale of fake medicine may actually encourage lower courts to impose the death penalty, even if crimes have non-lethal consequences.

Time is running out for the Chinese authorities to steer a new course prior to the Olympics based on respect for fundamental human rights – in particular rights to freedom of expression, movement and liberty and security of the person, which apply as much to those who may disagree with government policy as those who agree. It is crucial that the international community, including those with a stake in the Olympics, such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and world leaders who will attend the Games, take a stronger stance with the Chinese authorities to bring an end to such abuses.

Activists silenced in the name of the Olympics

The crackdown on human rights activists has intensified since the publication of the last Olympics Countdown update in August 2007. Those seeking to draw connections between ongoing human rights violations and China’s hosting of the Olympics have been among the most harshly treated, yet many continue to publicise their concerns despite the risks. Scores of activists were reportedly detained or placed under tight police surveillance in the run-up to the 17th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in October 2007, apparently because the Congress was “a very important meeting and a good environment needed to be ensured.” The crackdown also included broad police sweeps of petitioners, vagrants, beggars and other ‘undesirables’ in Beijing in a pattern which broadly continued in the run-up to the National People’s Congress held in Beijing between 5-16 March 2008.

In addition to the crackdown on domestic activists, recent reports indicate that the Chinese authorities are compiling lists of foreign NGOs and activists in an attempt to prevent protests and demonstrations during the Olympics. On 1 November 2007, the Ministry of Public Security held a news conference to emphasize that anyone wishing to hold assemblies, parades and demonstrations during the Olympics would have to comply with the law, including an obligation to apply for permission in advance. This was reinforced on 12 March 2008 when Beijing vice-mayor Liu Jingmin warned that anyone planning to protest during the Games must get police permission and obey local laws. As the case of Ye Guozhu below indicates, such permission is almost never granted in China, particularly for demonstrations which criticise official policy or draw attention to human rights concerns.

Concerns over restrictions on freedom of expression were reinforced in early 2008 by reports that several NOCs were to include ’gagging orders’ in their contracts with athletes for the Beijing Olympics. These orders would prevent athletes from commenting on ’politically sensitive issues’, potentially including speaking out against human rights violations, during the Games. At the centre of the controversy was the British Olympic Association [BOA], which eventually agreed not to restrict athletes’ freedom of expression after widespread criticism in the national media. The position of other NOCs remained unclear, though several responded by explicitly stating that their athletes would be free to speak their minds.

Chapter 51, Article 3 of the Olympic Charter specifies that ’no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas’. Amnesty International considers that this provision must not be used as pretext to curtail the fundamental human rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly more generally in Beijing or China at the time of the Games. In the light of the ‘gagging orders’ controversy, the organization urges the IOC to publicly clarify how it interprets this provision in the context of the right to freedom of expression and publish any guidance it may have issued to NOCs in this regard.

Use of ‘security’ as a pretext to crackdown on peaceful activists

As mentioned in previous Olympics Countdown reports, an overriding preoccupation with ensuring ‘harmony’ and ‘stability’ has featured heavily in China’s preparations for hosting the Olympic Games in August 2008. Over recent months, official concerns over ‘security’ appear to have taken precedence. On 9 March 2008, the authorities claimed to have thwarted a ‘terrorist’ plot to attack the Olympics involving so-called ‘three evil forces’ of ‘separatists, terrorists and religious extremists’ from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). This was based on a raid conducted on a so-called ‘terrorist gang’ in the XUAR in January 2008 in which, according to official sources, Chinese police killed two members of the gang and arrested 15 others. It is unclear why the authorities only disclosed their alleged plans for an attack on the Olympics two months later. As yet, they have provided no concrete evidence to support these assertions.

Three days later, on 12 March 2008, the Beijing News reported that the authorities had established an ‘emergency group’ of 25 lawyers to provide legal services to ‘respond rapidly to any sudden incidents’ and ‘protect social stability’ during the Olympics. On the same day, Liu Jinmen, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympics Games (BOCOG) announced that it had set up a ‘state level headquarters’, grouping the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Public Security and the armed forces, to ensure the security of the Olympics.

