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作者：平头 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
六四天网中国人权事务中心丹麦联络处提供。
Amnesty, Olympics countdown, Report
People's Republic of China
The Olympics countdown - failing to keep human rights promises
Introduction
With just two years to go until the Olympic Games take place in Beijing,
the Chinese authorities are failing to meet the human rights commitments
they made when Beijing was awarded the Olympics in April 2001.1 Serious
human rights violations continue to be reported across the country fueling
instability and discontent. Grassroots human rights activists continue to
be detained and imprisoned, and official controls over the media and the
Internet are growing tighter.
While there have been some positive legislative and judicial changes
in connection with the application of the death penalty, progress appears
to have stalled in connection with other punishments, including
"Re-education through Labour" (RTL) and other abusive forms of
administrative detention.
This report summarizes a number of Amnesty International's human
rights concerns in China - concerns which the organization is continuing to
highlight as key areas for reform in the run-up to the Olympics. They are:
the continuing use of the death penalty and abusive forms of administrative
detention, the arbitrary detention, imprisonment, torture and harassment of
human rights defenders, including journalists and lawyers, and the
censorship of the Internet. Amnesty International considers that positive
reforms in all of these areas are essential if China is to live up to its
promises to improve human rights.
Each section is accompanied by recommendations, summarized at the end
of the report, which Amnesty International considers would constitute
significant and concrete progress in the run-up to the Olympics. They form
a core component of the organization's broader agenda for human rights
reform in China.
"Preservation of human dignity" and the death penalty
"The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious
development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned
with the preservation of human dignity" Olympic Charter, Fundamental
Principles of Olympism.2
The death penalty continues to be applicable to around 68 offences in
the Chinese criminal law, including several violent crimes, such as
robbery, rape and murder. It is also applicable to some non-violent crimes
such as economic crimes (eg. tax fraud and embezzlement) and drug offences
where the circumstances are 'serious'. In violating the right to life and
the prohibition of torture and cruel inhuman and degrading treatment, the
death penalty fundamentally undermines the "preservation of human dignity"
which lies at the heart of the Olympic Charter. These concerns apply to
both the death penalty system as a whole as well as the conditions of
detention of those held on death row in China.
Death penalty prisoners continue to be handcuffed and shackled on
death row in all parts of China, including Beijing. During his visit to
China in November 2005, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture met with death
penalty prisoners held at the Beijing Municipality Detention Centre while
they awaited appeal. He noted that they were 'handcuffed and shackled with
leg-irons weighing approximately three kilograms, 24 hours per day and in
all circumstances (including during meals, visits to the toilet etc).'3
Prison officials reportedly defended this practice as a necessary measure
for their own safety, the security of others, to prevent them from fleeing
and to prevent suicide. The Special Rapporteur on torture observed that
'the continuous handcuffing and shackling of death row prisoners
constitutes an imposition of additional punishment without justification,
leading to severe suffering, and amounting to torture.' He recommended that
the practice be abolished.
Prisoners are executed by shooting, usually to the back of the head,
and increasingly by lethal injection. Since lethal injection was introduced
with reforms to the Criminal Procedure Law in 1996, dozens of mobile
execution vans have been produced and mobilized for the purpose. The exact
ratio of executions by shooting and by lethal injection is unclear, but
some Chinese legal academics estimate that lethal injection may now account
for as many as 40% of all executions.4 The drugs used for lethal injection
(sodium thiopental to induce unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide to stop
breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart) are reportedly only
produced in Beijing and provincial officials are required to travel to the
capital to collect the chemicals at their own expense.5
The use of lethal injection does not mitigate the cruelty of the
punishment and the involvement of medical professionals in executions runs
counter to international medical ethics.6 Amnesty International is also
concerned that the use of lethal injection may also facilitate the
extraction of organs from executed prisoners. At an International
Conference on Liver Transplants in July 2005, the Vice-Minister of Health,
Huang Jiefu reportedly acknowledged that the majority of organs used for
transplant in China come from executed prisoners.7 In March 2006 , Chinese
transplantation specialists estimated that this may now account for as many
as 99% of transplanted organs.8 Chinese transplantation websites, aimed at
foreign clients in search of organ transplants, also appear to reflect such
practices. For example, the Beijing-based Bek-Transplant.com website openly
admits under its "Frequently Asked Questions" section that the organs they
use come from "people that are executed in China."9
Some Chinese transplant surgeons appear to be uneasy about their
involvement in organ extraction from death penalty prisoners. According to
a recent media report published in April 2006, one (unnamed) Chinese
surgeon stated:
"Once a court agrees, the doctors can go to the execution field, wait in a
sterile van, and harvest the organ right after the execution. Such
experiences are a severe moral and mental shock to many surgeons, because
the prisoners do not usually die immediately after they are shot. But
surgeons have to act quickly to get the organs due to freshness
requirements.
