China convicts Uighur web managers on state security charges
Amnesty International has condemned the closed trial and conviction of three Uighur website managers on state security charges.
Amnesty International has condemned the closed trial and conviction of three Uighur website managers on state security charges.
Dilshat Perhat, web manager and owner of the Diyarim website was sentenced to five years by an Urumqi court in a closed trial on 21 July; Nureli, web manager of Salkin was sentenced to three years; and Nijat Azat, web manager of Shabnam was sentenced to 10 years, according to Dilmurat Perhat, Dishat’s brother.
The three websites were among the most popular Uighur language news and community forums operating in Xinjiang prior to the 5 July 2009 riots.
”The Chinese governments’ attempts to control all online activity in Xinjiang is not going to silence those with genuine grievances,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific Director for Amnesty International. “These three Uighur web managers must be released.”
Dilmurat was repeatedly warned by Xinjiang authorities against speaking to the media about his brother Dilshat’s case. He had earlier complied with their demands out of fear that his brother could be convicted. “But today, I’m not worried because my brother has been sentenced already,” Dilmurat told Amnesty International from the United Kingdom.
“This government charge against my brother and the other Uighur websites was for endangering state security, but they didn’t do anything” said Dilmurat, who had worked with his brother Dilshat in managing the Diyarim website.
“My brother was supportive of the Chinese government always. We ran the website from 2002 to 2009 – for seven years, we didn’t have any problems with the Chinese government.”
Dilmurat says that the secret nature of the Urumqi trials were a result of government fear of protest, because “the Chinese government has not any evidence to sentence these people.”
He suspects that web managers came under pressure from authorities due to articles that anonymous people posted on their websites prior to the 5 July, 2009 riots in Urumqi. The riots led to 197 deaths according to official figures, and more than 1,400 detentions.
Amnesty International’s investigation of the riots suggests that the Chinese government used excessive force in dealing with the riots and in their aftermath, arbitrarily detained Uighurs, and mistreated detainees. AI’s findings were published in June 2010 as ‘Justice, Justice’ – The July 2009 protests in Xinjiang, China.
From 3 July 2009, Dilmurat’s brother notified Chinese security officials five to six times to notify them that articles calling for a peaceful demonstration had been posted anonymously on the Diyaram website, and that he had deleted them. A demonstration notice was posted again at 3:30 am on Sunday 5 July, on the Diyarim, Salkin and Shabnam websites, and the web managers were not able to remove them until later in the day.
Following the riots, the three websites were all closed down by government censors.
Amnesty International is calling for the release of the Uighur language web managers and for the release of other arbitrarily detained Uighurs.
Prominent Uighur journalist Hairat Niyaz was recently sentenced to 15 years imprisonment through a secret trial in Urumqi, for little more than giving interviews to Hong Kong media.
Uighur writer Gulmira Imin, who had contributed to the Salkin website, was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2010 for ‘splittism, leaking state secrets and organising an illegal demonstration.’ During her trial she alleged torture and ill-treatment in detention.
China sentences Uighur journalist to 15-year prison term
Hairat Niyaz was convicted on state security charges, apparently for warning the authorities over potential ethnic violence in Xinjiang province on the eve of the July 2009 riots.
Amnesty International has condemned a 15-year prison sentence reportedly imposed on a Uighur journalist who warned Chinese authorities over potential ethnic violence in Xinjiang province on the eve of the July 2009 riots.
Hairat (also known as Hailaite or Gheyret) Niyaz was reportedly tried and convicted on state security charges by a court in Xinjiang on Friday.
According to reports, prosecutors relied on essays he had written prior to the July 2009 riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and interviews he gave to Hong Kong media after the violence.
“Fifteen years imprisonment is an outrageous punishment for journalism that highlighted the longstanding grievances of the Uighur people,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific Programme.
“Adding to this outrage is the fact that Hairat Niyaz, in his words as an ‘ordinary person of conscience’, had urged the authorities to take emergency measures to prevent ethnic violence.”
Hairat Niyaz was arrested in October 2009, because, according to police, he had now “given too many interviews”.
In these interviews, Hairat Niyaz highlighted mounting grievances against the implementation of the so-called “bilingual” education policy that had led to many Uighur teachers being laid off.
He spoke about mounting local resentment of employment initiatives sending young Uighurs, mainly women, to work in Southern Chinese factories.
“Hairat Niyaz is a prisoner of conscience and should be released immediately,” said Catherine Baber.
At his trial Hairat Niyaz was denied the right to be represented by a lawyer of his own choosing, and only one family member, his wife, was permitted to attend the proceedings.
During the trial he insisted that he had broken no laws and was only carrying out his duty as a citizen and journalist.
