China: International Law Requires the Immediate Release of Bao Zhuoxuan | Letter
October 21, 2015
Full PDF Version
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
http://www.lrwc.org/china-international-law-requires-the-immediate-release-of-bao-zhuoxuan-letter/
Xi Jinping
General Secretary, Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
The State Council General Office
2 Fuyoujie
Xichengqu
Beijingshi 100017
People’s Republic of China
Guo Shengkun
Minister of Public Security
No.14, Donchang’anjie,
Dongchengqu, Beijing 100741
People’s Republic of China
Email: [email protected]
Attention CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping and Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun
Re: International law requires the immediate release of Bao Zhuoxuan
We write on behalf of Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), a committee of Canadian lawyers who promote human rights and the rule of law internationally. LRWC also campaigns for lawyers and other human rights defenders in danger because of their advocacy.
LRWC demands the immediate release of Bao Zhuoxuan, the return of his passport and removal of all impediments to his traveling to San Francisco California.
Illegal and Arbitrary Arrest, Detention and Treatment of Bao Zhuoxuan
In an illegal bid clearly intended to pressure and punish Bao Zhuoxuan’s parents, Chinese authorities arrested Bao Zhuoxuan, the 16-year-old son of human rights lawyers Wang Yu and Bao Longjun on 9 October 2015. The boy is reported to be under house arrest at the home of his grandparents in Ulanhot: his presence there and the conditions of his detention have not been confirmed by anyone independent of the Government of the People’s Republic of China. Bao Zhuoxuan was arrested by uniformed Chinese police in Mong La, Myanmar while he was enroute to the United States to stay with a family friend, Liang Bo, during his parents’ illegal detention. Liang Bo had been planning to host Mr. Bao Zhuoxuan in the San Francisco area in the absence of his parents. Wang Yu and Bao Longjun were arrested 9 July 2015 and their whereabouts are unknown.[1] State authorities report that they are being held “under residential surveillance at a designated place.” A recent video of Wang Yu making a forced statement confirms that she is still alive, but her whereabouts, and the conditions under which she and her husband are currently detained, are unknown. Wang Yu and Bao Longjun have been detained for over three months without legal authorization, without access to legal representation and without judicial oversight. Their arrest and detention and the arrest and detention of their son are in gross violation of both Chinese domestic law and China’s international law obligations as a member of the United Nations and as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. LRWC considers the three members of this family to be victims of enforced disappearance.
Journalist Philip Wen was en route to the home of Bao Zhuoxuan’s grandparents when his team was intercepted by four police officers dressed in plain clothes. At the local police station, while asking questions about their credentials, “the officers largely refused to answer questions about Zhuoxuan’s welfare – and when they did, they provided conflicting accounts”, reports Wen. One said “Zhuoxuan had a cold and was running a high fever; another said he was in school”. Three policemen allegedly said the teenager had been “tricked” into crossing the Myanmar border, and “regretted” doing so. After some time, the police were able to determine that the reporters were in fact in Ulanhot legally and had not contravened any regulations. But in China foreign journalists require the permission of an interviewee before conducting interviews. Police in China of course routinely declare that prospective interviewees have declined to grant an interview, without the proposed interviewee ever appearing in person. The police said both the boy and his grandmother had declined to be interviewed, and escorted the journalists to the airport for their return flights to Beijing.
Bao Zhuoxuan’s case has received international attention; a report by the United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China recommended that lawmakers and administration officials raise it with the Chinese government. The U.S. State Department said it was concerned over reports that Bao Zhuoxuan, the underage son of detained rights lawyers Wang Yu and Bao Longjun, had been put under house arrest in Inner Mongolia. Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement “We urge China to uphold its international human rights commitments and protect the health and safety of this minor child”. “We are also concerned about an apparent systematic campaign of China to persecute relatives of Chinese citizens who peacefully question the official policy and work to protect the rights of others.” “We call on China to remove restrictions on freedom of movement for Bao Zhuoxuan, and again urge China to release Wang Yu and (her husband) Bao Longyun unconditionally”.