To some extent, the doctors are part of the execution. That is too much for
many young doctors to accept ... but if you want to do the transplants you
have to face the reality."10
Organ transplants have become a highly profitable business,
particularly since the commercialization of health care in China. There are
serious concerns that the potential to profit from such transactions
combined with apparently widespread corruption among police, courts and
hospitals may lead to abusive practices. It may also provide an economic
incentive to retain the death penalty.
On 28 March 2006, the Chinese Ministry of Health released new
regulations on organ transplants which took effect on 1 July 2006.11 They
ban the buying and selling of organs and stress that organs may only be
removed with the written consent of the donor. However, medical experts
have criticized them for not addressing the crux of the problem. For
example, Professor Chen Zhonghua, a transplantation specialist who
reportedly helped to draft the regulations, has stated that they only offer
guidance on transplants from live donors and fail to address key issues
such as the source of organs.12 It remains unclear how well the new
regulations will be enforced. International medical standards state that
organ transplants may only take place 'voluntarily' and with the 'free and
informed' consent of the donor. Amnesty International considers that those
faced with the trauma and anguish of imminent execution are not in a
position to provide such consent. In addition, the secrecy surrounding the
application of the death penalty in China makes it impossible to
independently verify whether such consent was given.
This lack of transparency about the process of execution is mirrored
by official secrecy over the exact number of people sentenced to death and
executed every year in China. The Chinese government refuses to publish
full national statistics on death sentences and executions. Based on public
reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,770
people were executed and 3,900 people were sentenced to death during 2005,
although the true figures were believed to be much higher. In March 2004,
Chinese legislator Chen Zhonglin estimated the figure at around 10,000
executions per year. Earlier this year, Liu Renwen, a leading Chinese
abolitionist and criminal law professor, estimated that around 8,000 people
are executed per year based on information obtained from local officials
and judges.13
No one who is sentenced to death in China receives a fair trial in
line with international human rights standards. Failings include: lack of
prompt access to lawyers, lack of presumption of innocence, political
interference in the judiciary and failure to exclude evidence extracted
through torture. A number of cases recently reported in the Chinese press
reveal that innocent people had been put to death in China due to the
widespread use of torture by the police to extract confessions:
* Nie Shubin, a young farmer from North China, was executed in 1995 for the
rape and murder of a local woman. He had reportedly been tortured in police
custody. In early 2005, a suspect detained in connection with another case,
reportedly confessed to the same crime, apparently describing the crime
scene in detail. Judicial authorities later admitted their mistake
prompting Nie Shubin's family to seek official compensation.
* She Xianglin and Teng Xingshan were both convicted of the murder of their
wives in two separate cases in 1994 and 1987 respectively. Both were
sentenced to death despite pleas of innocence and allegations that both had
confessed because they had been severely beaten during interrogations. In
both cases, the alleged murder victims reappeared several years later - in
April and June 2005 respectively. She Xianglin's sentence was commuted to
15 years imprisonment after a re-trial. He was released after 11 years in
prison on 1 April 2005 and officially cleared of all charges later the same
month. He and his family were awarded compensation of 450,000 yuan (approx.
US$55,500) in October 2005. Teng Xingshan, however, was executed in 1989.
Public concern over such cases appears to have accelerated moves
towards reform of the death penalty system, in particular attempts to
improve the quality of trials faced by death penalty suspects. In October
2005, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) formally announced that it would
soon resume its approval role for all death sentences passed in China - a
role which it had previously delegated to lower courts for most cases.
Chinese legal reformists have speculated that this will lead to a 20-30%
reduction in the number of executions.14 Amnesty International hopes that
this reform will result in better quality trials and a significant
reduction in the number of those sentenced to death and executed.
However, the failure of the authorities to disclose full statistics
will continue to make monitoring and analysis problematic. Amnesty
International also notes that ensuring Supreme People's Court review of
capital trials does not necessarily mean that such trials will meet
international human rights standards.15 The reform may also have the
adverse effect of further entrenching the death penalty system in China.
According to a report from the official Chinese News Agency, Xinhua,
Chen Guangzhong, a consultant to the SPC, stated in April 2006 that three
new criminal tribunals had been established under the SPC to review certain
death sentence cases from provincial courts. However, he added that the
judges did not yet formally have the right to review and make final
decisions on the cases and declined to say when the tribunals would
formally regain this power.16 Professor Liu Renwen, a criminal law
specialist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, had
previously cautioned that the branches were too short-staffed to deal with
all death penalty cases and that lower courts appeared to be resisting the
reform for fear of losing what they see as their power to control crime.17
In June 2006, SPC Vice-president Xiong Xuanguo announced that 30
judges from lower courts had already been chosen to conduct SPC reviews. He
said that they had already received three months training, but would need a
further probationary year before officially assuming office. He added that
the court was also preparing to recruit lawyers and law teachers 'with
strong political qualifications and a sense of responsibility' to work as
senior judges on death penalty reviews.18 An internal notice sent in the
same month to lawyer's associations confirmed that the SPC was seeking 20
'outstanding criminal lawyers' to work as chief judges.19 Other reports
indicate that the SPC has also recruited 19 recently graduated Master's
degree students to train to conduct death penalty reviews. They are
currently undergoing training at lower level courts in Sichuan, Guangdong,
Jiangsu and Shandong, and will reportedly take up their posts in the SPC at
the end of this year.20
A separate but related reform has also been highlighted in the
official Chinese media in recent months. In March 2006, the President of
the SPC, Xiao Yang, announced that from 1 July 2006, all second-instance
trials of death sentences (ie death sentence appeals) would be heard in
open court. According to another unnamed official from the SPC, this would
be conducive to 'improving protection of human rights' and would serve as a
'procedural guarantee for preventing misjudge [sic] in death sentence
cases'.21 In the past, death penalty appeals had often been merely a review
of documents relating to the case with no opportunity for defendants or
their lawyers to appear again in court.22
Open court appeals had already been standard practice in some parts
of China before this ruling, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hainan
and Qinghai. The effect of the decision therefore appears to be to
standardize this practice across the country. Chinese media reports
indicate that several other provinces and regions, including Zhejiang,
Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang, are now conducting death penalty appeals
in open court.