Hairat Niyaz is an established journalist and administrator of Uighurbiz, one of the websites accused of promoting the July unrest. He had been a senior journalist with the Xinjiang Economic Daily, Chief Editorial Director of Xinjiang Legal Daily, and Deputy Director of the Legal Magazine Fazhi Zongheng.
“Hairat Niyaz’s testimony and those of other witnesses to the unrest must be openly investigated if we are to get to the truth of what happened in July 2009 in Xinjiang,” said Catherine Baber.
Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation into the violence of July 2009, including into what and who caused the violence, how many people died, and who killed them.
China holds Uighur journalist over Xinjiang unrest remarks (News, 30 October 2009)
China: Witnesses Lift Veil on Abuses by Security Forces in Tibet
(New York) – Eyewitness accounts confirm that Chinese security forces used disproportionate force and acted with deliberate brutality during and after unprecedented Tibetan protests beginning on March 10, 2008, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
China must halt harassment and censorship of HIV/AIDS activists
Chinese security forces last night cancelled a documentary screening by an HIV/AIDS education group, which Amnesty International is strongly criticising as part of the ongoing harassment of peaceful public health educators.
Chinese security forces last night cancelled a documentary screening by an HIV/AIDS education group, which Amnesty International is strongly criticising as part of the ongoing harassment of peaceful public health educators.
“Harassing and curtailing HIV/AIDS activism in China poses a real threat to effective HIV/AIDS prevention, with dire consequences for the right to health,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Deputy Director.
China’s internal security police questioned staff of the Beijing HIV/AIDS education NGO Aizhixing Institute of Health Education on 7 July and instructed them to cancel the show planned for 8 July. The film screening did not go ahead and the Aizhixing event-organiser has resigned from coordinating the event.
Aizhixing staff have been so frequently subjected to questioning and harassment that the director Wan Yanhai left China in May 2010 to avoid constant police interrogations and detentions. The organization’s offices have been subjected to an endless series of government checks on their bank accounts, licenses, and fire safety, with the aim of disrupting work and intimidating staff.
On 7 July, police also questioned and intimidated the documentary film-maker, and the subject of the documentary, a 23-year-old university graduate called Tian Xi living with HIV/AIDs.
Documentary-maker Laohu Miao was warned by police that the film could threaten social stability by arousing audience emotion. Laohu Miao, a pen-name meaning ‘Tiger Temple’, is a well known blogger and tweeter on human rights issues, with the twitter handle @24hour.
Police warned Tian Xi, the documentary-subject, against taking part in any public protest on HIV/AIDS issues. Tian Xi was infected at the age of nine through a blood transfusion. The documentary showed him as a positive example of a person living their life with HIV/AIDS. Tian Xi has been active in calls for compensation for HIV/AIDS patients infected when receiving healthcare, and for hospitals to address medical malpractice.
Aizhixing is a pun on the Chinese term for HIV/AIDS ‘Aizibing’, replacing the word ‘illness’ with ‘action’. The organization has lobbied the Chinese government to review HIV/AIDS policies and resource use, for example to provide better care to HIV/AIDS patients, and provide accountability for people infected through medical malpractice and blood transfusions.
China must halt persecution of award-winning Tibetan environmentalist family
Amnesty International is calling for the release of three award-winning Tibetan environmental activist brothers, two of whom were recently given lengthy prison sentences within a week of each other.
Amnesty International is calling for the release of three award-winning Tibetan environmental activist brothers, two of whom were recently given lengthy prison sentences within a week of each other.
Karma Samdrup, named ‘philanthropist of the year’ in 2006 by China’s state broadcaster CCTV for his work on river preservation, was sentenced last week to 15 years for ‘inciting the stealing of cultural relics’ from tombsites, a charge that had been dropped in 1998.
He has made detailed allegations of torture in detention to extract a forced confession. When he appeared in court in June, he had lost so much weight in six months that his wife could barely recognise him.
Karma Samdrup’s arrest took place in January after he lobbied for the release of his two detained brothers Rinchen Samdrup and Chime Namgyal. The pair were arrested in August 2009 after their award-winning anti-poaching and reforestation NGO threatened to uncover corrupt officials illegally hunting endangered wildlife.
Rinchen was sentenced on Saturday to five years after a cursory trial for ‘inciting splittism’, having been in detention without trial for almost a year. The key piece of evidence was an article mentioning the Dalai Lama that he insisted someone else had posted on his website.
The trials of the two brothers have been grossly unfair. Their lawyers have been repeatedly denied access to their clients and to key evidence.
Chime is already serving 21 months of ‘Re-education Through Labour’ imposed without charge or trial, on allegations of ‘harming social stability’ by illegally collecting local information about the environment and religion, and organizing ‘irregular petitioning’ by local residents.
Rinchen and Chime’s NGO had received wide praise in Chinese state media, as well as support from the Ford motor company and from actor Jet Li’s One Foundation.
