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Mao Hengfeng Protests Abusive Confinement

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2007-09-19
Human Rights in China (HRIC) has learned that Shanghai rights defender Mao Hengfeng continues to protest her detention at the Shanghai Women's Prison. After being subjected to 70 days of solitary confinement in prison despite Chinese regulations stipulating the maximum of 15 days, Mao has refused to wear a prison uniform as a protest of her innocence, and is thus forced to stay in her cell without clothes on.

According to Mao Hengfeng's husband, Wu Xuwei, Mao was transferred from the Yangpu District Detention Center to the Shanghai Women's Prison on May 15 this year, and was sent directly into solitary confinement. Wu said prison officials told Mao she was being punished because her attitude was “"dishonest," and because she refused to be rehabilitated.

Wu reports that Mao Hengfeng spent 70 days in solitary confinement, until July 23, in contravention of article 58 of the Chinese Prison Law, which stipulates a maximum of 15 days. After coming out of solitary confinement, Mao refused to wear a prison uniform. Prison guards then took away all her other clothing and her blanket during the day, and now Mao spends her days in her cell with no shirt on, as one of the limited forms of protest she can make from prison.

Wu Xuwei further told HRIC that detention center officials and prison trustees have used a variety of tactics to mistreat and humiliate Mao Hengfeng. On May 15, when Mao was first transferred to the Women's Prison, she was beaten and choked by detention center personnel, who also forced her to wear a revealingly thin shirt and a black hood. Wu said that Mao went on a hunger strike to protest her abusive treatment, but that prison authorities force-fed her.

Wu Xuwei said that now with the weather becoming cooler, Mao often catches a cold because she wears no clothes during the day, and the blanket provided for her at night is inadequate. She has developed pain in her back and joints, has trouble walking, and has developed high blood pressure.

Mao Hengfeng was originally employed at a soap factory in Shanghai. Dismissed in 1988 when she refused to abort her second pregnancy, Mao has been petitioning her grievances since 1989. As a result, she has been forcibly admitted to psychiatric hospitals, as well as being detained multiple times and sentenced to reeducation-through-labor. In early June 2006, police officers from Shanghai's Yangpu District Daqiao public security station detained Mao in a guesthouse for violating residential surveillance rules. During her detention there, she broke two table lamps, and on January 12, 2007, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison on the charge of "intentionally destroying property."

HRIC condemns the abusive and humiliating treatment to which Mao Hengfeng has been continually subjected in prison. The excessive period of 70 days in solitary confinement violated not only relevant sanctions under the PRC Prison Law but also international standards. HRIC urges prison authorities to respect Mao Hengfeng's human dignity as stipulated in the Chinese Prison Law and in numerous international standards, by ensuring that she is not abused or forced to wear revealing or inappropriate clothing.

For further information on Mao Hengfeng, see: For other cases of prisoners penalized for refusing to wear a prison uniform, see:
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