Amnesty International welcomes this reform and other moves towards
improving the quality of trials of those facing the death penalty in China
in the hope that this will lead to fewer executions and fewer miscarriages
of justice. To this end, the organization urges the authorities to restore
SPC review of all death sentences as soon as possible. However, these
measures should also be accompanied by full transparency on national
statistics for death sentences and executions (including for previous
years) in order to determine whether the reforms lead to a reduction in
executions as anticipated.
Amnesty International also urges the Chinese authorities to take
further steps towards abolition of the death penalty by reducing the number
of crimes punishable by death in the Criminal Law. In this regard, Amnesty
International welcomes a motion submitted by Jiang Bixin, President of the
Hunan Higher People's Court to China's National People's Congress (NCP) in
March 2006 calling for the death penalty to be gradually phased out for
economic crimes such as embezzlement and accepting bribes.23 The NPC's
formal reaction to this proposal is unclear, but when questioned about this
motion, the SPC President Xiao Yang reportedly responded:
"This does not fit with the current situation in China; it is not possible
to abolish the death penalty. There are no relevant provisions in China's
current legislation for abolishing the death penalty. China's Criminal Law
clearly stipulates that the death penalty should be retained, although we
must apply it carefully, safeguarding human rights."24
In this context, Amnesty International notes that previous revisions
to the Criminal Code eliminated the death penalty as a punishment for
certain types of economic offences, although the recent trend has been to
increase the scope. Such assertions also run counter to assurances given by
the Chinese authorities in international fora, including to second
governments engaged in human rights dialogues with China, that their
eventual goal is to abolish the death penalty.
In line with official commitments to improve human rights in the
run-up to the Olympics, Amnesty International continues to urge the Chinese
authorities to take immediate and concrete measures towards abolition of
the death penalty before August 2008. Given that there is no evidence that
the death penalty deters crime any more than other punishments, the
organization also urges the authorities to initiate public education on the
reality of the death penalty in China and to refocus their efforts towards
developing effective crime control policies at the local level.
Using 'Re-education through Labour' to safeguard Olympic security
"As the Olympic Games approaches, it is an important political duty to
provide a secure, clean and ordered city environment to ensure that the
Olympics runs smoothly..However, what has shocked many legal experts is
that RTL will be used as an important tool in the clean-up efforts, and
that its scope will be enlarged." Chinese writer and journalist, L? Minghe.
25
"The combination of deprivation of liberty as a sanction for the peaceful
exercise of freedom of expression, assembly and religion, with measures of
re-education through coercion, humiliation and punishment aimed at
admission of guilt and altering the personality of detainees up to the
point of breaking their will, constitutes a form of inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, which is incompatible with the core values of any
democratic society based upon a culture of human rights", UN Special
Rapporteur on torture.26
"Re-education through Labour" (RTL) continues to be used extensively in
China despite repeated calls from both inside and outside China for the
system to be abolished. Amnesty International is concerned that the
forthcoming Olympics Games may be acting as an incentive for the
authorities to retain the system in the name of maintaining public order in
Beijing.
Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to be held in RTL
facilities across the country as a punishment for so-called minor offences
which are not deemed serious enough to be punished under the Criminal Law.
Periods of RTL, ranging from one to three years (extendable for a further
year) are imposed by the police without charge, trial or judicial review.
Chinese legal reformists have pointed out that these periods are much
higher than minimum penalties under the formal Criminal Law and have raised
serious concerns about the unchecked power of the police in imposing such
punishments. Amnesty International is also concerned that those held in RTL
facilities are at high risk of torture or ill-treatment, particularly if
they refuse to acknowledge their 'offending' behaviour, recant their
beliefs or resist 'reform'.
In a recent case, Falun Gong practitioner, Bu Dongwei (also known as
David Bu) was assigned to two-and-a-half years' RTL on 19 June 2006 in
Beijing for "resisting the implementation of national law and disturbing
social order" after police discovered Falun Gong literature at his home.