Violation of International Obligations by China
Actions that constitute grave violations of China’s international law obligations include the:
Unlawful and arbitrary arrest and detention of Bao Zhuoxuan;
Unjustified prevention of Bao Zhuoxuan from leaving China;
Denial of timely and confidential access to a legal representative of choice;
Denial of judicial review of the legality of the arrest, detention and treatment of Bao Zhuoxuan by a competent, impartial and independent tribunal;
Use by Chinese authorities of harm or threats of harm to Bao Zhuoxuan to coerce confessions from or force compliance by Wang Yu and Bao Longjun;
Use by Chinese authorities of harm or threats of harm to Wang Yu and Bao Longjun to coerce a confession from or force compliance by Bao Zhuoxuan.
These actions by officials acting at the behest of the Government of the People’s Republic of China are grave violations of China’s international law obligations to ensure the protected rights of Bao Zhuoxuan and to prevent and punish violations of those rights. The internationally protected rights of Bao Zhuoxuan which Chinese authorities have violated include his rights to: liberty; freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; timely and confidential access to legal representation; judicial review of the legality of his arrest, detention and treatment by a competent, impartial and independent tribunal; equality and non-discrimination; freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the right to be treated as a child.
In addition, the arbitrary and unlawful arrest and detention of Bao Zhuoxuan is discriminatory, having been carried out solely because of his status as the son of Wang Yu and Bao Longjun, two human rights lawyers whom China wants to silence. The denial of judicial oversight and access to legal representation constitutes a contravention of the non-derogable prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment that is part of international customary law and a provision of all the above-noted treaties signed, acceded to or ratified by China. The European Court of Human Rights (El-Masri v. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Application no. 39630/09) unanimously held, inter alia, that incommunicado confinement in a hotel for 23 days outside any judicial framework was inhuman and degrading treatment prohibited by the Convention against Torture.
China has accepted and is bound by legal obligations to protect the rights of Bao Zhuoxuan and to effectively prevent and punish violations arising from the: Charter of the United Nations (19 October 1945), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (voted in favour 10 December 1948); Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (4 October 1988); Convention on the Rights of the Child (2 March 1992); and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (signed 5 October 1998). As a state party to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (acceded to 3 September 1997) China has additionally agreed not to “invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.” (Article 27)
In 1945 China accepted the obligation set out in Article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations to promote “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”[2]
These obligations are repeated and have been accepted by China, in all the above-mentioned human rights treaties. As a current member of the UN Human Rights Council China must, in accordance with Resolution A/RES/60/251 of April 2006, “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, shall fully cooperate with the Council and be reviewed under the universal periodic review mechanism during their term of membership.”
LRWC demands the immediate release of Bao Zhuoxuan, the return of his passport and removal of all impediments preventing him from traveling to San Francisco, California in accordance with China’s international law obligations.
Sincerely,
Gail Davidson Clive Ansley
Executive Director, LRWC Barrister and Solicitor
China Monitor, LRWC
Copied to:
His Excellency Ambassador Wu Hailong
Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations in Geneva
11, chemin de Surville 1213 Petit-Lancy, Geneva, Switzerland
Email: [email protected]
Mr. Wang Junfeng
All China Lawyers Association
5/F., Qinglan Plaza
No. 24, Dongsishitiao,
Dongchengqu, Beijing 100007, People’s Republic of China
Ms. Mónica Pinto
Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland
E-mail: [email protected]
Juan Mendez, Special Rapporteur on Torture
c/o Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
E-mail: [email protected]
Ambassador Guy Saint-Jacques
Canadian Embassy
19 Dongzhimenwai Dajie
Chao Yang District
Beijing 100600 PRC
Email: [email protected]
Ambassador Elissa Goldberg
Permanent Canadian Mission to Geneva
5 Avenue de l’Ariana 1202, Geneva, Switzerland
E-mail: [email protected]
[1] For more information see, Mass arrest, detention and disappearance of lawyers and other rights advocates in China, LRWC, 16 September, 2015. Online at http://www.lrwc.org/china-mass-arrest-detention-and-disappearance-of-lawyers-and-other-rights-advocates-in-china-report/
[2] Ibid, art 55.
Topic: China issues report on human rights progress - page 2. (Read 1333 times)
Five Years On, Liu Xiaobo's Wife Stays Silent, Under House Arrest
2015-10-08
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/silence-10082015111519.html
Liu Xia (r) and rights lawyer Mo Shaoping (l) arrive at her brother Liu Hui's trial in Beijing on April 23, 2013.
