In the Press | Chinese Human Rights Defenders

China bans forced mental hospital detentions: media

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

BEIJING: A new law has taken effect prohibiting Chinese from being committed to mental hospitals without their consent in an attempt to prevent “forced detentions”, state-run media said Thursday. Read more: China bans forced mental hospital detentions: media – Latest – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/latest/china-bans-forced-mental-hospital-detentions-media-1.269610#ixzz2TvdVcFMH

China’s New Mental Health Law Unlikely to Curb Abuse

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

China’s first-ever mental health law came into effect on May 1. Now, mentally ill patients need to give consent before they’re institutionalized. The law was designed to better protect the rights of patients, but analysts say loopholes exist within the new law, and that abuse of the mental health system (read more…)

Anti-Corruption Activists Arrested for Demanding Officials Disclose Wealth

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

Eight activists have been detained in the past few weeks for calling on over 200 high-level officials in the Communist Party to make public details of their assets, alongside new leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.

Shandong Government Exacts Fierce Retaliation Against Family of Blind Legal Activist Chen Guangcheng

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

LINYI, Shandong, China,—In apparent retaliation for the testimony of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng at a Congressional hearing two weeks ago, authorities in his home province of Shandong have exacted fierce retaliation against two of his brothers and a sister-in-law.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders- Promoting human rights and empowering grassroots activism in China

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

Do the names Zhou Decai, Cao Haibo, Chen Wei, Chen Xi or Cui Fufang ring a bell to you? They are all prisoners of conscience in China. The Chinese Human Right Defenders (CHRD) are doing all they can to make the stories of prisoners of consciousness heard.

China said to detain activists who sought to publicize top officials’ assets

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

Beijing (CNN) — Chinese authorities have detained at least a half-dozen activists this month, human rights groups said, in what appears to be a crackdown targeting a campaign to publicize the financial assets of top government officials.

China Targets Anti-Graft Activists

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

As the new administration of President Xi Jinping vows to fight for a cleaner and more transparent government, Chinese authorities have launched a crackdown that appears directly targeted at activists calling for the disclosure of official assets, a rights group said on Friday.

China Presses Crackdown on Campaign Against Graft

May 21, 2013 Comments Off

BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have detained six anticorruption activists in recent days, expanding their crackdown on a citizen-led campaign that, on the surface at least, would appear to dovetail with the new leadership’s war on official graft.

China Bans Media Coverage of Labor Camp Ordeal

April 18, 2013 Comments Off

Censors in Beijing have blocked information about a labor camp in northeastern China after an expose in a cutting-edge magazine brought to light abuses of women inmates, many of them pregnant.

Chen Guangcheng Speaks At Princeton About Human Rights

April 18, 2013 Comments Off

Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng recently spoke at Princeton University, holding that “the battle for human rights is far from complete.” Almost a year after making international headlines for his sensational escape from house arrest where, helped by a secret network of fellow civil rights activists, he made his (read more…)

Is China the New Taiwan?

April 18, 2013 Comments Off

BEIJING — The date says it all: the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, a leading women’s rights group, was formally registered in September 1987, just two months after Taiwan’s leader, Chiang Ching-kuo, lifted martial law, legalizing the political opposition. Many civil society groups that had long been gathering ideas and forces (read more…)

China Rights Review ‘Shrouded in Secrecy,’ Activists Pressured

April 18, 2013 Comments Off

China has launched a nationwide crackdown on rights activists clamoring for transparency and participation in the government’s closed-door preparations for a once-in-four years U.N. review of the country’s human rights record, according to a rights group. Chinese rights campaigners who called on the government both to disclose materials about the (read more…)