2001 Annual Report for China

CHINA
People's Republic of China
Head of state: Jiang Zemin
Head of government: Zhu Rongji
Capital: Beijing
Population: 1.2 billion
Official language: Standard Chinese or Mandarin
Death penalty: retentionist

2000 saw continued repression of peaceful dissent throughout the country. There was no sign of any relaxation of the 1999 crack-down on fundamental freedoms. Thousands of people were arbitrarily detained for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association or religion. Some were sentenced to long prison terms after unfair trials under national security legislation; others were detained without trial and assigned to up to three years' ''re-education through labour''. Torture and ill-treatment of prisoners continued to be widespread. The limited and incomplete records available showed that at least 1,511 people were sentenced to death and 1,000 executed; the true figures were believed to be far higher. In the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, religious freedom continued to be severely restricted and people suspected of nationalist activities or sympathies were subjected to particularly harsh repression.

Background
The government's campaign of repression against those it deemed a threat to political stability and public order continued against a background of growing public criticism of official corruption. The government intensified its anti-corruption campaign and several high-ranking officials were convicted of corruption following highly publicized trials; some were sentenced to death.
Although implementation of the law continued to be arbitrary in many cases, the government renewed efforts to encourage implementation of 1997 legal changes, including some aimed at improving the fairness of trials. Further legal reform was debated with reference to international human rights treaties which China had signed but not yet ratified. In November, the government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, designed to set up a program of technical cooperation in the field of human rights.
At the UN Commission on Human Rights, China again blocked debate on a draft resolution by using a procedural motion ''not to take action''. In May, the UN Committee against Torture recommended that China adopt a definition of the crime of torture consistent with the UN Convention against Torture and abolish all forms of administrative detention.
In September survivors of the 1989 massacre which followed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square filed a civil lawsuit in New York, USA, against Li Peng, the then Chinese Premier, for human rights violations including crimes against humanity and torture.

Labour unrest and repression
The enormous social costs of economic restructuring continued to provoke social unrest during 2000. The absence of effective social welfare provisions left many of the millions of workers who had lost their jobs in recent years facing acute poverty. A severe drought also brought hardship and disquiet among the country's rural population. Tens of thousands of demonstrations were believed to have taken place during the year, although most were not reported by China's tightly controlled official media. China's expected entry into the World Trade Organization was set to increase economic and social challenges.

In May, nearly 50 people were reportedly injured when several hundred police dispersed a demonstration of up to 5,000 steel workers from the Liaoyang Perroalloy Factory, Liaoning province. Workers were protesting that some had not been paid since 1998 and that 2,000 workers who had been laid off and 1,000 retired workers had not received their benefits for up to six months.
Peasants from eight rural towns in Shaanxi province were beaten and illegally detained for refusing to pay excessive taxes imposed by local Communist Party officials. Ma Xiaoming, a journalist investigating the story, was detained for several hours by police in August. The peasants were campaigning for the release of Ma Wenlin, a paralegal who was imprisoned for five years in 1999 after lodging a formal complaint against the taxes with the central government.

Repression of spiritual and religious groups
Followers of the Falun Gong spiritual group faced detention, unfair trials, torture and imprisonment as part of the government's continuing crack-down on groups it considered to be ''heretical organizations''. Legislation was used retroactively to convict alleged leaders of the Falun Gong on politically driven charges and new regulations were introduced to further restrict fundamental freedoms. Since the Falun Gong was banned in July 1999, at least 93 adherents were believed to have died in police custody. Some of the deaths were a result of suicide or injuries inflicted during forcible feeding, but most were reported to have died as a result of torture. New arrests and detentions were reported daily throughout 2000. Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of practitioners were believed to remain in detention at the end of the year. Many were assigned without trial to ''re-education through labour'' and some were detained in psychiatric hospitals.
The clamp-down on ''heretical organizations'' increasingly encompassed other Qi Gong and religious groups. Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who worshipped outside the official ''patriotic'' churches were the victims of a continuing pattern of arrests, fines and harassment. Scores arrested in recent years remained in prison or labour camps.

