Letter from Human Rights Watch to President Bush

China’s new Regulations on Religious Affairs became effective March 1, 2005, but it is already clear that the changes are little more than a continuation of long-established policies that limit religious freedom. While for many believers there has been a great deal of relaxation over private worship and belief, the state continues to control all aspects of group worship and practice. It treats independent religious groups as threats to the state, arresting, harassing and monitoring individuals.

China has reserved for itself the right to distinguish between a “religion” and a “cult” and to severely limit the activity of the latter. The crackdown on Falungong practice is the most egregious example of the treatment of a so-called cult.

Several large-scale raids focusing on Protestant church leadership training sessions, bible classes, missionary activity, and unregistered churches have taken place since March. Although the activities cited were not in compliance with the new regulations, they fall squarely within freedom of religion.

For Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan communities in Chinese provinces, the state-sanctioned crackdown on religious activities is stricter than in other parts of China. This is motivated by fears of secessionist activities in both areas, brought on by popular disaffection with Chinese rule. The similarities between the persecution of Uighurs and that of Tibetan monks and nuns are striking: imams and monks are vetted for patriotism and subject to repeated “reeducation”; all religious publication is controlled; religious celebrations are curtailed if not banned altogether; observant students face expulsion from school; there are caps on the number of Tibetan monks allowed and on the number of monasteries, as well as on the number of mosques.

One result of previous U.S.-China negotiations was a commitment by Chinese officials to publicly state that it is consistent with Chinese law and policy for a child to receive a religious education. If the policy is indeed in effect, it was breached in Xinjiang in August when a woman teaching a religious class was detained for “illegally possessing religious materials and subversive historical information.” Thirty-seven of her young students were held, at least temporarily.

Reports from Tibet and Xinjiang indicate that one of the most destructive practices is the inability of the current generation of master teachers to impart their knowledge to an upcoming generation of would-be monks and scholars.

We ask you to press President Hu and the Chinese government to:

The rule of law remains a distant goal in China. There are a myriad of rule of law problems deserving attention. Among the most important are China’s excessive use of the death penalty, the lack of meaningful review of death sentences, the misuse of administrative detention, and the lack of fair trials by weighting trial and pre-trial procedures in favor of the state.

Although the exact figure remains a state secret, China is reported to execute more people than any other country. The death penalty may be imposed for an astonishingly long list of offenses––some 68 in all. This epidemic of executions occurs in a country that lacks an independent judiciary, relies for evidence on forced confessions, conducts trials that do not conform to the most basic of standards, and refuses to recognize the presumption of innocence.

It is our understanding that the government is considering removing economic crimes from the list of capital crimes, a move that could result in cutting the number of death penalty cases by one-third. It is also considering review of all death sentences by the Supreme Court. Yet both of these modest reforms have met with resistance.

We urge the U.S. to press China to announce a moratorium on the use of the death penalty while the criminal law is amended to allow use of the death penalty only for the most serious crimes, the judiciary is separated from the CCP and allowed to act independently, and observance of fair trial standards become the norm in China. The U.S. could offer technical assistance to China once China agrees with these initiatives.

We appreciate American efforts to end the reeducation through labor system in China, which has been used to detain millions of Chinese citizens without a trial or recourse to the judiciary. While there had been great hopes for substantial reforms or even the abolition of the system, it is our understanding, however, that within China the impetus for reform has come under substantial attack and has now stalled. We are also concerned that the proposed new regulations are still arbitrary and fall far short of a system complying with international standards as set forth in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore, recommendations for the reform of reeducation through labor leave in place other forms of administrative sentencing, particularly those applicable to prostitutes and drug users.

We urge the U.S. to intensify its efforts to convince the Chinese government that it must abandon this retrograde practice. The U.S. should continue to work with reformers within China’s legal community to eliminate not just reeducation through labor, but all forms of administrative sentencing.

