China's War on Law: Five Names to Listen for at the EU-China Summit

EU Should Call for Release of Activists Unjustly Imprisoned
By Lotte Leicht

Federica Mogherini (L), High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, and China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi attend a joint news conference at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China April 19, 2017. 

Torture, wrongful imprisonment, restrictions on everything from peaceful expression, to religious practice, to the number of children you can have: these are some of the most persistent human rights abuses in China today. 

Under the dictator Xi Jinping, whose senior officials arrive in Brussels this week for the European Union-China Summit, courageous human rights defenders, lawyers and academics in China have sustained an extraordinary body blow.
The Chinese government’s treatment of five people is emblematic of all that is wrong in China today:
Scholar and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion” in response to his calls for democratic reform.
Ethnic Uighur economist Ilham Tohti is serving a life sentence for having urged dialogue between different ethnic groups, particularly in the predominantly Muslim area of Xinjiang.
Tibetan language rights advocate Tashi Wangchuk awaits trial for telling his story to the New York Times.
Lawyer Wang Quanzhang, detained since July 2015, is facing subversion charges for his work defending in court members of religious minorities.
Women’s rights activist Su Changlan was convicted on subversion charges in retaliation for her work defending victims of domestic violence.
The EU has pledged to “throw its full weight behind advocates of liberty, democracy and human rights” and to “raise human rights issues” including “at the highest level.” 

If that’s the case, the summit is an ideal opportunity for the EU’s highest officials to explicitly call for these people’s release. 

After all, the EU’s human rights pledges will only be meaningful if applied in real situations, with determination and conviction.
The EU has acknowledged that human rights improvements in China are key to the future of their bilateral relationship, and calling for the freedom of those unjustly imprisoned is an obvious place to start. 

That the summit falls just ahead of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre – an event that galvanized China’s contemporary human rights community – places a responsibility on EU leaders to call for accountability from Beijing. 

The EU should demonstrate the strength and solidarity that won it the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize by insisting on the release of the 2010 winner – and all others unjustly imprisoned by Beijing.

China's war on law: victims' wives tell US Congress of torture and trauma

Women whose husbands were targets of Communist party crackdown on human rights lawyers call for US sanctions
By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Chen Guiqiu (3rd L), the wife of detained human rights lawyer Xie Yang, with other wives of detained human rights lawyers wearing the names of their husbands on their dresses in 2016. 

The wives of some of the most prominent victims of Xi Jinping’s crackdown on civil society have stepped up their campaign for justice, backing calls for US sanctions against Chinese officials involved in barbaric cases of torture and abuse.
Addressing a congressional hearing in Washington on Thursday, the women, whose husbands were among the key targets of a Communist party offensive against human rights lawyers, detailed the physical and psychological trauma inflicted by China’s war on law.

Chen Guiqiu, who fled to the United States in March, told of how her husband, the attorney Xie Yang, had been imprisoned and brutally tortured because of his work defending victims of land grabs, religious persecution and dissidents.

She described her husband’s ordeal as an example of China’s lawlessness and claimed that at his recent trial Xie had been forced to refute detailed claims that he had been the victim of sustained and brutal campaign of torture.
Wang Yanfeng, the wife of Tang Jingling, a lawyer and democracy activist who was jailed in 2016 in what campaigners described as “a gross injustice”, said her husband had suffered repeated spells of abuse, threats and torture. 

“Today other [lawyers and political prisoners] are still suffering from such torture,” Wang said, calling on Donald Trump to challenge China over such abuses.
In a video message, Li Wenzu, the wife of lawyer Wang Quanzhang, said she had heard nothing from him since he was seized by police at the start of the campaign against lawyers in July 2015. 

“I am deeply concerned about my husband’s safety. I don’t know how his health is. I don’t know whether he has been left disabled by the torture. I don’t even know whether he is alive.”
Wang Qiaoling, whose husband, Li Heping, recently emerged from a 22-month stint in custody, said he returned home looking “20 years older” and had told of being forced to sit for hours in stress positions and being shackled with chains. 

“He suffered from very cruel and sick torture,” Wang added.
Also giving testimony was Lee Chin-yu, whose husband, the Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che, vanished into Chinese custody in March after travelling to the mainland. 

“I stand alone before you today to plead for your help for my husband,” Lee said, calling on Washington to pressure China to end her husband’s “illegitimate detention”.
Since China’s crackdown on lawyers began almost two years ago, its victims’ wives have emerged as a relentless and forceful voice of opposition, often using humorous online videos and public performances to champion their cause. 

They say they have done so in defiance of a campaign of state-sponsored intimidation that has seen them trailed by undercover agents, struggle to enrol their children into schools or be evicted from their homes.
Terry Halliday, the author of a book about China’s human rights lawyers, said the lawyers’ wives had opened up “a new line of struggle that we have not seen before in China”.
“These women have become a very powerful and visible public presence both of criticism of the government, of appeals for the release of their loved-ones but also impugning China in the eyes of the world. It is remarkable.”
“It’s a whole new front,” Halliday added. 