Amnesty International recognizes the responsibility of governments to take appropriate security measures and precautions against threats of terrorism or other acts of violence. However, the Chinese authorities have long lumped peaceful acts of dissent, including peaceful support for independence or cultural autonomy, together with alleged acts of violence, branding them all as state security crimes. Repressive policies targeted at the mainly Muslim Uighur community in the XUAR have resulted in the detention of numerous peaceful activists, including academics, writers and journalists. This approach appears to be mirrored in the current crackdown in the run-up to the Olympics, with several peaceful journalists and human rights activists charged with ‘subversion’ and other state security offences. In this context, concerns remain that the authorities may be overstating the ‘terrorist’ threat in an attempt to justify their tough security stance in Beijing, or even divert international attention away from the ongoing crackdown on peaceful activists.

Rights activists detained, prosecuted and harassed

The formal police detention of Hu Jia on 27 December 2007 illustrates broader patterns of repression of activists in China in the run-up to the Olympics. As detailed in previous Olympics Countdown reports, Hu Jia had been held under ‘house arrest’ or ‘residential surveillance’ for most of the time since he was released from a previous period of police detention on 28 March 2006. Police failed to provide formal documents clarifying the reasons for ‘house arrest’ and he was beaten on several occasions for trying to leave his home without permission. Hu Jia had established numerous contacts with foreign journalists, embassy staff and other international figures and his formal detention just after Christmas appeared to be timed to minimise international publicity. The police formally charged him with ‘inciting subversion’ on 28 January 2008, an accusation which continues to be used regularly to silence and imprison peaceful activists in China.

Hu Jia is currently detained at the Municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB) Detention Centre in Dougezhuang, Chaoyang district, Beijing. He was denied access to members of his family and lawyers for several weeks after his formal detention. He suffers from liver disease resulting from Hepatitis B infection and is in need of daily medication. The police reportedly allowed him to take medicine provided by his family after his first week in detention. On 4 January 2008, the police rejected an application from his lawyer to visit on the grounds that his case apparently involved ‘state secrets’, but such charges were not levelled at the time of trial. On 14 January 2008, his lawyer submitted an application for bail on medical grounds, but this was formally rejected by the police at the end of the month.

In apparent reaction to international concern on his case, Hu Jia was eventually given access to lawyers and members of his family. After their first meeting with him on 31 January 2008, monitored closely by the police, his family expressed concern that he seemed pale, under stress and speaking as if he were rehearsing a play. He later told his lawyers that he had been subjected to lengthy periods of interrogation 47 times during the first two months of his detention for periods of between 6-14 hours, usually at night. While there are concerns that he has been placed under considerable psychological pressure during under interrogation, he is not believed to have been physically abused by the police.

Police passed his files to the procurator ate (prosecuting authorities) on 19 February 2008, and the case was transferred to Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court on 10 March 2008. He was tried on 18 March 2008 on charges of ‘inciting subversion’ under Article 105 of the Chinese Criminal Law. While his mother was allowed to attend, his wife and father were prevented from attending the trial. Several other associates of Hu Jia, including fellow activists, were reportedly prevented from attending or forcibly moved out of Beijing at the time of his trial.

A diplomatic source told Amnesty International that on 14 March 2008, the day the trial date was announced, eight foreign government representatives had applied to attend the trial. They were told that all seats had been ‘allocated’ and there was no space. On 18 March 2008, the same morning of the trial, they were given the contradictory information that seats had been ‘allocated’ to those that had arrived earlier the same day. Many seats were reportedly filled by court officials and police officers.

Hu Jia’s lawyers had previously expressed concern that they had only been given one week to prepare his defence with access to his case files. During the trial, which lasted just over four hours, Hu Jia’s lawyer was reportedly given less than 30 minutes to present his defence, and was repeatedly interrupted by the judge. The prosecution presented articles written by Hu Jia as ‘evidence’ for his ‘crimes’. Hu Jia pleaded ‘not guilty’, but the trial concluded with no immediate verdict.

