China Must End Legalized Enforced Disappearances

August 28, 2017 Comments Off

(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders – August 28, 2017) – To mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on August 30, CHRD calls on the Chinese government to end the legalized practice of involuntary or enforced disappearance of human rights defenders and their family members by repealing “residential surveillance at a designated location.” The government must also urgently sign the International Convention for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Under President Xi Jinping, government authorities have increasingly used a “legalized,” de-facto form of enforced disappearance. Under Article 73 of China’s Criminal Procedure Law (2012), police have the authority to hold individuals under “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL) for six months. This means a person can be held secretly, in a place determined by police, with no access to their family or lawyers if authorities declare the individual is suspected of offenses related to “national security,” “terrorism,” and “bribery.” Police extensively applied Article 73 in the “709 Crackdown” in 2015-16, putting a total of 17 human rights lawyers and activists under RSDL. Seven of those individuals have since come forward with allegations that police tortured them in RSDL to force confessions or punish them, including through beatings, forced medications, and sleep deprivation. Three later confessed and pleaded guilty at their trials, raising alarms about abuses they alleged occurred during RSDL.

As defined under international law, an enforced disappearance occurs when government agents detain an individual and then refuse to disclose the person’s fate or whereabouts or acknowledge their deprivation of liberty, which places such individuals outside the protection of the law. The families of disappeared individuals experience mental anguish, not knowing where their loved ones are or if they are being ill-treated, and may themselves be exposed to danger for searching for the truth. In China, human rights defenders (HRDs) are at high risk of being disappeared by police, which also makes it more likely they will be tortured or subjected to other kinds of mistreatment.

One extreme case of enforced disappearance in RSDL is human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang (王全璋). Authorities took him into custody and held him in a secret location from August 2015 until January 2016, after which he was formally arrested on suspicion of “subversion of state power” and moved to Tianjin No. 2 Detention Center. For more than two years now, Wang has never been allowed to meet with a lawyer of his or his family’s choice; the lawyers hired by his family were blocked from meeting him and then “forcibly fired” by authorities. His wife, young son, and parents, who have been denied all contact with Wang, have suffered collective punishment; for example, authorities have pressured landlords not to rent apartments to his family and blocked Wang’s son from attending school. Wang is awaiting trial in Tianjin.

Another victim is human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong (江天勇). Jiang was put on trial last week on trumped-up charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” Hunan police detained Jiang in secret locations for six months after seizing him in November 2016 at a train station. Jiang’s treatment has been in reprisal for his campaigning on behalf of other disappeared lawyers in the “709 Crackdown.” During his first 25 days in custody, his family heard nothing from authorities about his whereabouts, and police also refused to file a missing person’s report. It was not until mid-December that his family learned from state media that Jiang was alive and in police custody, and not until late-December when they received a written notice that he had been placed under RSDL in a secret location.

Chinese police have also disappeared family members of persecuted HRDs as a form of collective punishment. One such victim is poet and artist Liu Xia (刘霞), who had been under illegal house arrest—and barred from contact with the outside world—since her husband Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010. Following his death on July 13, 2017, Liu Xia disappeared and her current location is unknown; recently released brief videos of Liu Xia do not disclose her location or her condition. She has never been accused, charged, or convicted of a crime.

In a similar case, the family of Zhao Suli (赵素利), the wife of detained democracy activist Qin Yongmin (秦永敏), have been searching for her for more than two years after police detained Zhao and her husband in January 2015. Her son said last summer that the family did not know if Zhao was alive, and the family had filed a lawsuit to try to find out where she was.

China must honor its Human Rights Council membership pledge to uphold the highest international human rights standards by signing and ratifying key international human rights treaties, including the International Convention for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance. In responding to recommendations other UN member states made during the 2013 Universal Periodic Review, the Chinese government said it does not have plans to ratify the treaty since it has enacted “related regulations,” but China’s domestic laws, such as Article 73 of the Criminal Procedure Law, go against the Convention. RSDL must be immediately abolished. The Chinese government has also refused to cooperate with the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances: China has not responded to a request for a country visit by the Working Group. And, as of July 2016, China has refused to provide information about 41 cases of disappearance raised by the group of independent experts.

中国政府必须停止强制失踪的合法化
2017 年8月28日

（中国人权捍卫者网络，简称为CHRD－2017年8月28日）
8月30日是强迫失踪受害者国际日，CHRD呼吁中国政府废除刑事诉法规定的指定监视居住条款，停止从立法上将强迫失踪合法化。中国政府必须马上签署《保护所有人免遭强迫失踪国际公约》。

习近平政府以来，当局加强以立法的形式将强迫失踪合法化。依据《中国华人民共和国刑事诉讼法》第73条之规定，警察有权力将相关个人关押在指定监视居住场所六个月。这意味着，当某人因为涉嫌危害国家安全犯罪、恐怖活动犯罪、特别重大贿赂犯罪，警察有权力决定将其秘密羁押于指定的居所，家属和律师不能与其会见和通信。不仅仅如此，在709镇压案件的处理上，警察更是扩大了刑事诉讼法73条的对其权限的规定，将17位人权律师和维权人士指定监视居住，其中7人称在指定监视居住其中受到殴打、强迫服药、剥夺睡眠、强迫长时间保持军姿、饿饭等酷刑虐待，被强迫认罪和惩罚。其中三人在法庭庭审中认罪并表示悔改，此景警告外界，在指定监视居住期间，一定发生了酷刑虐待等恶行。

中国政府应重视自己作为人权理事会成员的承诺，即支持最高的国际人权标准，签署和批准重要的国际人权公约，包括《保护所有人免遭强迫失踪国际公约》。2013年联合国普遍定期审查时，中国政府在回答其他联合国成员国的相关建议时称，中国政府没有计划批准此条约，因为国内法已经在实施相关的规定。但是中国国内法，尤其是刑事诉讼法第73条，是与该国际公约相违背。无论如何，指定监视居住必须立即废除。同时，在关于强迫失踪议题上，中国政府没有回应工作组有关访问中国的请求，中国政府拒绝与联合国人权理事会工作组合作。另外，2016年7月，工作组的独立专家向中国政府提出请求，要求其提供41个有关强迫失踪的案例信息，中国政府拒绝提供。

Contacts

Renee Xia, International Director (Mandarin, English), +1 863 866 1012

reneexia[at]nchrd.org, Follow on Twitter: @ReneeXiaCHRD

Victor Clemens, Researcher (English), +1 209 643 0539

victorclemens[at]nchrd.org, Follow on Twitter: @VictorClemens

Frances Eve, Researcher (English), +852 6695 4083

franceseve[at]nchrd.org, Follow on Twitter: @FrancesEveCHRD