AFP
Five years after being awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, activists are calling on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to release his wife Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest at the couple's Beijing apartment since her husband's award was announced.
Beijing rights activist Hu Jia, a close friend of the Lius, said the Nobel award has had huge repercussions for the activist's entire extended family.
"[Liu Xia's] brother was sentenced to 11 years in jail, which was entirely because of his connection to the Lius," Hu told RFA.
"But the worst persecution has been the way they have cut off Liu Xia's communication with the outside world, and silenced her," he said.
While Liu Hui has since been released from prison, he remains under bail conditions, and is an important form of leverage over Liu Xia, Hu said.
"Basically, they are effectively saying to Liu Xia that if she has any contact with the outside world, people like me, foreign diplomats or journalists, then they can put her brother back in jail again," he said.
"So she has no way to speak out either on her husband's behalf, or her own."
Hong Kong-based campaigner Richard Choi said his group, the Patriotic Alliance for the Democratic Movement in China, has been campaigning for Liu's release and on behalf of Liu Xia since her husband's sentencing to 11 years' imprisonment on Dec. 25, 2009 for "incitement to subvert state power."
"All Chinese citizens should speak out for Liu Xiaobo," Choi said, adding that 2015 Nobel medical prize-winner Tu Youyou should add her voice to those calling for Liu's release.
"I think Tu Youyou should also call on the Chinese government [to release him]," he said.
"Five years after Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, I want to call once more on the Chinese government to release him immediately," Choi said.
"Chinese people should be proud of our fellow citizen, Liu Xiaobo, for winning the Nobel Peace Prize," Choi told RFA.
Hu said he is being prevented from leaving his apartment on Thursday, for fear he should use the day to carry out some form of protest on their behalf.
"Today is treated the same as Dec. 10; they are both taboo dates, and whenever they roll around, I am held under house arrest at home," Hu said.
"I heard the state security police talking about it, and they said I wasn't to be allowed to leave my apartment," he said.
Hu said he would mark the day at home in his own way, however.
Parole denied
In June 2014, the authorities turned down an application for parole from Liu's lawyers, who said he can't make a fresh request for another three years from that date.
In the application, Liu, 60, criticized the prison authorities for denying him the right to be in contact with friends and family, which is against China's Constitution.
However, he is unlikely to qualify for parole, because he has never admitted to committing any crime.
His lawyers say Liu still follows political developments in China, where the administration of President Xi Jinping launched a nationwide police operation that has detained nearly 300 rights attorneys, paralegals, and legal activists since early July.
Liu Xiaobo's continued imprisonment was cited by rights groups as an emblem of Beijing's poor record during Xi's state visit to the United States last month.
A literary critic and former professor, Liu was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" in a decision that infuriated Beijing, which says he has broken Chinese law.
He has been held since 2008 after helping to draft Charter 08, a manifesto calling for sweeping changes in China's government that was signed by thousands of supporters.
Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2015-10-08
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/silence-10082015111519.html
Liu Xia (r) and rights lawyer Mo Shaoping (l) arrive at her brother Liu Hui's trial in Beijing on April 23, 2013.
AFP
Five years after being awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, activists are calling on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to release his wife Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest at the couple's Beijing apartment since her husband's award was announced.
Beijing rights activist Hu Jia, a close friend of the Lius, said the Nobel award has had huge repercussions for the activist's entire extended family.
"[Liu Xia's] brother was sentenced to 11 years in jail, which was entirely because of his connection to the Lius," Hu told RFA.
"But the worst persecution has been the way they have cut off Liu Xia's communication with the outside world, and silenced her," he said.
While Liu Hui has since been released from prison, he remains under bail conditions, and is an important form of leverage over Liu Xia, Hu said.
"Basically, they are effectively saying to Liu Xia that if she has any contact with the outside world, people like me, foreign diplomats or journalists, then they can put her brother back in jail again," he said.
"So she has no way to speak out either on her husband's behalf, or her own."
Hong Kong-based campaigner Richard Choi said his group, the Patriotic Alliance for the Democratic Movement in China, has been campaigning for Liu's release and on behalf of Liu Xia since her husband's sentencing to 11 years' imprisonment on Dec. 25, 2009 for "incitement to subvert state power."
"All Chinese citizens should speak out for Liu Xiaobo," Choi said, adding that 2015 Nobel medical prize-winner Tu Youyou should add her voice to those calling for Liu's release.