“Rinchen’s activism has been celebrated by state newspapers, citing local Communist Party officials, while he was actually in detention,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific.
“The targeting of this apolitical family sends worrying signals that the authorities are engaged in an ever-widening crackdown. Such prosecutions could also threaten the growing environmental activism that the country so desperately needs.”
The brothers’ extended family is also being targeted by authorities. A cousin, Sonam Choephel, is serving one and a half years of `Re-education Through Labour` after organizing a group to petition in Beijing for justice for Rinchen Samdrup.
Another cousin, Rinchen Dorje, who had acted as an interpreter for Karma Samdrup, was arrested in March and his whereabouts are currently unknown.
The International Campaign for Tibet has stated that Karma Samdrup’s mother, in her 70s, was beaten unconscious by police under the authority of a Communist Party official, and that 20 villagers from the brothers’ home area were detained, interrogated and tortured after further petitioning in Beijing.
Cultural and intellectual leaders in the Tibetan community have been increasingly targeted by Chinese security forces since the 2008 protests and unrest in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and in other Tibetan areas of China.
Falun Gong Practitioner Dies from Psychiatric Torture in Southeast China
New York—A 40-year-old female Falun Gong practitioner in Hunan province has died in custody, apparently due to psychiatric torture, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. The woman had been detained in May 2008 in a local crackdown before the Olympic Torch passed through the province.
Ms. Chen Chunjun (陈楚君), a former accountant at the local railroad company, was arrested on May 10, 2008 in Huaihua city by agents of the 610 Office, an extra-legal task force created in 1999 and charged with wiping out Falun Gong. (6-10 Office) She was walking to a bus stop on her way home when she was detained. Chen was one of dozens of Falun Gong practitioners arbitrarily detained that month in Hunan, as part of a crackdown by local officials ahead of the passage of the Olympic Torch relay through the province from June 1-3, 2008.
Sources inside China recently discovered that Chen died in March 2009 at Huaihua Psychiatric Hospital (a.k.a. Huaihua No. 4 People’s Hospital).
China: Detainees ‘Disappeared’ After Xinjiang Protests
(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately account for all detainees in its custody and allow independent investigations into the July 2009 protests in Urumqi and their aftermath, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on enforced “disappearances” released today.
South Korea, please stop deporting Falun Gong refugees back to China
The South Korean government needs to get in shape. Despite plenty of evidence that Chinese authorities can persecute anyone who practices Falun Gong in China, even if they practiced in their homes, the South Korea government has repatriated 3 Falun Gong refugees back to China in the past weeks.
Here’s hoping that South Korea is able to do the right thing.
Falun Dafa Information Center Urges Korean President to Protect Falun Gong Refugees
Excerpt:
However, a wide range of eyewitness accounts and third party reports – including those from Amnesty International, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and the United Nations – document the ongoing systemic and widespread nature of persecution against Falun Gong in China. Practitioners fleeing the country are regularly granted asylum in the United States and Western European countries, as well as protection from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees because of the risk they would face should they be forced to return to China. South Korea has ratified several international human rights treaties that prohibit repatriation of individuals to countries where they risk torture.
China: Cease Attacks on Rights Lawyers
(New York) – The Chinese government’s closure of a Beijing-based legal aid and research organization and disbarment of 53 Beijing lawyers marks a sharp intensification of official efforts to silence China’s human rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human rights lawyers disbarred in China
Chinese human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong has had his professional license revoked by the Justice Bureau of Beijing Municipality. Amnesty International has condemned the decision.
“There are only a tiny group of lawyers left in China who are brave enough to take the risk of representing victims of human rights violations. A further crackdown against human rights lawyers is a major blow not only to these legal professionals but to the human rights defence movement in China,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific deputy director.
There are more than 140,000 lawyers and 14,000 law firms in China but only a small proportion take the risk of taking on cases involving human rights violations, including providing legal aid to Tibetans who were detained in connection with the March 2008 protests. Others cases these lawyers worked on involved Falun Gong practitioners, human rights defenders detained for peacefully exercising their freedom of expression and families of victims affected by the baby milk powder scandal.
The Justice Bureau of Beijing Municipality issued a notice stating 53 lawyers’ licences, including Jiang Tianyong’s, were revoked in accordance to articles 23(1)(3) and 23(1)(4) of Methods for the Management of Lawyers’ Practice.
The justice bureau also issued a list of 24 Beijing-based lawyers who will not have their licences re-registered. According to the list these lawyers “failed their assessments” and include prominent human rights lawyers, Li Heping, Li Xiongbing, Li Chunfu, Wang Yajun and Guo Shaofei.
Without a license, lawyers are restricted in their ability to represent those seeking to obtain justice and redress for human rights violations.