The authorities have reportedly refused to disclose his place of detention
to his family. Bu Dongwei had been working in Beijing for the U.S. aid
organization, the Asia Foundation, before he was taken away by police from
his home in Haidian district on 19 May 2006. Amnesty International
considers him to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate
and unconditional release.27
Attempts by the authorities to replace RTL with new legislation known
as the "Illegal Behaviour Correction Law" (IBCL) have stalled. The law is
reported to remain in draft stage within the legislative committee of the
National People's Congress, although no draft has been made publicly
available. In May 2006, Amnesty International published a memorandum to the
Chinese authorities analyzing the substance of the new law and assessing it
against international human rights standards, including the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which China has signed and
declared an intention to ratify in the near future.28 The organization
concluded that while the law contains some improvements compared with RTL,
it still falls short of international standards in several crucial
respects, in particular the failure to transfer responsibility for imposing
punishments from the police to an independent court or tribunal. Amnesty
International recommended that the authorities abandon attempts to
introduce a new law, and instead bring all offences punishable with
deprivation of liberty within the scope of the Criminal Law.
There has been no evidence of any further moves towards reforming or
abolishing RTL over recent months. The rise of the Falun Gong spiritual
movement in China and the mass detentions of Falun Gong practitioners which
ensued after it was banned in 1999 has often been cited as a key reason why
earlier attempts to review the system stalled. Recent developments also
indicate that the perceived need to improve Beijing's environment in time
for the Olympics may also be hampering efforts towards reform.
On 8 May 2006, the Beijing city authorities decided that RTL would be
used as a way to control various types of "offending behaviour" to clean up
the city's image in the run-up to the Olympics. This would include serious
cases of 'unlawful advertising or leafleting, unlicensed taxis, unlicensed
businesses, vagrancy and begging'.29 What is considered to be 'serious'
appears to be defined as those who have engaged in such acts more than
twice. Chinese commentators have argued that this is the first time since
mid-2003 that officials have specifically invoked the use of 'controversial
measures' like RTL at the local level in order to address public order
issues in the cities.30
In August 2003, an abusive form of administrative detention, "Custody
and Repatriation" (shourong qiansong, C&R) was abolished in the wake of a
public outcry over the brutal murder of migrant worker, Sun Zhigang, in
police custody in Guangzhou. This system was used to target vagrants and
others without fixed abode in the cities. Amnesty International welcomed
this reform, noting that, like RTL, C&R could be imposed at the whim of the
police without reference to the courts, and that torture and ill-treatment
were frequently reported in such facilities. The organization is deeply
concerned at apparent attempts by the Beijing authorities to use RTL as a
substitute for C&R under the guise of cleaning up the city for the Olympics
in 2008.
Amnesty International is also concerned about the continued existence
of two other forms of punitive administrative detention imposed by the
police in China: 'Custody and Education' (shourong jiaoyu), used to punish
alleged prostitutes and their clients with between six months and two
years' administrative detention, and Enforced Drug Rehabilitation'
(qiangzhi jiedu), which enables the police to impose between three and six
months' detention for alleged drug addicts.
In line with human rights promises made in the run-up to the Olympics
and declared intentions to ratify the ICCPR, the organization urges the
authorities to abolish all forms of punitive administrative detention
imposed without charge, trial or judicial review without further delay.
Arbitrary detention, torture and harassment of human rights defenders
Chinese human rights defenders continue to face severe obstacles in their
attempts to draw attention to ongoing abuses, some of which are directly
related to the Olympics and the host city, Beijing. The authorities have
taken no measures to reform or abolish articles of the Criminal Law which
are frequently used to detain and imprison human rights defenders and
others in violation of their rights to freedom of expression, association
and assembly.31
Grassroots human rights activists, including defence lawyers, legal
advisors as well as journalists and other reporters of human rights
violations play an essential role in China, as in all countries, of drawing
attention to ongoing abuses and winning redress for the victims. Attempts
to prevent or impede the peaceful activities of human rights defenders run
counter to the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders32 and promises made
by the Chinese authorities that human rights will improve as result of
Beijing being awarded the Olympics.
Alleged forced evictions continue to be reported in Beijing. For
example, in July 2006, it was reported that ten families were refusing to
leave a building located next to the new site of China Central Television
(which will broadcast the Olympics in 2008) claiming that offers of
compensation from the local authorities are inadequate. Protest slogans
plastered over the building reportedly read: 'don't cheat and bully
people', 'human rights', and 'illegal demolition'.33 Residents of Beijing's
historic Qianmen district have also complained about the low levels of
compensation offered for their homes due to demolition and re-construction.