"I think Tu Youyou should also call on the Chinese government [to release him]," he said.
"Five years after Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, I want to call once more on the Chinese government to release him immediately," Choi said.
"Chinese people should be proud of our fellow citizen, Liu Xiaobo, for winning the Nobel Peace Prize," Choi told RFA.
Hu said he is being prevented from leaving his apartment on Thursday, for fear he should use the day to carry out some form of protest on their behalf.
"Today is treated the same as Dec. 10; they are both taboo dates, and whenever they roll around, I am held under house arrest at home," Hu said.
"I heard the state security police talking about it, and they said I wasn't to be allowed to leave my apartment," he said.
Hu said he would mark the day at home in his own way, however.
Parole denied
In June 2014, the authorities turned down an application for parole from Liu's lawyers, who said he can't make a fresh request for another three years from that date.
In the application, Liu, 60, criticized the prison authorities for denying him the right to be in contact with friends and family, which is against China's Constitution.
However, he is unlikely to qualify for parole, because he has never admitted to committing any crime.
His lawyers say Liu still follows political developments in China, where the administration of President Xi Jinping launched a nationwide police operation that has detained nearly 300 rights attorneys, paralegals, and legal activists since early July.
Liu Xiaobo's continued imprisonment was cited by rights groups as an emblem of Beijing's poor record during Xi's state visit to the United States last month.
A literary critic and former professor, Liu was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" in a decision that infuriated Beijing, which says he has broken Chinese law.
He has been held since 2008 after helping to draft Charter 08, a manifesto calling for sweeping changes in China's government that was signed by thousands of supporters.
Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Women_all_over_the_world_Call_on_Liberation_of_a_Girl_imprisoned_for_Meeting_Her_Jailed_Father/?nfZYrjb
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s/ctb4y46c4f3c2v6665272
Chinese girl BIAN xiaohui was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail in Hebei provience because she wanted to see her father who was tortured in jail
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s/ctb4y46c4f3c2v6665272
Chinese girl BIAN xiaohui was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail in Hebei provience because she wanted to see her father who was tortured in jail
Li Shuchun, 4, and his 7-month-old brother Li Shuhan, live in Beijing with their parents who are among the 1.07 million out of 11 million eligible couples applied to have a second child by the end of last year. [Photo by Wang Nina/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
BEIJING - China will allow all couples to have two children, abandoning its decades-long one-child policy, the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced after a key meeting on Thursday.
The change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population, according to a communique issued after the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held from Monday to Thursday.
Demographic experts say the move, as leaders map out the country's economic and social development plan toward 2020, will help the country achieve its short-term and long-term goals.
After taking into accounts the proposal, a final plan will be ratified by the annual session of China's top legislature in March.
It will further ease the world's most populous country's family planning policy after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November 2013 ruled that couples are allowed to have two children if one of them is an only child.
Li Bin, head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said after the release of Thursday's communique that the two-child policy will optimize the demographic structure, increase labor supply, ease pressure from the ageing population, and help improve the health of the economy.
Li added that the commission will increase services in maternal and child health as well as build more kindergartens.
A just-married 27-year-old woman surnamed Wang in Beijing is one of the people set to benefit from the change. Wang has an elder sister and her 31-year-old husband has an elder brother.
"Both of us want to have two children because we were raised in two-child families, and we enjoy it," she said. "We knew that the one-child policy would be abandoned at some point, but we never thought it would come so soon. It's come in time for us!"
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China had a population of 1.368 billion at the end of 2014, while India, with the world's second largest population, has about 1.25 billion people.
China's family planning policy was first introduced in the late 1970s to rein in the surging population by limiting most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children, if the first child born was a girl.
The policy was later relaxed to say that any parents could have a second child if they were both only children.
Lu Jiehua, a sociologist with Peking University, noted that a second step in relaxing the birth control policy was promised by the government at the time of its 2013 easing.
Since its implementation, the one-child policy has resulted in an estimated reduction of some 400 million people in China, successfully containing over-population.
However, it has also been blamed for generating a number of social problems, especially a decreasing labor force and an ageing population.
According to official data from 2014, China had over 212 million people above the age of 60, and 137 million above 65, accounting for 15.5 percent and 10.1 percent of the population, respectively.
