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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
23 November 2009
China: Free activist who defended earthquake victims
Amnesty International today urged the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Huang Qi, a human rights defender who worked with the victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and was sentenced today to three years’ imprisonment.
The Court said the conviction was based on two city level documents found in Huang Qi’s house and found him guilty of “unlawfully holding state secrets”. Several dozen police surrounded the courts this morning, and after negotiation only his wife and mother were allowed to enter. Several local women supporters who requested to enter the court to hear the sentence were beaten and injured. There was only a verbal announcement and no written verdict has given to the family. Huang Qi’s lawyers were not able to come from Beijing to attend due to the short notice. Huang Qi protested immediately and said he will appeal. The judge asked court police taken him away and not allowed him to speak.
Huang Qi was detained because of his work on behalf of families of five primary school pupils who died when school buildings collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008. He had been attempting to bring a legal case against local authorities.
He was sentenced by the Wuhou District People’s Court in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
“The Chinese government is penalizing someone who is trying to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. Huang Qi should be treated as a model citizen, committed to the rule of law, but instead he has fallen victim to China’s vague state secrets legislation,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International Asia Pacific Director.
“He should never have been detained in the first place and should be released immediately.”
“China’s state secrets legislation needs to urgently be reviewed. These laws are used extensively to retroactively penalize lawful human rights activities and restrict freedom of expression.”
Huang Qi was detained by plain clothed police officers on 10 June 2008 while having dinner in a restaurant. He was tried behind closed doors 14 months later in August 2009.
The criminal proceedings against Huang Qi fell far short of China’s legal regulations and international human rights standards.
Huang Qi was denied access to his family and lawyer while in detention, on the grounds that the case involved “state secrets”. He was first allowed to meet with his lawyer Ding Xikui, on 23 September 2008, after more than a hundred days in incommunicado detention.
On 2 February 2009, the Wuhou District People’s Court in Chengdu failed to publicly announce the schedule of his trial, as required by China’s Criminal Procedure Law.
On 3 February 2009, the Court, on the pretext of protecting “state secrets”, prohibited lawyer Ding Xikui from making photocopies of case documents to prepare for his defence.
During the 5 August trial, the court forbade witnesses from testifying on Huang Qi’s behalf, again citing “state secrets”.
Huang Qi’s health is said to be rapidly deteriorating.
His family fears that he is not receiving adequate medical treatment in custody. According to his other lawyer, Mo Shaoping, a doctor at the detention centre has diagnosed Huang Qi with two tumours, one in his stomach and another in his chest.
Amnesty international believes that Huang Qi was treated inhumanely during his custody, including being interrogated by police for long hours and subjected to sleep deprivation.
Chinese authorities have turned down repeated requests by Huang Qi’s family to release him on bail to await trial. His wife has been barred from visiting since the closed-door trial on 5 August 2009.
Huang Qi was also sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in 2003 for hosting an online discussion about the protests in Tiananmen Square in 2000.
The “evidence” against him included reference to an Amnesty International document about the Tiananmen crackdown, which had been posted on his web-site.
He was released on 4 June 2005. Following his release, he continued to maintain his website and his human rights work and was detained again on 10 June 2008, apparently for his assistance to the parents of students who died during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in bringing legal cases against the local authorities.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
11 August 2009
China: Free Sichuan earthquake activists
On the eve of the scheduled trial of Tan Zuoren on charges of “inciting subversion of state power”, Amnesty International urges the Chinese authorities to drop the politically-motivated prosecution against him and fellow earthquake activist Huang Qi, whose “state secrets” trial was conducted last week, and to release them both immediately and unconditionally.
Tan Zuoren is accused of defaming the Chinese Communist Party and the government with his online coverage of the authorities’ handling of the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989.
“Whether commenting on the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown or seeking answers for the deaths during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Tan Zuoren was doing nothing more than exercising his right to freedom of expression guaranteed in China’s Constitution,” said Roseann Rife, Asia-Pacific Deputy Director at Amnesty International. “To equate this with subversion denies not only his rights and those of the victims he is assisting and commemorating but also makes a mockery of criminal law and procedure.”
Local sources believe that Tan Zuoren’s detention is linked to his intention to publicly issue, on the first anniversary of the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake, an independent report on the collapse of school buildings where numerous students perished. The collapse of the buildings has been linked to alleged corruption in the construction process. Despite public demands for an independent inquiry into such matters, Chinese authorities have denied allegations of corruption and shoddy construction, kept a tight lid on the death toll of students and only announced the number – 5,335 – four days before the first anniversary of the earthquake.