In August, 130 evangelical Christians were detained in Henan province. All were members of the Fangcheng Church, one of many Protestant ''house churches'' which are not recognized by the authorities. According to reports, 85 of those detained were subsequently charged with joining an ''heretical organization''. However, in September official sources claimed that all those detained had been ''re-educated and sent back to where they came from''.
In September, 24 Roman Catholics, including a priest and 20 nuns, were detained in Fujian province when police found them holding church services in a mushroom-processing factory. According to reports, Father Liu Shaozhang was so severely beaten by police during arrest that he vomited blood. Two of the nuns were allegedly released the following day after parishioners paid a large sum of money to the police; the whereabouts of the other 22 detainees remained unknown at the end of the year.

Repression of Internet users
People continued to be arrested and charged with serious offences for using the Internet to spread information about human rights or other politically sensitive issues. Attempts by the authorities to control access and use of the Internet in China included the closure in August of what was described as the first ever pro-democracy website. In October and November, the government issued regulations to control news sites and chat-rooms and combat ''internet crimes'', including the expression of views deemed ''harmful to the state''.

Huang Qi was arrested in the southwestern city of Chengdu in June for publishing information on the Internet about the 1989 crack-down on pro-democracy protests. He was charged with ''subverting state power'', but was not known to have been tried by the end of the year.

Repression of reformers and dissidents
People continued to be detained and sentenced to terms of imprisonment or ''re-education through labour'' for peacefully promoting reforms. These included political dissidents, such as members of the banned China Democratic Party, and anti-corruption and environmental campaigners.

In September dissident writer Qi Yanchen was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for ''subversion'' by a court in Hebei province. He was one of the founders of an environmental movement, the China Development Union, which was banned in 1998. His imprisonment was believed to be connected with his writings, in particular his book, China's Collapse, which argues that China must introduce political reforms if it wants to avoid widespread social unrest.
In April, An Jun, an anti-corruption campaigner, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for ''anti-government activities'' by a court in Xinyang, Henan province. The evidence against him was reportedly based on four essays he had written but never published. Prior to his arrest in July 1999, An Jun had formed an independent anti-corruption group which claimed to have uncovered over 100 cases of corruption.

Tiananmen Square anniversary
The authorities once again suppressed all attempts to mark the anniversary of the June 1989 crack-down on pro-democracy activists when hundreds of civilians were massacred and tens of thousands of others were injured or arrested. Every year since 1989, the anniversary has sparked further arrests and detentions of those seeking justice for the victims and their families.
Eleven years on, no public inquiry had been instituted into the events and no compensation had been granted to the families of the victims. At the end of 2000 more than 200 people were believed to remain in prison for their activities in connection with the 1989 protests.

Torture/ill-treatment
Torture and ill-treatment of detainees remained widespread. Victims included both political detainees and criminal suspects. Incidents were reported in police stations, detention centres, prisons, labour camps, repatriation centres and drug rehabilitation centres. There were also frequent reports of the use of torture during non-custodial control measures such as ''residential supervision'' and during the ''special isolation'' of officials being investigated for alleged corruption.
Torture during interrogation was perpetrated against all types of detainees and was a component part of some high-profile anti-crime or political campaigns such as the crack-down on the Falun Gong.
The extent of deaths in custody as a result of torture remained largely unacknowledged by the authorities. In many cases, particularly those involving political prisoners or perceived enemies of the government, officials simply denied responsibility and no proper investigation was undertaken.

Chen Zixiu, a 60-year-old Falun Gong practitioner, reportedly died under torture in February while held by police in Weifang, Shandong province. Fellow detainees testified in detail about how she was tortured. According to her daughter, when the family came to fetch Chen Zixiu's body, it was covered in bruises, her teeth were broken and blood was coming out of her ears. Local police reportedly later claimed that she had ''died of a heart attack''.

Prison conditions remained harsh and the routine denial of medical care posed a serious threat to many prisoners.

Zhang Shanguang, a former teacher and labour rights activist held in Hunan Province No. 1 Prison, was forced to continue doing heavy physical work in fetters despite suffering from a serious lung illness. When he tried to stop working, he was reportedly beaten. He had been detained in July 1998 and one of the charges against him was based on an interview he gave to a US-funded radio station in which he spoke, among other things, about peasant demonstrations in Hunan province. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and five years' deprivation of political rights following a trial behind closed doors that lasted just over two hours. By the end of the year, Zhang Shanguang had reportedly been held for four months in solitary confinement as punishment for ''refusing to confess his crimes''. He had also reportedly been denied family visits.

