China (Includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau) 2013 Human Rights Report
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CHINA (INCLUDES TIBET, HONG KONG, AND MACAU) 2013 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount authority. CCP members hold almost all top government and security apparatus positions. Ultimate authority rests with the 25-member Political Bureau (Politburo) of the CCP and its seven-member Standing Committee. China completed its once-in-a- decade leadership transition in March, and Xi Jinping holds the three most powerful positions as CCP general secretary, state president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Civilian authorities generally maintained control of the military and internal security forces. Security forces committed human rights abuses. Repression and coercion, particularly against organizations and individuals involved in civil and political rights advocacy and public interest issues, ethnic minorities, and law firms that took on sensitive cases, were routine. Increasingly officials employed harassment, intimidation, and prosecution of family members and associates to retaliate against rights advocates and defenders. Individuals and groups seen as politically sensitive by authorities continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel. Authorities resorted to extralegal measures such as enforced disappearance and strict house arrest, including house arrest of family members, to prevent public expression of independent opinions. Authorities implemented new measures to control and censor the internet and particularly targeted bloggers with large numbers of followers, leading some to close their online accounts. Public-interest law firms continued to face harassment, disbarment of legal staff, and closure. There was severe official repression of the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and assembly of ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and of ethnic Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas. These minorities also faced harsh restrictions on movement. Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the visit of foreign officials, national meetings, and commemorations. As in previous years, citizens did not have the right to change their government, and citizens had limited forms of redress against official abuse. Other human rights problems during the year included extrajudicial killings, including executions without due process; enforced disappearance and incommunicado CHINA (INCLUDES TIBET, HONG KONG, AND MACAU) 2 detention, including prolonged illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities known as “black jails”; torture and coerced confessions of prisoners; detention and harassment of lawyers, journalists, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others who sought to exercise peacefully their rights under the law; a lack of due process in judicial proceedings; political control of courts and judges; closed trials; the use of administrative detention; restrictions on freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel; failure to protect refugees and asylum seekers; pressure on other countries to return PRC citizens forcibly; widespread corruption; intense scrutiny of and restrictions on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); discrimination against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities; a coercive birth-limitation policy that in some cases resulted in forced abortion (sometimes at advanced stages of pregnancy) or forced sterilization; trafficking in persons; prohibitions on independent unions; lack of protection for workers’ right to strike; forced and child labor; and poor enforcement of wage, overtime, and occupational safety and health laws. Although authorities prosecuted a number of abuses of power, particularly with regard to corruption, in many cases the internal disciplinary procedures of the CCP were opaque and only selectively applied to senior officials. Citizens who promoted efforts to combat corruption were themselves detained and arrested. For example, throughout the year, NGO sources reported that authorities arrested at least 29 persons associated with the New Citizens Movement on charges stemming from activities to promote good governance. Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from: a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life During the year security forces reportedly committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. In many instances few or no details were available. It was not clear to what extent impunity was a problem. Following cases of killings by police, there often was an announcement that an investigation was to be conducted, but it was not clear whether there were any findings of police malfeasance or any cases in which police were disciplined. For example, on October 24, plainclothes police arrested Shanghai petitioner Shen Yong for trespassing and, according to media reports, beat him. Hours later police returned Shen to his family, and he died shortly thereafter. Shen’s family maintained he died as a result of the police beating. Police asserted he suddenly Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013 United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor CHINA (INCLUDES TIBET, HONG KONG, AND MACAU) 3 fell ill in their custody. Local media reported that the death was under investigation but by year’s end provided no further information. Authorities detained more than 100 petitioners at a protest following Shen’s death. A number of violent incidents in the XUAR resulted in multiple deaths. Official accounts of these events generally blamed “terrorists,” “separatists,” and “religious extremists” for what were portrayed as violent terrorist attacks on community members and security personnel. Human rights organizations, on the other hand, asserted that security forces often shot at groups of Uighurs in their homes or during worship. The government’s control of information coming out of the XUAR, together with its increasingly tight security posture there, made it difficult to verify the conflicting reports. (See also the Tibet annex for violent incidents in the TAR and other Tibetan areas.) For example on April 24, at least 21 persons were killed in a clash in Barchuk County, XUAR: nine bystanders, six police, and six Uighurs (described in the official press as “thugs”). According to the official account, gunfights broke out when police entered persons’ homes to search for “illegal knives.” In April, Yu Qiyi, a chief engineer at a state-owned enterprise in Wenzhou, died after being interrogated for corruption. Authorities arrested six CCP investigators and convicted them of intentional assault (see section 1.d.). Defendants in criminal proceedings were executed following convictions that lacked due process and adequate channels for appeal. b. Disappearance In September authorities detained Cao Shunli at Beijing Airport as she was attempting to travel to Geneva to attend a training session in advance of China’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. Five weeks after her disappearance, authorities at the Chaoyang District Detention Center confirmed that Cao had been criminally detained on charges of unlawful assembly. According to various media reports, her family did not received a detention notice in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Law. At year’s end the government had not provided a comprehensive, credible accounting of all those killed, missing, or detained in connection with the violent suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. It is estimated that fewer than a dozen remained in prison, although some accounts suggest the number may be Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013 United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor CHINA (INCLUDES TIBET, HONG KONG, AND MACAU) 4 higher. Many activists who were involved in the demonstrations continued to suffer from official harassment. c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment The law prohibits the physical abuse of detainees and forbids prison guards from extracting confessions by torture, insulting prisoners’ dignity, and beating or encouraging others to beat prisoners. Amendments to the criminal procedure law that exclude evidence, including confessions, obtained through illegal means, including under torture in certain categories of criminal cases, took effect on January 1. Numerous former prisoners and detainees reported that they were beaten, subjected to electric shock, forced to sit on stools for hours on end, deprived of sleep, and otherwise subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Although ordinary prisoners were subjects of abuse, prison authorities singled out political and religious dissidents for particularly harsh treatment. In some instances close relatives of dissidents also were singled out for abuse. Human Rights Watch reported that police beat and tortured suspected prostitutes. According to news reports Xiao Yong, a Guangzhou-based activist detained by police in April 2012 and remanded to two years of re-education through labor (RTL) in Shaoyang, Hunan Province, was released in February and allowed to return to his home. Authorities charged him with illegal assembly for staging a demonstration calling on officials to disclose publicly their financial assets. During his initial detention authorities reportedly prevented Xiao from sleeping for up to five days, causing multiple medical