Human Rights: December 2009 Archives

By Luis Andres Henao | REUTERS | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
December 23, 2009

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An Argentine judge has ordered the arrest of China's former President Jiang Zemin and another top official for "crimes against humanity" in the alleged persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Falun Gong hailed it as a historic human rights ruling on Tuesday, although a lawyer for the group acknowledged it is largely symbolic.

Federal Judge Octavio de Lamadrid on December 17 asked Interpol to issue an arrest warrant against Jiang and former security chief Luo Gan after four years of investigating charges of torture and genocide against the Falun Gong group.

The judge ordered the arrest of the two "over crimes against humanity committed in China" including genocide and torture, according to a copy of the ruling. Jiang was president from 1993 to 2003.

De Lamadrid made the ruling based on sections of Argentina's 1994 constitution that allow Argentine courts to address human rights issues in other countries.

In his ruling, the judge said "if universal jurisdiction is not admitted we would find ourselves allowing impunity, which is what the international community wants to avoid."

Alejandro Cowes, an Argentine lawyer representing Falun Gong, said: "It's a historic ruling because for the first time we're opening a universal jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed abroad."

However, a second lawyer for the group acknowledged that the ruling was mostly symbolic since it is unlikely that the arrests would be carried out. Falun Gong has pushed for such rulings without results in France, Spain and elsewhere.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez is scheduled to travel to China in January to discuss bilateral trade and business. Fernandez has pushed for human rights trials in Argentina against former military officers accused of abuses during the 1976-1983 "dirty war" against leftists.

A decade-long government crackdown drove Falun Gong underground in China but it has flourished abroad, where it has moved from a spiritual movement into a vehicle against Chinese Communist Party rule.

Thousands have been jailed since China declared Falun Gong a cult in 1999.

The Falun Dafa Information Center, which documents suspected abuses against practitioners in China, says 104 Falun Gong adherents died of abuse or neglect in custody last year, bringing to 3,242 the number of deaths documented over 10 years.

"I think this lawsuit is such great news because if (people in China) see that somebody is saying that this is wrong, even here in Argentina, they will be able to think that maybe what the government is telling them is not right," said Liwie Fu, president of the Falun Gong Group in Argentina, who brought the lawsuit.

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A New York Times Editorial
December 22, 2009

Just more than a year ago, Cambodia was praised by the United Nations for its work on behalf of refugees. It was one of only two nations in Southeast Asia to sign the 1951 international convention on refugees, and it opened a brand new office that seemed to suggest a new determination to protect refugees' human rights.

That was then. Today, Cambodia has baldly violated its international commitments and put at risk the lives of 20 members of the Uighur minority -- including two infants -- who were forcibly deported back to China on Friday.

Poor, weak Cambodia is not the only villain in this piece. China shoulders even more blame for misusing its growing wealth and clout to force Cambodia to do its bidding. Already Cambodia's largest foreign investor, China rewarded Cambodia on Monday with 14 deals, valued at an estimated $850 million, including help in building roads and repairing Buddhist temples.

The Uighurs, members of a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority who say the Chinese government discriminates against them, entered Cambodia about a month ago with the aid of Christian missionaries and asked for asylum. China has been cracking down on the Uighurs since the ethnic unrest in July, the worst in decades.

Beijing said that at least 197 people -- mostly majority Han Chinese -- were killed in that violence. Han Chinese retaliated and hundreds of Uighurs have since been detained. Several of the fugitive Uighurs told the United Nations in written statements that they had been involved in the unrest and feared lengthy jail terms or even the death penalty if they were returned to China.

Chinese authorities claimed the Uighurs were criminals but offered no proof. Such charges are often a specious excuse of repressive societies, but in any case the Uighurs had protected status while their asylum cases were being investigated by the United Nations' refugee agency. China and Cambodia had a responsibility under international law to allow that process to be completed.

It is alarming that the United States, Europe and United Nations, despite making an effort, could not figure out a way to persuade Cambodia to do the right thing. They should make sure Cambodia pays a price for its behavior, but the focus must be on China, starting with an urgent demand for access to the 20 Uighurs to ensure that they are not mistreated. No Chinese refugee can feel safe if China is allowed to bully other countries into forcing them back to an uncertain and unjust future.

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By SHARON LaFRANIERE | The New York Times
December 12, 2009

Liu Xiaobo, one of China's best-known dissidents and a principal author of a pro-democracy manifesto that has attracted more than 10,000 signatures from Chinese supporters, was indicted Thursday on charges of trying to subvert the state, his lawyer said.

Mr. Liu was expected to be tried in four to six weeks, the lawyer, Shang Baojun, said Friday.

The authorities disclosed the decision to prosecute Mr. Liu -- a step that almost invariably ends in imprisonment -- exactly one year and a day after the manifesto, Charter 08, was published. Other Charter 08 signers said in interviews that the government was using Mr. Liu's case to send a strong message to Chinese intellectuals that it would not tolerate organized, independent efforts to foster democracy.

"The government is trying to tell us to stop trying to push for human rights and democracy in China," said Xu Youyu, a Charter 08 signer and a philosophy professor who recently retired from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "Secondly, he has been the biggest threat inside of China, and they want to get rid of him."

Mr. Liu's supporters had hoped that Chinese leaders would be persuaded to release Mr. Liu, who has been detained for more than a year, when President Obama visited China last month. During the visit, United States officials gave Chinese leaders a list of "cases of concern" that included Mr. Liu and 11 other political and religious activists who are imprisoned or facing charges, according to Nicholas Bequelin, an Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York.

Mr. Xu said: "I think the message to the outside world is, it doesn't really matter to the government how this case is viewed by the international community. It can do whatever it wants."