“It is not so easy for the government to silence wives and daughters.”
Thursday’s hearing was part of a push by human rights groups to convince the Trump administration to use a law called the Magnitsky Act to bring sanctions such as travel bans or property seizures against Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses.
“We should be seeking to hold accountable any Chinese officials complicit in torture, human rights abuses and illegal detentions,” said Chris Smith, the Republican congressman who chaired the session and said he was compiling a list of potential targets.
Smith said he hoped such action could help end the “shocking, offensive, immoral, barbaric and inhumane” treatment of Chinese activists that has accelerated since Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
“While Xi Jinping feels feted at Davos and lauded in national capitals for his public commitments to openness, his government is torturing and abusing those seeking rights guaranteed by China’s own constitution,” Smith said.

Rule by Fear and Torture: China's War on Law

Chinese lawyer wore torture device for a month
By John Sudworth

A picture of Mr Li from 2012 and one taken after his release

It's a form of restraint that would be more in keeping with the practices of a medieval dungeon than a modern, civilised state.
But the device -- leg and hand shackles linked by a short chain -- is a well-documented part of the toolkit that the Chinese police use to break the will of their detainees.
And it is one that they forced one of this country's most prominent human rights lawyers to wear, for a full month.
Li Heping was finally released from detention on Tuesday and his wife Wang Qiaoling has now had time to learn about the treatment he endured over his almost two-year-long incarceration.
"In May 2016 in the Tianjin Number One Detention Centre, he was put in handcuffs and shackles with an iron chain linking the two together," she tells me.
"It meant that he could not stand up straight, he could only stoop, even during sleeping. He wore that instrument of torture 24/7 for one month."
She adds: "They wanted him to confess."

China's war on law
In one sense, Mr Li was lucky.
A 2015 investigation by Human Rights Watch into the use of torture by the Chinese police revealed the case of a man who was forced to wear this type of device for eight years.
In 2014 an Amnesty International report documented the supply and manufacture of torture equipment by Chinese companies, including the combined hand and leg cuffs.

Torture devices like the one used on Li Heping are readily available online

"The use of these devices causes unnecessary discomfort and can easily result in injuries," William Nee, China Researcher at Amnesty International, tells me.
"Such devices place unwarranted restrictions on the movement of detainees and serve no legitimate law enforcement purpose that cannot be achieved by the use of handcuffs alone."
Li Heping is one of a group of human rights lawyers who were detained in July 2015, in a crackdown since referred to as China's war on law.
Of course, threats, intimidation and violence have always been part of the risks for any lawyer daring to take on the might of the Communist Party in its own courts.
But Xi Jinping has made it clear that he sees the ideal of constitutional rights, guaranteed by independent courts, as a threat to national security.
So his war on law sends a clear message.

For those like Mr Li, representing the victims of China's illegal land grabs, religious persecution or political repression, the threat is not just from corrupt local officials or powerful businessmen, but from the state itself.

The before and after photos offer a visual clue to his time in detention.
One taken in 2012 shows an assured, cheery lawyer.
The one taken on his release shows him noticeably thinner and looking older than his years.
Wang Qiaoling tells me she barely recognised him.
And she tells me about the other forms of ill-treatment that her husband has described to her since his release.
"He was forced to take medicine. They stuffed the pills into his mouth as he refused to take them voluntarily," she says.
"The police told him that they were for high blood pressure, but my husband doesn't suffer from that.
"After taking the pills he felt pain in his muscles and his vision was blurred."

Gruelling questioning
"He was beaten. He endured gruelling questioning while being denied sleep for days on end," she goes on.
"And he was forced to stand to attention for 15 hours a day, without moving."

Amnesty International's William Nee tells me that each of these methods of ill-treatment could be considered torture by themselves.
"Cumulatively, they would demonstrate a clear intent by the authorities to inflict physical and mental torture with the goal of getting Li Heping to confess," he says.
"Since China is a party to the Convention against Torture, these serious allegations should prompt the Chinese authorities to immediately launch a prompt, effective and impartial investigation to assess whether this torture took place."
Despite the prolonged and extreme nature of the torture, Ms Wang tells me her husband never did confess.
"He was worried that he might be tortured to death in the detention centre and he wouldn't make it to meet his family again, so he reached an agreement with the authorities that the trial would be held in secret.
"He would be given a suspended sentence but he never admitted guilt or confessed that he had subverted state power."

Barred from the media
At that secret trial, the details of which were released by China's state-controlled media afterwards, the court ruled that Mr Li had "repeatedly used the internet and foreign media interviews to discredit and attack state power and the legal system".
As a result of his conviction, he is now unable to practise law and has also signed an agreement that he will not carry out any further media interviews.
But his wife, despite constant intimidation, refuses to be similarly constrained.
Plain-clothes policemen still surround the family home and she was followed to our agreed interview location.
Wang Qiaoling's account tallies with that of other lawyers caught up in the crackdown, including Xie Yang, whose court case was heard this week.
He had alleged similar abuses during his interrogations -- including shackling, beatings and being made to remain in the same position for hours on end.
We called the Tianjin Number One detention centre to ask about the allegations that Li Heping was tortured there.
"We don't do any interviews," came the reply. 