Huang Qi’s three-hour closed-door trial on 5 August ended without a verdict. The court prohibited witnesses from testifying on Huang Qi’s behalf on state secrets grounds. Police interrogated him for hours at a time, sometimes depriving him of sleep, about the assistance he gave to parents of students who died during the earthquake in bringing legal cases against the local authorities. Tan Zuoren’s trial will likely lack the same due process guarantees.
“The assistance that Huang Qi and Tan Zuoren provided to earthquake survivors seeking redress and the independent information they gathered on the earthquake only furthered the goal of reconciliation and justice. The authorities should welcome such actions by activists instead of hindering and persecuting these individuals” said Rife.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Public statement
AI Index: ASA 17/022/2009
13 May 2009
China: Immediately release all recently detained earthquake survivors
Chinese authorities should immediately release recently detained survivors and parents who attempted to mourn for the children who died during the earthquake in Sichuan last year.
According to US-based Radio Free Asia, on 9 May, authorities in Dujianyan unlawfully sent six parents of children from the Xinjian Primary School to the neighbouring Hubei province to prevent them from speaking to foreign journalists who came to Sichuan province to cover the first anniversary of the earthquake. These parents have not yet returned home.
Radio Free Asia further reported that on 11 May, Dujiangyan police detained two parents of children from the Juyuan Middle School, one of whom was able to telephone out and claimed to be kept in a hostel in the suburbs before the line was cut. It is unclear if the two parents have now returned home or not.On 12 May the authorities also took away approximately 50 parents from Juyuan town and Chongyi town to Pi county after they burned paper offerings for their children and released them only after Hu Jintao had completed the official commemoration ceremony for the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.
The intimidation of earthquake survivors is an outrage and contradicts the notion of a “harmonious society” and “putting people first” that Chinese leaders have been promoting. Prohibiting grieving parents from mourning is completely unjustified. And detaining them to prevent them from speaking out is unlawful.
Background
On 4 May, Amnesty International released a report Justice Denied: Harassment of Sichuan earthquake survivors and activists, which documents instances where some parents and relatives were placed under unlawful and arbitrary detention and prohibited from petitioning to Beijing. The report also documents instances in which parents are denied access to legal remedies and obstructed from seeking investigation on the collapse of many school buildings. The report and a web action to call on the Chinese authorities to provide justice to the earthquake survivors are both available online.
Amnesty International
4 May 2009
China: End the harassment of Sichuan earthquake survivors and activists
The Chinese authorities intimidated and unlawfully detained parents and relatives of children who died in the devastating Sichuan earthquake and harassed activists and lawyers who tried to assist them says a new Amnesty International report released on the anniversary of the disaster.
Amnesty Internationals’ report Justice Denied: Harassment of Sichuan earthquake survivors and activists documents instances where some parents and relatives were detained for up to 21 days for trying to seek answers from officials about why their children died. Some have been detained repeatedly and the youngest detainee was only eight years old.
“By unlawfully locking up parents of children who died, the government is creating more misery for people who have said in some cases they lost everything in the Sichuan Earthquake,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International Asia-Pacific Deputy Program Director. “The government of China must cease harassing earthquake survivors who are seeking answers and trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.”
Amnesty International’s report found that in some cases the authorities had prevented parents and relatives from complaining to higher officials about the quality of the buildings that collapsed in the earthquake and many were subjected to arbitrary detention or unlawful surveillance to prevent them from pursuing legal remedies.
Some activists who offered assistance and representatives of parents are facing politically-motivated trials for vaguely defined state security and public order maintenance crimes.
The authorities have also denied grieving parents access to courts to determine who should bear the responsibly for the collapse of the schools and the deaths of their children. In a directive issued by the provincial court in Sichuan province, all lower courts are banned from accepting cases deemed sensitive, including disputes over compensation for personal injuries or damages to property caused by the collapse of buildings, and disputes over compensation by insurance companies until further instructions are given by relevant departments.
“The human toll of the Sichuan earthquake was incalculable but authorities need to do everything in their power to protect the rights of the survivors and stop the unlawful detentions as well as allow lawyers and civil society to pursue their important functions of accountability,” said Roseann Rife.
Amnesty International calls on the Chinese authorities to take immediate action to ensure the justice system works for parents and survivors by allowing them unhindered access to independent and impartial tribunals and lawyers and activists who have offered assistance.
The report Justice denied: Harassment of Sichuan earthquake survivors and activists includes interviews with parents whose children died during the earthquake, lawyers, legal experts, scholars and rights activists and English translations of circulars issued by Sichuan Higher People’s Court instructing lower courts not to accept earthquake-related cases which are deemed sensitive.