China's labor force in 2012 reached a peak of 940 million, and decreased to 930 million in 2014. It is estimated that the labor force will decrease by about 29 million in the decade ending in 2020.
Yuan Xin, a professor with Tianjin's Nankai University, said the new policy will definitely reduce the ageing problem in the long term, "but there will be little outcome in the short term. By 2050, the proportion of the ageing population will be reduced by 1.5 percent."
The new policy will slow the shrinkage of the working-age population. However, China will still suffer from a surplus in total labor force and a structural shortage of talent.
According to Lu, in the short term, being able to have two children will benefit about 100 million families around the country.
However, it will take time to show any real effect, according to the professor, who believes couples will take a rational attitude. "Couples born in the 1970s may want to have a second child as they want to 'catch the last bus,' but those born in the 1980s and 1990s have no urgent desire to give birth to a second child."
The experts said the change of the policy does not reflect badly on the one-child parents.
"It was a choice based on historical conditions, and it is right that policies should be adjusted constantly to adopt to demographic change," said Yuan.
Lu said the new policy will help China meet the development goals set in the 13th Five-year Plan that the recent CPC plenary session discussed, especially in the situation that slowing economic development needs more population to increase the domestic demand.
The CPC Central Committee said in the communique that the 13th Five-year Plan is a key stage for building a well-off society by 2020, one of the CPC's "Two Centenary Goals," another being building a modern socialist country by 2050.
"The policy change is a must for China to take a sustainable path toward the two goals," said Yuan.
100 million couples would be eligible under a universal two-child policy
About 100 million Chinese couples will be eligible to have a second child when Beijing further relaxes the national one-child birth rule, a top Chinese population scientist estimated.
Yuan Xin, a scientist at Nankai University in Tianjin who sits on an expert panel of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, offered the projection in an interview with China Daily.
The central government initially eased the family planning policy in late 2013, allowing couples to have a second child in situations where one spouse was only child. As of June, only 1.5 million of the 11 million eligible couples had applied for second child.
The change will more highly impact rural families who are more interested than urbanites in having bigger families, Yuan said.
"The coming universal two-child policy would be much better received among the people than the previous policy relaxation," he said.
Yuan also urged the addition of more favorable social and economic policies to make it easier for couples to raise more children.
Official statistics show that China’s potential workforce, people ages 16 to 59, peaked around 2011, and has been in decline since then. At the same time, the number of working people has been declining as a proportion of the total population.
Last year, there were 916 million people between the ages of 16 and 59 in China, roughly 66 percent of the entire population. The proportion hit a peak of 74.5 percent in 2010, and has been falling ever since.
At the same time, the percentage of children to the total population has been dwindling, creating a dearth of future workers, said Mu Guangzong, a demographics expert at Peking University.
"The looming labor shortage will upset sustainable socioeconomic development of the country," Mu said.
To reverse the trend and fuel population growth, he recommended ending limits on family size.
China will need a new baby boom to counter aging, low fertility and labor shortages, Mu said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-10/29/content_22312495_2.htm
BEIJING - China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) on Friday published a report on China's progress in human rights in 2014.
The blue paper introduced new progress in human rights that China has achieved under comprehensive reforms. It also analyzes the influence of China's drive to promote rule of law on human rights, saying that human rights will be fully safeguarded by law in the future.
The report discusses social assistance, health, education, private data protection, employment of ethnic groups, and other rights issues.
It also reported on legal assistance for migrant workers, social organizations and opinions on anti-corruption efforts.
It is the fifth human rights blue paper that China has published.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-09/25/content_21981763.htm
http://www.chinahumanrights.org/
Human Rights in China
http://china.org.cn/e-white/7/index.htm
The blue paper introduced new progress in human rights that China has achieved under comprehensive reforms. It also analyzes the influence of China's drive to promote rule of law on human rights, saying that human rights will be fully safeguarded by law in the future.
The report discusses social assistance, health, education, private data protection, employment of ethnic groups, and other rights issues.
It also reported on legal assistance for migrant workers, social organizations and opinions on anti-corruption efforts.
It is the fifth human rights blue paper that China has published.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-09/25/content_21981763.htm
http://www.chinahumanrights.org/
Human Rights in China
http://china.org.cn/e-white/7/index.htm
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