One (unnamed) resident reportedly said: "The Olympics is good for China, it
shows that we have the ability, the strength, the wealth to hold such an
international event. But it should not be used as an excuse to hurt
ordinary citizens, to drive people from their homes."34 Another resident
surnamed Yu added: "The Olympics has dealt a great blow to ordinary
citizens, it has disrupted our lives. This is what we feel about it, but we
cannot say it out loud."35
Amnesty International has already raised serious concerns about the
imprisonment of Ye Guozhu after he sought permission to organize a
demonstration in Beijing with other alleged victims of forced evictions due
to construction in preparation for the Olympic Games.36 Ye Guozhu continues
to serve his four-year sentence in Chaobai prison after being convicted of
'picking quarrels and stirring up trouble' by the No.2 Beijing Municipal
Intermediate Court on 18 December 2004. Amnesty International considers Ye
Guozhu to be a prisoner of conscience, detained solely in violation of his
rights to expression, association and assembly, and continues to urge the
Chinese authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally.
It has recently emerged that Ye Guozhu has been tortured in
detention. According to reliable reports received by Amnesty International,
he was suspended from the ceiling by the arms and beaten repeatedly by
police in Dongcheng district detention centre, Beijing, before he was
imprisoned, causing him serious back pain. He was also reportedly tortured
while being held in a different prison, Qingyuan prison, for four months in
the second half of 2005, apparently because he refused to admit his
'guilt'. This included beatings with electro-shock batons, being forced to
sit upright all day on a hard chair for extended periods, and being forced
to wear hand-cuffs and fetters which caused swelling around his ankles. His
treatment appears to have improved in Chaobai prison, but he suffers from
pre-existing medical complaints, including high blood pressure, heart
problems and cerebral thrombosis. He also reportedly suffers pain in his
back and ankles as a result of his previous torture and ill-treatment. The
prison authorities are reportedly only providing him with basic medicine
for high blood pressure, leaving his other ailments and injuries untreated.
Other activists have also been subjected to forced evictions as a
result of Olympics-related construction in Beijing. Qi Zhiyong, who had to
have a leg amputated as a result of being shot by security forces during
the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, set up a small shop in Beijing to eke out a
living after being forced to resign from his company due to his disability.
However, he has been forced to move this shop several times as a result of
construction apparently related to the Olympics. Earlier this year, the
authorities revoked his trading license and detained him for 51 days after
he participated in a 'hunger-strike' protest in February 2006 to draw
attention to recent beatings of other Chinese activists and the lawyers
that sought to defend them. Qi's wife was also dismissed from her job,
apparently as a result of her husband's campaigning activities. With an
eight-year old daughter to support and faced with high medical bills to
treat the lingering effects of his injury, Qi Zhiyong and his wife find it
hard to make ends meet.37
Those seeking to obtain justice for victims of alleged forced
evictions in other cities have also been detained and harassed. Defence
lawyer Zheng Enchong, who had built up a reputation defending those forced
out of their homes as a result of construction in Shanghai continues to
suffer harassment and intimidation, even after his release from prison on 5
June 2006.38 He was detained on four separate occasions by the police in
June and July about issues relating to his work as a lawyer, including
information they discovered on his computer about alleged forced evictions.
He has reportedly been warned by local police and officials that his safety
may be in danger if he continues to work on such issues. His family have
also been warned not to speak to the media about his situation.39
Defence lawyers in other parts of China have also suffered serious
human rights violations over recent months. Blind human rights activist and
legal advisor, Chen Guangcheng, was tried on 18 August 2006 for "damaging
public property and gathering people to block traffic". During the trial
the local police reportedly blocked a 300-metre area around the court,
preventing his supporters from drawing near. Only three of Chen's brothers
were allowed to attend the trial, while his wife, Yuan Weijing, was
prevented from attending by 10 police officers standing guard at her home.
Chen's own defence lawyers were also prevented from attending, and Chen was
represented by two other court-appointed lawyers. The trial was completed
the same day, and the verdict was announced on 24 August 2006: he was found
guilty and sentenced to four years and three months in prison. His
(self-appointed) lawyers have vowed to appeal the judgment.
Chen Guangcheng's trial follows months of arbitrary detention since
September 2005, during which he was confined to his home in Linyi city,
Shandong province, and subjected to frequent beatings by the local police.
Prior to his detention, he had been assisting Linyi villagers in a lawsuit
against local authorities who had carried out a campaign of forced
sterilizations and abortions in pursuit of birth quotas which reportedly
affected thousands of local women. Members of Chen Guangcheng's family and
his own defence lawyers have also been subjected to beatings, harassment
and intimidation.
Amnesty International considers the charges against Chen Guangcheng
to be a politically motivated attempt to prevent him from pursuing his
peaceful and legitimate activities as a human rights defender, including
his legal case against the local authorities. The organization considers
him to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and
unconditional release.40
More generally, Amnesty International is concerned that a recent
"Guiding Opinion on Lawyers handling Mass Cases", announced by the official
All China Lawyers Association (ACLA) in May 2006, tightens official
controls on lawyers representing groups of victims bring lawsuits against
local officials and others in connection with various injustices, including
alleged land expropriation, forced evictions and other human rights
violations.41 The Opinion states that lawyers should report to the Lawyers
Association for 'support, supervision and guidance' (zhichi, zhidao he
jiandu) as soon as they have taken on a 'mass case'. The Opinion also warns
lawyers not to encourage or participate in mass petitions to administrative
offices, and advises a 'cautious approach' (shenzhong duidai)in contacts
with overseas organizations and the media.