Many activists viewed Charter 08 as the most important pro-democracy effort in China since the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Although censors swiftly deleted the document from Internet pages and chat rooms, more than 10,000 people managed to sign it. It stated that Chinese citizens should be able to elect their own government, that power should be divided among different branches of government and that the military should come under government, not party, control.

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By Radio Free Asia
December 08, 2009

Chinese activists risk surveillance and detention as they mark two anniversaries.

Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou have detained an activist who applied to hold a symposium on World Human Rights Day next week, one year after Chinese democracy activists signed a charter calling for political reform, his relatives said.

Guizhou police are believed to have detained Chen Xi, organizer of the human rights symposium, after escorting him away from his home, his wife said.

Chen had still not returned home late Monday.

"He has not yet come back and I don't know his whereabouts," his wife said.

"This is definitely related to World Human Rights Day," she said.

Fellow activist Li Renke said police had told the symposium organizers that they would have to apply to register the event, and that it couldn't go ahead.

"I told them that there was no law requesting a symposium to be registered, and there was no such thing as a pre-registered symposium either," Li said.

"Therefore, their banning the symposium was illegal."

More surveillance

Police in Zhejiang also stepped up surveillance of activists ahead of World Human Rights Day.

Zhejiang-based activist Zhu Yufu said police were sitting outside his house, carrying out round-the-clock surveillance.

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By Radio Free Asia
December 08, 2009

A Chinese activist representing tainted-milk victims is barred from seeing his lawyer.

A spokesman for victims in last year's tainted milk scandal detained for weeks has yet to be allowed to speak with his attorney, according to his wife and a colleague.

Zhao Lianhai, the organizer of the victims' group Coalition of Families of Children with Kidney Stones, was detained by police for "provocative conduct" in the Daxing district of China's capital, Beijing, three weeks ago.

The activist had traveled to the capital with 41 other parents in the hope of attracting the attention of authorities during U.S. President Barack Obama's state visit.

Zhao's wife Li Xuemei said her husband's lawyer, Peng Jian, was permitted to meet with him only once immediately following his arrest.

"There is no information from the police. It has been three weeks now, and Peng Jian went there many times but couldn't see the police officer in charge of my husband's case," she said.

Following Zhao's detention, Jiang Yalin has emerged as a spokesperson for victims of contaminated baby formula. She said the police officer has been hiding from Zhao's lawyer.

"No one can locate him now. Each time Zhao's lawyer Peng Jian requests a meeting, the police say they can't find him," Jiang said.

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By Radio Free Asia
November 30, 2009

A  pastor at an unofficial Protestant church banned from holding indoor meetings by authorities in Shanghai said she would seek compensation for mistreatment by police, as hundreds of the church's followers held an open-air service in one of the city's parks.

Just one week after Shanghai police detained six pastors and organizers of the city's popular but unregistered Wanbang church for several hours, several hundred worshipers gathered Sunday in the city's Minhang Sports Park for an open-air meeting.

"Today we held an open-air service in Minhang Sports Park," the group's leader, Pastor Ren, said.

"It wasn't only prayers. We also held a meeting with preaching. Around 700-800 people were there."

"The police were standing around the edges. There were about 200-300 of them today, the ones wearing uniform. They were uniformed security guards."

Alleged mistreatment

Meanwhile, Wanbang deputy pastor Liu Quanqin said she was mistreated during her detention by officers from Shanghai's Zhuanqiao police station, and had written to demand compensation and an official apology.

"I was praying alone at the hotel at 6:10 p.m., and reading from scripture, and I heard sounds nearby --they were checking all the rooms," she said.

"They knocked on my door and then they used tried to use a key to open the door. It was double-locked, so they just forced it open."

She said police hadn't shown any identification during the detention, then locked her in a room and not allowed her to use the toilet.

"They left me in there for 15 hours," Liu said.

"I asked to go to the bathroom but they wouldn't let me. I asked for some water but they wouldn't give it to me. I was hungry and I asked them for food but they wouldn't let me eat."

Liu said she wrote a complaint letter after she saw a list of rules on the wall of the police station stipulating that police must give food and water to detainees.

She said she was taken to a courtroom but there was no hearing.

Instead, she was pushed, pinched, sworn at, and had her skirt lifted up for "inspection."

She said she had photographic evidence of blood-blisters where she had been pinched.

"The government wants me to stop my activities with the Wanbang church," Liu said. "They say it's an illegal organization."

"I have written an official complaint letter," she said. "I will win redress for this."

Wanbang deputy pastor Cui said it was unclear whether the church would be allowed to move back into its old premises after being expelled by the authorities earlier this month.

"We will have to talk to them about that," he said. "I don't know [if we can go back]. We haven't tried it."

"On the whole, the authorities have been fairly approving of us. They know we are all good people, and pretty trustworthy. The only problem is that we aren't legal [officially approved as a church]. That is where the flashpoint for conflict lies."

Henan intervention

Meanwhile, in the southern province of Henan, the leader of China's Association of House Churches, Pastor Zhang Mingxuan, said police had broken up a prayer meeting he tried to hold on Sunday, attended by around 30 people.

"House" churches, which operate without official registration documents and without the involvement of the local religious affairs bureaus, come in for surveillance and repeated raids, especially in more rural areas of the country, according to overseas rights groups.

Officially an atheist country, China nonetheless has an army of officials whose job is to watch over faith-based activities, which have spread rapidly in the wake of massive social change and economic uncertainty since economic reforms began 30 years ago.

Party officials are put in charge of Catholics, Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, and Protestants.

Judaism isn't recognized, and worship in unapproved temples, churches, or mosques is against the law.

In its most recent report on human rights in China, the U.S. State Department said freedom of religion is permitted to varying degrees around China.

Original reporting in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

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