Human Rights Watch continues to be concerned with trial and pre-trial procedural defects that compromise defendants’ rights. Among the most egregious are those that prevent a lawyer from meeting his or her client during the investigatory phase of a case. It is during this period, which can be lengthy, that suspects are in most danger of being subjected to torture or other mistreatment. Defense lawyers cannot begin their investigations until the official investigation is concluded, by which time an official decision on guilt or innocence has usually been made. Witnesses are not required to appear in court and, therefore, are not subject to cross-examination by the defense. The trial itself continues to be largely a prepared piece of theater, not an effort to establish guilt or innocence through the neutral presentation of evidence to an independent arbiter. Additionally, China’s Section 306 of the Criminal Law provides that defense lawyers may be prosecuted for falsifying evidence should a witness change his statement during trial. Indeed, the development of a criminal defense bar, touted as an important advance, has been significantly impeded by the large number of criminal defense lawyers arrested, threatened, or physically attacked for carrying out their professional duties.

• As China’s Criminal Procedure Law is now under review, the U.S. should press for the right of lawyers to have access to their clients and begin their investigations from the moment of detention. Witnesses should be required to appear in court and should be subject to cross-examination. Section 306 of the Criminal Law should be eliminated.
• The U.S. should express its strong concern about retribution against criminal defense lawyers.
  

V. FORCED EVICTIONS

In the rush to modernize and develop Chinese cities, Chinese local authorities and developers are forcibly evicting hundreds of thousands of homeowners and tenants without due process or proper compensation. Evicted residents have increasingly taken to the streets to protest, only to meet harsh police repression, and many housing rights activists have been imprisoned. A Human Rights Watch report, Demolished: Forced Evictions and the Tenants' Rights Movement in China documents such abuses.

In Beijing, the number of cases of illegal forced evictions is likely to increase in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics as venues are built and the city intensifies its modernization efforts. Senior legal experts and even some government-controlled news media have openly criticized the government's failure to protect the rights of homeowners and tenants. In response, the Chinese government has enacted some legal reforms, including a constitutional amendment to protect property rights. However, provisions of the Chinese constitution are not directly enforceable and courts have not generally upheld the rights of evicted residents. Lawyers active in protecting housing rights have been imprisoned.

We urge you to press the Chinese government to:

Due to the multiple weaknesses and failures of the Chinese legal and bureaucratic systems, particularly at the local level, many impoverished rural Chinese can only obtain redress or compensation for wrongs through the intervention of higher ranking officials, either at the local level or in Beijing. In cases ranging from official corruption to forced evictions and police brutality, Chinese law permits petitioners to appeal to or “petition” authorities further up the administrative hierarchy for assistance. In response, the national government has blamed local officials, first ordering them to “resolve” petitioner demands at the provincial level or below. To escape blame and meet the demand, provincial authorities often attempt to prevent petitioners from making their complaints known in Beijing. They send police and private enforcers to Beijing to physically assault petitioners and forcibly return them to their home locales. Detentions and reeducation through labor sentences, accompanied by further abuse, often follow.

A newly announced program mandates that petitioners be sent to their home areas to meet with local police chiefs, in many cases those responsible for the initial violations. To draw attention to the issue, petitioners have mounted an increasing number of public protests. In response, police have jailed petitioner activists and have cracked down on those applying for permits to hold legal demonstrations and on lawyers who defend petitioners. The number of petitioners is soaring: official statistics show that tens of thousands descend on Beijing every year. Brought on by arbitrary and illegal action by officials and the lack of official accountability, this has turned into a pressing social issue for China’s leadership.

We urge you to press President Hu and the Chinese government to:

Two decades after the first case of HIV/AIDS was diagnosed in China, the country faces what could be the largest AIDS epidemic in the world. In recent years, senior Chinese officials have shown a growing awareness about the need to confront the epidemic. However, AIDS activists continue to be harassed and bureaucratic restrictions continue to be imposed on civil society groups fighting the epidemic. A recent Human Rights Watch report, Restrictions on AIDS Activists in China, documents some of the problem. Activists conducting AIDS information workshops or working with those at high risk of contracting HIV have been harassed or detained at the local level and pornography laws are being used to censor websites providing AIDS information to gay men and lesbians.