The ruling follows official announcements by the Ministry of Public
Security earlier this year that there were 87,000 protests, demonstrations
and other 'public order disturbances' in 2005, compared with 74,000 in
2004.42 While the Opinion formally recognizes the role that lawyers play in
helping to resolve disputes, Amnesty International is concerned that the
practical effect of the ruling will be to erode the ability of individual
lawyers or law offices to act independently. This is likely to dissuade
lawyers from representing victims of human rights violations at the local
level, or hamper their ability to assist victims to present an effective
defence.
This ruling also appears to conflict with other recent moves by the
ACLA to push for lawyers to be given greater rights of representation,
including prompt, guaranteed and unfettered access to their clients in
police detention. The ACLA filed a proposal with the Standing Committee of
the National People's Congress to amend the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) to
this effect in July 2006.43 Currently under the CPL, access to a lawyer
during the investigation stage of pre-trial detention is not a guaranteed
right to all suspects and remains firmly at the discretion of the
investigating authorities.44 In practice, very few detainees have a legal
representative during the investigation stage of detention, leaving
suspects highly vulnerable to torture or ill-treatment. According to
prominent lawyer Mo Shaoping, who has defended numerous dissidents and
rights activists, only 30 per cent of criminal suspects are currently
represented by a lawyer, with the rate falling to 10 per cent in some parts
of China.45 Review of the CPL is reported to be on the legislative agenda
of the NPC but progress has been slow and it remains unclear exactly what
changes will be formally proposed.
Amnesty International urges the authorities to take concrete measures
to ensure that lawyers have prompt and regular access to their clients in
detention in line with international human rights standards, including the
ICCPR. The authorities should also review and reform all laws, regulations
and policies which impede the ability of defence lawyers to provide their
clients with an effective defence.
Complete media freedom?
"We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China.
[...] We are confident that the Games coming to China not only promotes our
economy but also enhances all social conditions, including education,
health and human rights." Wang Wei, secretary general of the Beijing
Olympic Bid Committee, China Daily, 13 July 2001.
"The shutdown of [website] Century China is just another instance of the
Chinese government suppressing the freedom of its people. Therefore we must
stage a focused and unyielding protest against the government's abuse of
power." One Hundred Intellectuals' Appeal Letter on the Shutdown of Century
China, published on 2 August 2006.46
On 7 August 2006, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) celebrated 'two
years to go' before the Beijing Olympics by announcing a new look for its
website (www.olympic.org ) to 'provide Olympic enthusiasts with better
access to their favorite information.'47 There is no doubt that this
website will be accessible in China. However, the websites of hundreds of
other international organizations, including those of human rights
organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human
Rights in China, remain blocked by the Chinese authorities.
The crackdown on individual journalists, newspapers and websites in
China has continued over the last year, raising serious doubts about
China's commitment to ensure 'complete media freedom' during the Beijing
Olympics. These concerns were echoed recently by the Foreign
Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) which published a survey on 7 August
2006 showing that the police had detained foreign journalists on at least
38 occasions over the last two years, most of whom were covering stories
relating to social issues such as environmental protests, land disputes and
the plight of HIV/AIDS victims.48
In a recent statement, the executive vice-president of the Beijing
2008 Olympics Organising Committee (BOCOG), Jiang Xiaoyu, appeared to
acknowledge that changes may be necessary: "If our existing regulations and
practice conflict with Olympic norms and our promise, we will make changes
to conform with the International Olympic Committee's requirements and
Games norms". However, he added that: "all the reporters will have to abide
by China's laws."49 Two days later, Liu Qi, the President of BOCOG
announced that China will issue a regulation next year to facilitate
foreign media coverage of the Olympics.50
As noted above, many aspects of Chinese law and policy conflict with
international human rights standards, including rights to freedom of
expression. Broad and vaguely defined 'state secrets' and 'subversion'
charges in the Criminal Law continue to be used to arbitrarily detain and
prosecute journalists, editors and Internet users. While foreign
journalists are generally detained for short periods and may face
expulsion, Chinese journalists and writers often face much harsher
treatment for reporting on issues deemed sensitive by the authorities. For
example:
* Huang Jinqiu (pen-name: Qing Shuijun) a writer and journalist, continues
to serve a 12-year sentence for 'subversion' in Pukou Prison near Nanjing
city, Jiangsu province. He was arrested in September 2003 and convicted one
year later in connection with political essays he posted on the Internet,
including plans to establish a China Patriotic Democracy Party. His
sentence was confirmed on appeal. He was reportedly subjected to beatings
and sleep deprivation in prison in late 2004, apparently after he tried to
bring further legal proceedings against his conviction.
