Human Rights: December 2005 Archives

Government Persecutes Civil Society Groups That Address HIV/AIDS

(New York, December 20, 2005) – In shutting down Beijing’s first-ever gay and lesbian cultural festival, the Chinese government violated basic freedoms and persecuted activists who are addressing the country’s burgeoning AIDS crisis, Human Rights Watch and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said today in letters to the Chinese authorities.

"China continues to talk about political reform, but closing down a cultural event is a crude reminder of the limits on openness," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch."This police raid was an effort to drive China’s gay and lesbian communities underground and to silence open discussions about sexuality throughout the country."

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Original source: Human Rights Watch

By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer

The first U.N. torture investigator to visit China said Friday that abuse was still widespread and authorities subjected detainees to electric shocks, beatings and sleep deprivation. He also accused the government of obstructing his work.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special investigator on torture, told reporters at the end of his trip that certain groups have been particular targets of torture: political dissidents, human rights activists, practitioners of Falun Gong, unofficial church groups and Tibetan and Uighur minorities.

Nowak's visit, which began Nov. 21, capped a decade-long effort by the U.N. to send an investigator to look into claims of torture and mistreatment by Chinese authorities. Beijing has repeatedly agreed to allow the visits and then postponed them.

When asked about the prevalence of torture, which was outlawed in 1996, Nowak replied: "I consider it on the decline but still widespread."

Nowak visited detention centers in Beijing, Tibet and the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang, and held talks with top Chinese prosecutors and justice officials.

A United Nations statement said the organization has received reports that Chinese authorities, over the years, have used various methods of torture including electric shock batons, cigarettes, hoods or blindfolds, submerging prisoners in water or sewage or exposing them to extreme heat or cold.

Based on the information Nowak gathered, he was able to confirm that "many of these methods of torture have been used in China," the statement said.

"Very often an individual police officer is not instructed to torture but is under pressure to extract a confession," he told reporters.

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