In countries that have successfully contained the spread of HIV/AIDS, people with AIDS have been in the forefront of the effort. In Henan, HIV-positive villagers have mobilized services in affected villages. They have demonstrated to draw attention to the need for access to antiretroviral treatment and care, and have decried health workers’ misappropriation of AIDS funding. However, state censorship and the systemic violation of rights to freedom of association and assembly create numerous obstacles for such grass-roots organizations.

We urge the U.S. to press the Chinese government to:

We would like to bring to your attention particular concerns regarding restrictions on access to China for U.N. human rights monitoring mechanisms and China’s failure to implement extant recommendations of working groups and special rapporteurs. Indeed, no recommendations made to China by either the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention or the Special Rapporteur on Religion have ever been implemented.

We are aware that an invitation has been extended to the Special Rapporteur on Torture and a date set. This is welcome, and we appreciate efforts made by the U.S. in urging China to agree to this visit. We hope that China does not repeat past instances in which it insists on terms of reference which would require the Special Rapporteur to compromise his mandate, and then blame him when negotiations become deadlocked.

We are also concerned that, although an invitation has been extended, no date has been set for a promised visit by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

We ask that you:

The Chinese government views Uighurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas as a threat to the cohesion of the Chinese state. To lessen the threat, the government has instituted a series of measures aimed at erasing the cultural identities of both Uighurs and Tibetans. In addition to massive ethnic Chinese migration into the areas mentioned and the wholesale attack against the preservation of their religions, the government has instituted measures to marginalize their languages and literature, erase their histories and heroes, and trivialize, if not forbid, celebration of their customs and holidays. To stem separatism, the attack on Uighurs is at times justified in the name of counterterrorism.

On August 25, 2005, the Chinese government accused Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman, of being a terrorist. Ms. Kadeer, now living in exile in the U.S., was detained in August 1999 and subsequently charged with giving information to separatists outside China’s borders. This information was newspapers, available on the streets of Xinjiang’s regional capital, that she mailed to her husband in the U.S. Ms. Kadeer became a prominent political prisoner who your administration successfully pressured China to release, but not before she served almost six years in prison. Since her arrival in the U.S. in March 2005, Ms. Kadeer has been outspoken about conditions in Xinjiang, apparently prompting the absurd labeling her as a terrorist, an accusation that may put her family members still in Xinjiang and others at risk.

We urge that you make clear to President Hu that peaceful expression of a desire for independence or speaking out about human rights conditions cannot be considered to be an act of terrorism and that conflating the two discredits legitimate counter-terrorism efforts worldwide.

X. POLITICAL PRISONERS

Finally, in addition to the abuses cited, we bring to your attention China’s long-standing habit of releasing a prisoner before or after important meetings. Although the release of a prisoner, especially one who should never have been in prison, is a welcome event, we urge that you recognize the “gift” for what it is, a distraction that does nothing to address China's dismal rights record. We urge that should a release or releases occur, you recognize the “revolving door” quality of China’s hostage politics games and inform President Hu that you will refuse to be a party to it and insist that no new arrests be carried out to fill the prison bed emptied by whoever the Chinese leadership uses to score points with the international community. We urge further that you make this point publicly.

In addition, you should remind President Hu of Chinese assurances that prisoners convicted for political offenses would have the right to sentence reductions equal to those enjoyed by non-political prisoners. We are aware of political prisoners, who, on the grounds that they have not been “re-educated,” – have not renounced their views -- have not been considered for such reductions. We cite two as examples. First, Hada, an inner Mongolian, sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment in 1996 on charges of subversion for advocating preservation of autonomy as guaranteed by the Chinese law. Second, Yang Zili and three friends arrested in 2001 and charged with subversion for expressing political opinions on the Internet. Yang Zili received an eight-year sentence for subversion in May 2003. Two of the others are serving ten-year terms, while the fourth received an eight-year sentence.