* Journalist Shi Tao continues to serve a 10-year prison sentence for
sending an email summarising a Chinese Central Propaganda Department
communiqu? on how journalists should handle the 15th anniversary of the
crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement. He was detained on 24
November 2004 at his home in Taiyuan, Shanxi province and later charged
with "illegally divulging state secrets abroad". He was sentenced in April
2005 by the Changsha Intermediate People's Court, Hunan Province and his
appeal was turned down in June 2005. He is held in Chishan prison in
Yuanjiang city where he is reportedly forced to work on processing
jewellery; he is reportedly suffering from respiratory problems and skin
inflammation caused by the dust. His conviction was partly based on
information provided to the Chinese authorities by the Internet company,
Yahoo! (see below).
* Yang Tongyan, (pen-name: Yang Tianshui), a freelance writer, was
sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2006 for 'subversion'. His
conviction was based on his writings in support of political and democratic
change in China. He was also accused of receiving money from abroad for
distribution to imprisoned dissidents and their families, and of planning
to form a local branch of the banned China Democracy Party. Yang had
previously served a ten-year prison sentence for criticizing the crackdown
on the 1989 pro-democracy movement and allegedly trying to form an
opposition political party.
Amnesty International considers all three individuals to be prisoners
of conscience, detained solely for exercising their fundamental human
rights to freedom of expression and association. They should be released
immediately and unconditionally.
Over the last year, the Chinese authorities have intensified their
controls over media outlets, including newspapers, magazines and websites.
One case which gave rise to considerable concern within and outside China
was the temporary closure and sacking of the editors of 'Freezing Point'
(Bingdian), a popular supplement to the China Youth Daily, after it carried
an academic article criticizing the official interpretation of certain
historical events, including the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The paper was closed
down for five weeks from 24 January 2006, resuming publication only after
its editor Li Datong and deputy editor, Lu Yuegang had been dismissed.
Li Datong was among a group of 103 Chinese scholars, writers and
lawyers who published an open letter in early August 2006 calling for an
end to Internet censorship in China. This was sparked by the official
closure of a popular website, Century China, which had hosted eight online
forums for intellectual exchange, and had attracted many prominent Chinese
intellectuals within and outside China. In a letter written just before its
closure, the website's editor wrote:
"Ever since its establishment, our website has aimed to construct a cyber
world where rationality and freedom of speech reign. For six years we made
great efforts to attain this goal because we believe that such a public
space is beneficial to developing equality, freedom, rationality and other
crucial factors for modern society, and that we could do our part to
accelerate China's academic advancement and cultural development."51
The website was forced to close after it reportedly received a notice
from the authorities on 25 July 2006 accusing it of 'illegally providing
news information and violating Internet regulations.'52 One of these
regulations, introduced on 25 September 2005 by the State Council and
Ministry of Information Industry, specifically targets online news
providers, urging them to "serve socialism and correctly guide public
opinion."53
Century China is just one of numerous websites which have reportedly
been closed down over the last year. Other recent examples include: China
Consultation Net, closed down in August 2006 after it conducted a public
opinion survey on Communist Party election procedure; Ewiki, regarded as a
mainland equivalent of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia; and blogs by a
Tibetan writer, Woeser, apparently after she published a picture of the
Dalai Lama on one of them.
Amnesty International remains deeply concerned about the involvement
of overseas Internet companies in China's Internet censorship regime. In
July 2006, the organization published a report examining the role of
Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google in Internet repression in China.54 All three
companies have in different ways facilitated or participated in the
practice of government censorship in China:
* Microsoft closed down the blog of Zhao Jing, a Beijing-based researcher
for the New York Times, on 30 December 2005 at the request of the Chinese
government. Tests have shown that it also prohibits users of MSN Spaces in
China from using certain terms such as 'human rights', 'Falun Gong' or
'Tibet independence' in their account name or blog title;
* Google announced in January 2006 the launch of 'www.google.cn', a
self-censoring search engine as an alternative to its existing search
engine based outside China ( www.google.com);55
* Yahoo! has voluntarily signed the Chinese government's 'Public Pledge on
Self-discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry', thereby aligning itself
with official efforts to censor the Internet.56 Yahoo! has also provided
information to the authorities, which has helped to secure the conviction
of at least four Chinese Internet users on 'state secrets' or 'subversion'
charges in violation of their rights to freedom of expression. One of them,
Shi Tao (mentioned above) used his Yahoo! email account to send information
overseas. Yahoo! provided account holder information to the authorities
which was later used as evidence in his case, resulting in his ten-year
sentence. More recently, it has come to light that Yahoo! provided
information to the authorities that helped to secure the conviction of Li
Zhi, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2003 for 'subversion' in
connection with political articles that he posted on the Internet and his
attempts (online) to join the banned China Democracy Party.57
Amnesty International has made specific recommendations to Microsoft,
Google, Yahoo! and other Internet companies operating in China to address
ongoing restrictions on freedom of expression and to avoid contributing to
further human rights abuses. These include: making a public commitment to
honour guarantees of freedom of expression in the Chinese Constitution and
under international human rights standards; lobbying for the release of
those imprisoned solely for the peaceful and legitimate exercise of their
freedom of expression; being transparent about the filtering process in
China, including the words or phrases they censor and how these are
selected; and exhausting all judicial remedies and appeals in China and
internationally before complying with state directives that violate human
rights.