Amnesty International considers Hu Jia’s trial to be unfair and politically motivated. The organization considers him to be a prisoner of conscience detained solely in violation of his fundamental human rights to freedom of opinion and expression. He should be released immediately and unconditionally.

As a co-founder of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education, Hu Jia began as an activist on HIV/AIDS issues, but his focus has broadened over recent years to include a variety of other human rights concerns. Despite intrusive ‘house arrest’, he publicly expressed concerns over police abuses during their ‘clean up’ of Beijing in the run-up to the Olympics, including the arrest of petitioners and activists without the necessary legal procedures. In September 2007, he published an article together with fellow activist Teng Biao about human rights violations in the run-up to the Olympics (see below). In November 2007, Hu Jia participated via web-cam in a European Union parliamentary hearing in Brussels in which he stated that China had failed to fulfil its promises to improve human rights in the run-up to the Olympics.

Hu Jia was among a group of activists who had been showcased by many in the international media as evidence that official policy had changed and that the authorities were adopting a more enlightened approach by tolerating at least some degree of local human rights activism with global links, rather than resorting to immediate arrest and prosecution. However, his formal detention in December 2007 was clearly intended to put an end to his role in uncovering and exposing human rights violations, often through his contacts with the media, including foreign journalists. It also sends a clear message to others in China that they should not follow his lead. Such practices call into serious question official commitments to improve human rights and ensure ‘complete media freedom’ in the run up the Olympics.

In September 2007, Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyan were nominated for the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought. Since her husband’s detention, Zeng Jinyan has herself been placed under ‘house arrest’ together with their new-born baby daughter. She is not permitted to leave their home without permission, and her telephone line and Internet connection have been cut. On 2 January 2008, dozens of municipal and district police officers in more than ten vehicles surrounded their home in the Tongzhou district of Beijing to prevent her from meeting visitors. The following month it was reported that the number of police officers guarding her home had increased to about fifty, including several who had moved into the apartment directly above hers to conduct surveillance.

One of the cases raised by Hu Jia in media interviews was that of land rights activist Yang Chunlin who was detained by police on 6 July 2007 after he spearheaded a petition campaign under the banner “We don’t want the Olympics; we want human rights.” He was held at Heitong police station, Jiamusi city, Heilongjiang province and formally charged with ‘inciting subversion’ on 3 August 2007. He was denied access to lawyers for several weeks on grounds that his case apparently involved ‘state secrets’, although such charges were not leveled at the time of trial. Reports emerged that Yang Chunlin had been tortured in police detention. For six days in early August and one day in September 2007, his arms and legs were reportedly stretched and chained to the four corners of an iron bed so that he could not move. He was forced to eat, drink and defecate in that position. He was also reportedly forced to watch other detainees being subjected to similar treatment and to clean up their defecation. He was tried by the Jiamusi Intermediate People’s Court on 19 February 2008, but was not given any opportunity to raise the torture allegations in court. Appearing in court with his feet shackled to his chair, he pleaded not guilty to the subversion charges. On 24 March 2008, the court delivered its verdict, finding him guilty of ‘inciting subversion’ and sentencing him to five years in prison. Court police reportedly beat him several times with electro-shock batons when he tried to speak to members of his family who attended the sentencing hearing. Rights lawyers targeted with arbitrary detention and beatings

Hu Jia had also provided information to the media and others about the plight of defence lawyer and rights activist Gao Zhisheng who continues to serve his three-year sentence under surveillance at home in Beijing after being convicted of ‘inciting subversion’ in December 2006. Gao Zhisheng was taken away from his home to an unknown location by at least ten men, believed to be police officers in plain clothes, on 22 September 2007. This appeared to be linked to an open letter he had addressed to the U.S. Congress asking them to expose what he called ‘China’s ongoing human rights disaster’ and criticizing China’s hosting of the Olympics. The men reportedly beat and kicked him when they took him away. No further information emerged about his situation until he telephoned Hu Jia, apparently under duress, on 28 October 2007, saying that he had been in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces and telling Hu Jia not to try to visit his family. There are serious concerns that Gao Zhisheng was subjected to torture or ill-treatment by those who had abducted him. He was reportedly taken back to his home in early November, but remains under tight surveillance and no further information has emerged about his situation. Amnesty International remains deeply concerned for his well-being and safety.