Denial of due process and unfair trials
The authorities continued to flout the Criminal Procedure Law in many cases. Political defendants were routinely denied their right to due process and their lawyers were often subjected to pressure by the authorities.

Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei, two sisters from Beijing, were tried in secret in Beijing in January and sentenced to seven and six years' imprisonment respectively. The sisters were convicted of ''illegal trading'' in connection with the sale of Falun Gong publications. However, they were arrested on 20 July 1999 - two days before the Falun Gong, and therefore its literature, were banned. The two women were held for more than three months without charge, in violation of Chinese law, and denied access to their family. In August 1999, before formal charges had been laid, the official Xinhua news agency published accusations against them, showing clearly that they were already considered guilty. According to unofficial sources, their lawyer was put under pressure not to present a plea of ''not guilty'' at their trial.

Death penalty
The death penalty continued to be used extensively and arbitrarily. Political interference was common. Often mass executions were carried out before major events or public holidays as a warning to others. Execution was by shooting or lethal injection and sometimes took place within hours of sentencing. The limited and incomplete records available to AI at the end of the year showed that at least 1,511 death sentences had been passed and at least 1,000 executions carried out in 2000. These were believed to be only a fraction of the true figures as death penalty statistics remained a state secret in China. Many cases were reported in which death sentences were passed on the basis of contentious evidence, including confessions extracted under torture.

Zhuo Xiaojun was sentenced to death on 14 January after a blatantly unfair trial. He had been detained in December 1989 and sentenced to death. However, the conviction was overturned on appeal and a retrial ordered. This began in January 1993 but was adjourned for seven years. The latest trial in January 2000 lasted only a few hours. No witnesses were called; no new evidence was reportedly presented; and a confession - which Zhuo Xiaojun testified was extracted under torture and which had been undermined by forensic evidence - was central to the prosecution's case. No visits by Zhuo Xiaojun's family had ever been permitted. He was reported to suffer from hepatitis, a bleeding stomach and ulcerating skin. Both while under the initial and the second death sentences, he was reported to be held with hands and feet shackled together at all times. Zhuo Xiaojun's appeal was heard on 28 November. No decision had been reported by the end of the year.

Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
Executions of Uighur political prisoners labelled as ''separatists'' or ''terrorists'' by the authorities continued. Most were passed after secret or summary trials where convictions were based on confessions extracted under torture. The XUAR was the only region of China where political prisoners were known to have been executed in recent years. The pattern of gross human rights violations reported from the XUAR included prolonged arbitrary incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment and unfair trials. The targets of abuses were mainly Uighurs, the majority ethnic group among the predominantly Muslim local population. There was an increase in religious persecution by the authorities. Islamic groups and prominent individuals in the Muslim community were subjected to repressive and often brutal measures. Thousands remained imprisoned.

Rebiya Kadeer, an Uighur businesswoman and mother of 10, was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment after a secret trial in March. She was charged with ''providing secret information across the border'' for sending copies of publicly available newspapers to her husband, a former political prisoner living abroad. Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent campaigner promoting Uighur women's rights, had been detained in August 1999 in Urumqi, capital of the XUAR, while on her way to meet a visitor from the US Congressional Research Service. Her appeal against her sentence was rejected in November by the XUAR High People's Court, following which she was transferred to the Baijiahu prison in Urumqi. She was reported to be in poor health.

Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)
In January the 17th Karmapa - the highest profile religious leader to leave the TAR in recent years - escaped into exile. Repression of religious activities in the TAR intensified during 2000. Hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns were believed to remain in prison at the end of the year. Many prisoners were forced to work long hours in harsh conditions. Inadequate and poor quality food combined with insanitary conditions caused health problems for many inmates. Few escaped torture and ill-treatment, particularly during the early stages of custody.

Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan ethno-musicologist, continued to serve an 18-year prison sentence. He had been convicted in 1996 of ''espionage and counter-revolutionary activities''. At the time of his detention he had been gathering material for the production of a documentary film about traditional Tibetan performing arts. Ngawang Choephel was held in Powo Tramo prison and was reported to be in poor health, suffering from ''bronchitis, hepatitis and respiratory infections''. In August, his mother was given permission by the Chinese authorities to travel from India to Tibet to visit her imprisoned son for the first time since his arrest in 1995.

Asylum-seekers
In April some 50 North Korean nationals were forcibly returned by the Chinese authorities to North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) where they were feared to be at serious risk of human rights violations. They were among thousands of others reportedly returned to North Korea in previous months without being granted access to any asylum procedure.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Continuing litigation over the right of abode stipulated in the Basic Law fuelled debate over the role and autonomy of Hong Kong courts when interpreting constitutional rights under the ''One Country Two Systems'' model.
Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly
Frequent demonstrations were held against a wide range of government policies.

In May, activist Leung Kwok-hung was sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment for ''contempt'' after shouting a slogan during an October 1999 legislative council meeting.
In August and September, 16 demonstrators, including seven student leaders, were arrested under the controversial 1997 Public Order ordinance for failing to give seven days' notice prior to a demonstration in June. Participants had formally complained of excessive use of force by police who had used pepper spray and punched and kicked protesters. The arrests triggered large unauthorized solidarity marches and renewed public scrutiny of the ordinance. In October, the charges were dropped.
A public investigation which substantiated allegations of official interference in academic freedom at the University of Hong Kong led to the resignation of the vice-chancellor and pro-vice-chancellor in September.
Staff of the Central Government Liaison Office (formerly the New China News Agency or Xinhua) told the Hong Kong media not to report the views of pro-independence Taiwanese, and warned Hong Kong businesses of the risks of choosing such trading partners.

Alleged illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers
Two officials and an interpreter were charged with perverting the course of justice after several people were wrongfully detained for immigration offences after allegedly being pressurized or misled into making false confessions. They included a teenage girl and a female tourist from Viet Nam. A severely mentally disabled boy went missing in mainland China after immigration officials allowed him to cross the border alone without papers and then blocked his attempts to return.
In January, the jury at a coroner's inquest into the August 1999 death of Prince Evis Ose in a fire in his cell in Victoria Prison called for ''serious action'' across government departments. The prison was used to detain alleged overstayers, illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers under the Immigration Ordinance, potentially without trial and for an unlimited period. The inquest heard that recommendations made in 1987 to install fire-fighting equipment and remove flammable fittings had been largely ignored by officials because they considered prisons had no public access.
In May the UN Committee against Torture recommended that Hong Kong's laws and practices to outlaw torture and to protect refugees be brought into conformity with the UN Convention against Torture.

Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR)
Rising unemployment undermined high expectations of economic recovery and government reform under the Chinese regime. Unemployed workers staged several large marches, culminating in a violent confrontation on 2 July when police used tear gas to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators and arrested several alleged organizers.
The police reported a significant decrease in triad-gang related violence. Several defendants complained they had been falsely charged and denied any right to bail under wide-ranging 1999 legislation against organized crime. Severe overcrowding was reported at the MSAR's one prison.
In December, on the eve of President Jiang Zemin's visit to celebrate the first anniversary of the MSAR, police occupied the home of Falun Gong organizer Lam Yatming, claiming they were searching for banned items, and detained democracy activist Lee Kinyuen. Peaceful Falun Gong gatherings were forcibly dispersed, and many local and foreign practitioners were detained. The Chief Executive promised to investigate allegations that police had beaten practitioners while removing them from the MSAR. President Jiang Zemin urged Macao to take concrete measures to defend Beijing's authority and prohibit activities against the central government.

AI country reports

Women's Rights are Human Rights - China: Arbitrary detention of Rebiya Kadeer - a women's human rights defender and prisoner of conscience (AI Index: ASA 17/004/2000)
People's Republic of China: The crack-down on Falun Gong and other so-called ''heretical organizations'' (AI Index: ASA 17/011/2000)
People's Republic of China: Tiananmen - 11 years on and still no government inquiry: ''forgotten prisoners'' (AI Index: ASA 17/017/2000)
People's Republic of China: Death Penalty Log 1999 (AI Index: ASA 17/049/2000)