Given the direct connection between media freedom and China's hosting
of the Olympics, Amnesty International will continue to monitor progress by
the Chinese government in respecting and protecting the right to freedom of
expression. The organization will campaign for Internet freedom in China by
lobbying both the Chinese authorities and the companies that assist them in
the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.
Recommendations to the Chinese authorities
In line with official commitments to improve human rights in the run-up to
the Olympics in August 2008, Amnesty International urges the Chinese
authorities to introduce concrete reforms in the following areas:
Death Penalty
Put in place measures to significantly reduce the use of the death penalty
as steps towards full abolition of the death penalty in China. These should
include:
.
* Improving the quality of capital trials and reducing the number of
executions by restoring Supreme Court review of all death sentences passed
in China;
* Reducing the number of crimes punishable by death in China, for example
by removing non-violent crimes such as economic and drugs offences from the
scope of the death penalty;
* Increasing transparency by publishing official annual statistics on the
total number of prisoners sentenced to death and executed in China.
Fair trials, torture and administrative detention
Take concrete steps to bring all forms of detention in China into line with
international human rights law and standards, including measures to uphold
the rights to fair trial and prevent torture. These should include:
* Abolishing 'Re-education through Labour', 'Enforced Drug Rehabilitation'
and 'Custody and Education', ensuring that decisions on detention are no
longer exclusively in the hands of the police.
Protection of human rights defenders
Ensure that human rights defenders are free to carry out their peaceful
activities in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
Reforms should include:
* Ensuring that human rights defenders in China have access to and support
from independent international human rights monitors;
* Substantial reform or abolition of vaguely-worded clauses in the Criminal
Law which are frequently used to target human rights defenders, including
'endangering national security', 'subverting state power' and 'leaking
state secrets abroad'.
* Release of all journalists detained or imprisoned for their peaceful
reporting activities and introduction of safeguards to ensure that both
foreign and domestic journalists are able to cover issues of legitimate
public concern without censorship;
* An end to harassment, arbitrary detention, imprisonment and other abuses
directed at peaceful activists calling for an official investigation into
the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, and guarantees that they
can engage in commemoration for the victims;
* Release of all those detained or imprisoned for peacefully protesting
about alleged forced evictions, including as a result of Olympics-related
construction projects, and measures to prevent further arbitrary detentions
or harassment of such activists;
* Measures to ensure that defence lawyers have prompt and regular access to
their clients in police detention and are not at risk of human rights
abuses themselves for doing so.
Internet freedom
End all censorship of the Internet in China which constitutes a violation
of the fundamental human rights to freedom of expression and information.
This should include:
* The repeal of all laws and regulations aimed at restricting the free and
legitimate flow of information online;
* The release of all those detained or imprisoned for peacefully expressing
themselves online or for downloading information from the Internet,
including human rights defenders and journalists
Recommendations to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the wider
Olympic movement
Amnesty International reminds the IOC of its own expectation that human
rights in China would improve as a result of Beijing being awarded the
Olympics and of its encouragement to international human rights
organizations, like Amnesty International, to monitor such progress. 58 In
line with these commitments, Amnesty International urges the IOC to exert
influence on the Chinese authorities to secure the above reforms before
August 2008. In particular, Amnesty International urges the IOC and the
Olympic movement to put pressure on the Chinese authorities to:
* release all prisoners of conscience, including the individuals
highlighted in this report;
* accelerate and build on efforts towards abolishing the death penalty in
line with the above recommendations;
* abandon plans to use "Re-education through Labour" to "clean-up" Beijing
in the run-up to the Olympics and to abolish the system altogether;
* give international human rights organizations unfettered access to China
for research purposes so that they can better monitor China's progress in
human rights and discuss issues of concern with Chinese officials and human
rights defenders;
* implement legal reforms to ensure protection of human rights defenders in
China, including reforms to the Criminal Law as detailed above;
* repeal all laws and regulations aimed at restricting the free and
legitimate flow of information online.
Recommendations to Internet companies with investments and interests in
China
In line with the UN Human Rights Norms for Business, Amnesty International
urges Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and other Internet companies with interests
in China to address ongoing restrictions on freedom of expression and avoid
contributing to further human rights abuses. This should include:
* Using their influence with the Chinese authorities to lobby for the
release of those detained or imprisoned for their use of the Internet as
above;
* Publicly committing to honouring guarantees of freedom of expression in
the Chinese Constitution and under international human rights standards;
* Ensuring complete transparency about the filtering process, including by
making public which words or phrases are censored from the Internet in
China and how these are selected;
* Exhausting all judicial remedies and appeals in China and internationally
before complying with state directives that violate human rights.
作者：平头 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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大赦国际关于北京奥运的报道