Gao Zhisheng is among several lawyers who have become a key target for repression as a result of their robust human rights advocacy:

• Teng Biao, a lawyer, academic and human rights activist, went missing on 6 March 2008. Eyewitnesses reportedly saw him being bundled into a black vehicle by a group of unknown individuals just after he arrived home at around 8.30pm. He was released two days later following considerable international concern for his situation. He clarified that he was taken away by four men, who showed no identification but claimed to be officers from the Beijing Public Security Bureau. They put a bag over his head and took him to an unknown location. He was apparently questioned over articles he had written, including an article he had co-authored with Hu Jia entitled ‘The real China and the Olympics’ which was published in September 2007. He added that he was not harmed during his detention, but could not provide further details as he had been warned not to talk to foreign journalists.
• At around 7.20am on 7 March 2008, human rights lawyer Li Heping’s car was rammed by a police car while he was driving his son to school in Beijing. He and his son were jolted by the crash but did not suffer serious injuries. The police car had been following him from his home and had apparently accelerated before the crash which crushed the back of his car. Li Heping recognized the three officers in the car as those from his police district. He claims the driver of the car ignored him when he complained about the crash and traffic police refused to take up the case when he reported the incident to them later in the day.

Li Heping had previously been abducted and assaulted by a group of unidentified men on 29 September 2007. They beat him with electro-shock batons and told him he should leave Beijing or risk further attack. He was released after about eight hours. The incident occurred shortly after police had told Li Heping to leave Beijing during the 17th Communist Party Congress, held in October 2007.

Li Heping had built a reputation for defending sensitive cases, including Christians arrested for unofficial house church activities, members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, alleged victims of forced eviction and independent writers. He had also appealed to the authorities on behalf of lawyer Gao Zhisheng. As a result of such activities, he has been placed under tight police surveillance and his freedom of movement has been restricted.

• Zheng Enchong, a Shanghai-based lawyer, who had defended those allegedly forced out of their homes as a result of construction in Shanghai, continues to be subjected to serious abuses following his release from prison on 5 June 2006. On 24 July 2007, he was publicly beaten by a group of around six police officers outside the Shanghai Municipal Higher People’s Court after he and his wife, Jiang Meili, tried to register to observe the trial of Zhou Zhengyi, a local property developer. He has since been kept under tight surveillance and blocked and often beaten when he tried to leave his home. He has repeatedly been summoned for questioning by the police about legal aid he had provided to petitioners, media interviews he has given and allegations of tax fraud. On 20 February 2008, he was reportedly beaten by an unidentified individual while being questioned in detention. The beatings resulted in wounds and bleeding. Housing rights activists detained and imprisoned

Beijing-based housing rights activist, Ye Guozhu, continues to serve a four-year sentence after he applied for permission to hold a demonstration about forced evictions in Beijing. Amnesty International continues to call for his immediate and unconditional release, and remains concerned for his safety following reports that he has been tortured in prison. The Chinese authorities have failed to either confirm or deny these reports, but official sources have confirmed that he was receiving treatment for ‘hypertension’. They have also confirmed that he was held in Chaobai prison and due for release on 26 July 2008.

Ye Guozhu’s son, Ye Mingjun and brother, Ye Guoqiang were also detained on 29 September 2007 on suspicion of ‘inciting subversion’ after they engaged in a public protest against forced evictions reportedly carried out to clear space for Olympics-related construction. The police also searched Ye Guoqiang’s home, confiscating 26 documents he had written and two computers. Ye Mingjun was released on bail on 30 October 2007, but warned not to speak to the media as this could have a ‘negative impact’ on his situation and that of his father. Ye Guoqiang was released on bail on 9 January 2008, but on condition that he did not contact anyone overseas or continue with his petitioning activities.

Wang Ling, an associate of Ye Guozhu, who had also engaged in public campaigning activities after she lost her property as a result of Olympics-related construction, has recently been assigned to 15 months ‘Re-education through Labour’. [See below for further details]

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