Human Rights: August 2006 Archives
By RADIO FREE ASIA
28 August 2006
HONG KONG—Authorities across China have stepped up detentions and surveillance of key rights activists amid growing calls for the release of Beijing-based lawyer Gao Zhisheng.
"Gao Zhisheng was taken away by unidentified men in plain clothes who gave no identification nor any reason for his detention while he was on a trip to Dongying city, Shandong province, to visit his sister," said New York-based writer Hu Ping of Gao’s August 15 arrest.
"Gao Zhisheng is a well-known lawyer who has been on the front line in the battle for civil rights for a very long time," wrote Hu, an occasional RFA commentator, in an open online letter.
"He has been subject to all manner of persecution...and we strongly protest against this and call for his immediate release."
by BBC World News
August 25, 2006
Several recent trials in China have highlighted the dangers of dissent, in what appears to be a growing clampdown, writes the BBC's Dan Griffiths in Beijing.
In just a few days China's leaders have shown once again that they will not tolerate dissent on issues they consider sensitive or embarrassing.
Earlier in the week blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
The self-taught lawyer was well known in China for his outspoken campaigns to help poor rural farmers and the disabled.
But he gained international attention when he publicised claims that Chinese officials in the eastern province of Shandong were enforcing late-term abortions and sterilisations - in an attempt to control population growth.
That angered the Chinese authorities and Mr Chen was arrested and charged with destroying public property and disturbing social order. His supporters have always claimed the charges were fabricated.
Other Chinese rights activists who have campaigned for Mr Chen's release have been put under house arrest in Beijing, deported from there to distant cities, or gone into hiding.
By Jim Yardley and Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
August 25, 2006
BEIJING, Friday, Aug. 25 — A Beijing court on Friday morning unexpectedly dismissed a state secrets charge against a researcher for The New York Times but sentenced him to three years in prison on a lesser, unrelated charge of fraud.
The verdict against the researcher, Zhao Yan, 44, spared him a prison sentence of 10 years or longer and also served as a blunt rebuke to the investigation by state security agents. Agents began detaining Mr. Zhao almost two years ago and accused him of leaking state secrets to The Times. He has consistently stated that he is innocent of both charges.
In another closely watched case, a Chinese court in Shandong Province on Thursday convicted an advocate for peasants rights and sentenced him to more than four years in prison. The advocate, Chen Guangcheng, is a blind man who tried to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of women who were subjected to forced abortions. His case, like that of Mr. Zhao’s, was considered a test of China’s legal system, and his defense team described the conviction as a sham.
In Mr. Zhao’s case, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court rejected the state secrets charge in strong language in a 10-page verdict released Friday morning.
“On the charge against the defendant Zhao Yan that he provided state secrets abroad, the evidence is insufficient,” the court ruling read. “The charge for this crime cannot stand, and this court does not accept it.”
Mr. Zhao’s lead defense lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said, “This is the way they proclaim someone innocent.”
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On Thursday, Mr. Chen, the rights advocate, was convicted of destroying property and organizing a mob to block traffic. He earned the enmity of local Communist Party leaders in Shandong Province, in eastern China, when he sought to organize a class-action lawsuit against forced abortions and sterilizations there.
The New China News Agency announced the sentence, four years and three months, in a terse dispatch on its English-language news wire. The information did not appear in Chinese, and other state-run media have been banned from reporting on the matter.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
August 24, 2006
BEIJING (AP) -- A blind activist who was arrested after recording complaints of forced abortions was sentenced Thursday to four years and three months in prison on what his supporters say were phony charges, a defense lawyer said.
Chen Guangcheng was convicted of damaging property and ''organizing a mob to disturb traffic'' after a trial in the eastern province of Shandong, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Chen's supporters say local officials fabricated the charges against him in retaliation for his activism.
''I am outraged by the sentence,'' said Li Fangping, a member of a team of volunteer defense lawyers for Chen. ''The whole justice system has acted totally illegally in Chen Guangcheng's case.''
Li said Chen would appeal.
Chen was put on trial last week without his lawyers present after police detained three members of the defense team on theft charges and refused to let them see evidence against him.
The U.S. State Department criticized the lawyers' detention, saying it raised questions about China's commitment to the rule of law.
Chen, who was blinded by fever in infancy, taught himself law in order to fight discrimination against himself and handicapped farmers in his home province of Shandong.
He was arrested after recording complaints by villagers who said they were forced to undergo abortions and sterilizations to meet birth limits under Chinese regulations that limit most urban couples to one child and most in the countryside to two.