"If you want to do an interview, please go through the legal and proper channels."

The victims of China's War on Law crackdown

By John Sudworth

There are plenty of places from which a piece of journalism could be written to mark United Nations Human Rights Day.
But the raising of concern by the UN this week over the case of the missing lawyer Jiang Tianyong makes Beijing as good a choice as any.
Chen Guiqiu was the one of the last known people to see Mr Jiang, in November.

Ms Chen (far right) is seen here with Mr Jiang (second from left) and other local lawyers in this photo taken last month

"He came to my home in Changsha to learn about my husband's case," she tells me.
"We went to the detention centre together. After he left, he just went missing. We haven't heard from him since."
Ms Chen is herself a powerful illustration of what is widely regarded as a deteriorating human rights situation in China.
Her husband, Xie Yang, disappeared in July 2015 along with dozens of other lawyers, legal assistants and activists as part of a sweeping crackdown against human rights advocates.
"It's because he worked on lots of sensitive cases, demolition, forced relocation, that kind of thing," she says.
"All cases in which people are trying to fight against the government."
It was more than a year before any lawyer was given access to Mr Xie, reportedly finding him to be suffering from head wounds as a result of beatings by guards.

Xie Yang went missing in July 2015

Now Jiang Tianyong, the man who was hoping to help with the case, is also feared to have disappeared into a legal black hole -- becoming the latest victim of China's so-called War on Law.
UN Human Rights Day falls on 10 December, commemorating the date on which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
Mr Jiang had often found himself devoid of that protection over the years, tortured on occasion by state security services as a result of his work defending high profile and sensitive human rights cases.
This time, the UN suspects, he has been detained because of it.
In August he met the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, during his visit to China.
Earlier this week Mr Alston expressed concern that the disappearance might be linked to that meeting.
"The international standards are clear: states must refrain from and protect all persons from acts of reprisal," the UN quotes Mr Alston as saying.
Despite legal protections written into Chinese law for detained suspects, there are wide loopholes in cases involving "national security."
It means the authorities are able to hold suspects for months on end, without access to lawyers or family members.
And when those family members attempt to seek justice on their behalf, they too run the risk of punitive reprisals.

Li Heping is among several lawyers who have been detained

Seeking answers
In a restaurant in Beijing I meet with three other wives also campaigning for news of their detained lawyer husbands.
Wang Qiaoling, Li Wenzu and Yuan Shanshan have not seen their husbands, nor had any direct contact with them, since last July's crackdown.
"We've heard nothing since he was arrested," Ms Li says of her husband Wang Quanzhang.
"He was denied rights to meet his lawyer, we've had no information and we couldn't even write letters to him."
"They've chased us out of rented flats," she goes on. 

"All my local kindergartens have been instructed not to take my four-year-old child."
"We've been detained and beaten and our activities are being monitored."

Li Wenzu (left) spoke of how her family was harassed after her husband's disappearance

After a quick breakfast they walk to the Supreme Prosecutor's Appeals and Petitions Office to submit a formal request for answers about their husbands' cases and to plead for due process to be followed.
We follow them but are soon stopped from filming, so we meet up with the women a short time later outside a subway station.
They have submitted their petitions -- although supporting documents were rejected -- and they hold out little hope.
"They told us to trust the justice system," Wang Qiaoling says.
"The security guards treated us very rudely," Yuan Shanshan tells me. 

"They treated us like enemies, taking off our hats, scarves and coats, and inspecting us very carefully."
China, in its evidence to the UN, has denied allegations of torture.
It specifically denied one such allegation of torturing Jiang Tianyong during a hearing last year.
And it often appeals to the argument that it is wrong to judge it by the "Western" concepts of human rights, pointing to the huge strides that have been made in tackling poverty over the past few decades.
But while China's rapid development has indeed produced many winners, there are many losers too.

'War on Law'
As the three wives arrive at the petitions office there are, as always, large numbers of other aggrieved individuals, clutching bundles of paper, hoping to seek redress for their own injustices that are often years old.
One man shows me his claim for compensation as the result of an industrial accident.
A mother burst into tears while showing me a photo of her son who she claims was killed in police custody.
And as China continues to grow richer, critics attempt to turn the Communist Party's argument on its head.
As the world's second largest economy plays an increasing role on the global stage, they suggest, it is more important than ever that it develops a system whereby the arbitrary use of authority can be held to account.
Which is why, on UN Human Rights day, it is worth pausing to reflect on China's so-called War on Law.
"Our economy is growing fast," Chen Guiqiu, wife of the detained lawyer Xie Yang tells me.
"But the problems that exist at the bottom of the society still need attention from people like our husbands. The government should see this as helpful for society."
"Unfortunately, they don't."