MCLC: activist 'disappeared'

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: activist 'disappeared'
***********************************************************

Source: Human Rights Watch (9/24/13):
https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/24/china-activist-disappeared-ahead-un-rig
hts-review

For Immediate Release
China: Activist ‘Disappeared’ Ahead of UN Rights Review
UN Should Condemn Suppression of Citizen Participation

(New York, September 25, 2013) – The Chinese government should immediately
release Cao Shunli, a Beijing-based activist who has been forcibly
disappeared since September 14, 2013, Human Rights Watch said today. She
has not been heard from since she was questioned and barred from boarding
a flight to Geneva to attend a training session ahead of the United
Nations’ Human Rights Council review of China’s rights record, planned for
October 22.

Cao is known for her work pressing the Chinese government to include input
from activists in drafting the country’s report for the top United Nations
human rights body. Under a process called the Universal Periodic Review
(UPR), each country’s human rights record is reviewed every four years.
China is seeking a seat on the Human Rights Council.

“The president and member countries of the Human Rights Council should
speak out against China’s systematic suppression of activists trying to
take part in these human rights reviews,” said Sophie Richardson, China
director at Human Rights Watch. “China’s actions are eroding the integrity
of the UN’s top human rights review process, and other countries shouldn’t
let China get away with it.”

On September 14, Cao was passing through the immigration counter at the
Beijing International Airport to board her flight to Geneva, Switzerland,
when she was taken aside by the guards and interrogated, according to
reports. She has not been seen or heard from since. Cao planned to join
other activists in Geneva for a training workshop on international human
rights ahead of China’s review. A number of other activists who were
trying to travel to Geneva for the same purpose have been stopped at the
airport, interrogated and threatened, and denied permission to travel. Cao
is the only one whose whereabouts remain unknown.

The rules governing the periodic human rights review set up by the UN
Human Rights Council encourage countries to consult the public and to
include public participation in drafting the country’s report. The Chinese
government’s report to the UPR claimed that “broad public input on the
report was sought via the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Cao and a number of other people have been actively seeking to participate
in drafting the government’s report to the UN rights body for the UPR. The
activists have conducted surveys of petitioners about the human rights
violations they experienced and have tried to submit the survey results to
the government.

In October 2012, Cao submitted an application asking the Foreign Affairs
Ministry to make public the details of the public consultation in the
drafting of the state report. In November, she received a reply declining
the request on the grounds that the review and process constituted “state
secrets.” 

In June, following a 10-month detention, a member of the group, Peng
Lanlan, was sentenced to a year in prison for “obstructing official
business.”  Peng was released in August, the group Chinese Human Rights
Defenders reported.

Since June, human rights defenders have demonstrated outside the Foreign
Affairs Ministry to protest the lack of consultation with independent
groups and activists before the UN rights review. The demonstrators were
forcibly removed at least three times, with dozens detained briefly by
police on one occasion.

A group of activists attempted to file an administrative lawsuit against
the ministry to require it to disclose UPR-related information. Earlier in
September, a Beijing court rejected the case on the grounds that the UPR
process was the sole province of “foreign affairs.”

Since February the government has arbitrarily detained at least 56
activists, taken into custody critics and online opinion leaders, and
increased controls on social media, online expression, and public activism.

“The Chinese government has persecuted and punished citizens simply for
trying to submit input in the human rights review process,” Richardson
said. “Other member countries should not turn a blind eye to China’s
violation of the UN rules.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on China, please visit:

https://www.hrw.org/asia/china

For more information, please contact:
In Hong Kong, Nicholas Bequelin (English, French, Mandarin):
+852-8198-1040 (mobile); or bequeln at hrw.org
In Hong Kong, Maya Wang (English, Mandarin): +852-8170-1076 (mobile); or
wangm at hrw.org
In Washington, DC, Sophie Richardson (English, Mandarin): +1-202-612-4341;
or +1-917-721-7473 (mobile); or richars at hrw.org
 

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