Such practices are illegal, but local officials often resort to drastic measures for fear of being punished for exceeding birth quotas.
Chen's efforts to record the complaints prompted China's family planning agency to investigate. It confirmed the claims and said some officials were detained or fired.
Since last August, Chen and members of his family have been beaten, threatened and confined to their house by thugs. His wife, Yuan Weijing, says the men were hired by local officials.
Chen's legal team included some of China's most prominent activist lawyers and a leading law professor from Beijing.
By BBC World News
August 18, 2006
The trial of a Chinese activist who raised concerns about forced abortion and sterilisation has taken place. Chen Guangcheng, under house arrest since September 2005, is charged with public order offences. It is not clear when a verdict will be announced.
He had accused officials in Shandong of breaking family planning laws in their enforcement of the one-child policy.
Before the trial, three lawyers connected to his case were arrested, but two have now been released.
One of them, Li Fangping, told the BBC that Mr Chen had been represented, against his will, by two state-appointed lawyers in the closed-door proceedings.
His wife told the news agency AFP she had not been allowed to attend the trial, which according to reports lasted about two hours.
The rights group Amnesty International said Mr Chen's rights were being denied and he was not getting a fair trial.
"It is Chen Guangcheng's fundamental right to have the lawyers of his choice and to have family members attend his trial," said Corinna-Barbara Francis from Amnesty International.
"Their attitude epitomises the general pattern of obstruction towards human rights lawyers in China."
By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
August 18, 2006
BEIJING, Aug. 18 — Chinese officials intensified a crackdown on defense lawyers today, the latest sign that Communist Party leaders are determined to stamp out legal challenges to their authority.
In Beijing, the police detained Gao Zhisheng, one of the country’s most outspoken lawyers and dissidents, on suspicion of criminal activity, according to reports in state-run news media.
In Shandong Province, another well-known dissident legal expert, Chen Guangcheng, was tried today in a closed criminal trial that Mr. Chen’s defense attorneys condemned as a heavy-handed political persecution.
While the Chinese leadership is eager to create the impression that it is building an impartial legal system, the latest actions suggest that at least some powerful officials want to curtail the growing use of lawsuits to contest abuses of power, human rights violations, land seizures and official corruption.
The ruling party has encouraged the idea that ordinary people have legal rights, as a way of checking petty corruption, improving efficiency and channeling social grievances into the party-controlled judicial system.
But a surge in social unrest in recent years, including protests by people who feel thwarted in exercising their constitutional rights, has alarmed local and national leaders.
By REUTERS | The New York Times
18 August 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - China detained two of the nation's top human rights advocates before a blind rights activist went on trial on Friday, depriving him of his legal defense, in what appeared to be part of a concerted crackdown.
Xu Zhiyong, a law academic from Beijing, was held by police on Thursday in the eastern province of Shandong, where he was preparing to defend activist Chen Guangcheng against charges of disrupting traffic and destroying property during a protest there in February, according to other lawyers defending Chen.
Xu's whereabouts when Chen's trial began in the afternoon was unclear. A police officer at the Jiehu police station where Xu had been held said he had been released, but Xu's mobile phone was turned off and fellow lawyers had not heard from him.
Also on Friday, Beijing police announced they had detained Gao Zhisheng, a combative human rights lawyer who has campaigned for Chen's release.
The Sydney Morning Herald
07 August 2006
BEIJING: With their control over newspapers, television, magazines and the internet secure, censors in China are now turning their attention to the nation's karaoke parlours.
The Ministry of Culture has issued new rules to prevent "unhealthy" songs from ringing forth in the sing-along bars, and to safeguard intellectual property rights.
The Government has picked three cities, Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Qingdao, to test the program, under which member businesses will choose songs from a central database. If successful, the program may go nationwide.
"All the songs in the database for use by karaoke parlours and consumers need to be censored" to ensure content meets government standards, Liang Gang, from the Ministry of Culture, told state media.
By Christopher Bodeen | Associated Press Writer
July 31, 2006
Police clashed with 3,000 Christians protesting the forced demolition of a partially built church in eastern China, leaving four people with serious injuries, a human rights group said Monday.
Fighting broke out Saturday when 500 officers arrived in Xiaoshan, a district on the outskirts of the resort city of Hangzhou, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.
The demolition work went ahead despite the clash, in which about 20 people were hurt, the Hong Kong-based group said.
A Xiaoshan police officer confirmed an "illegal building" had been torn down, but he refused to give his name or any details. Other local government officials refused to comment.
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