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Item 3151 — 3225 (3255)
The story behind the New Culture Forum Web site
China sets low level for terms of agreement with UN High Commissioner On November 20, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chinese government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to initiate human rights cooperation programs in China. B□trice Laroche looks at the significance of...
The Li Peng lawsuit & universal jurisdiction over violations of rights
The China Democracy Party (CDP), which made waves two years ago, has now been effectively crushed, writes Jan van der Made . This article examines the genesis, the suppression and the fall of the CDP.
Tong Shidong & Liao Shihua
The East is East, silly EAST MEETS WEST Democracy and Human Rights in Asia Daniel A. Bell, Princeton University Press 2000, 369 pp
CDP PERSECUTION CONTINUES
HRIC is frequently asked, “What can I do to make a difference?” This page gives suggestions on what you can do in specific areas of concern. SPEAK OUT FOR CDP MEMBERS
Rebiya Kadeer , once celebrated by the Chinese government as a model Uighur businesswoman, is now serving an eight year prison term for “illegally passing intelligence outside of China.” Kadeer, 54, was detained on August 11, 1999, on her way to meet a US Congressional Research Service delegation...
Since 1990, businessman-turned-activist John Kamm has been badgering Chinese officials to provide information about prisoners detained in China for political reasons. Last year he set up the Dui Hua Foundation to continue this work on a more formal basis. Sophia Woodman interviewed him about his...
Led by Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling and Su Bingxian, a group of 110 June Fourth victims and family members in China has issued a statement entitled, “A Declaration on the U.S. Federal Court’s Acceptance of the Lawsuit Brought by June Fourth Victims Against Li Peng for Crimes Against Humanity.” (Full...
As violence grows in the Three Gorges resettlement areas, international NGOs call for immediate action by government and investors to address affected peoples' grievances. Reports from the areas to be flooded by the mammoth Three Gorges Dam tell of an alarming rise in violent incidents sparked by...
Li Peng, the Premier of China at the time of the Tiananmen protests and massacre in 1989 was served this morning with a U.S. federal lawsuit alleging massive human rights violations. The action was brought forward by Liming Zhang, an eyewitness to the bloodshed whose sister was shot dead by martial...
Upon Li Peng's visit to New York, Human Rights in China (HRIC) amplifies the basic demands of the Tiananmen Mothers, urging accountability for the June 4, 1989 massacre. The Tiananmen Mothers, a network of courageous family members who lost loved ones in the 1989 tragedy, have made repeated...
A group of 110 family members of those killed and wounded in the June 4 Massacre have demanded that the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) cancel an invitation to former Chinese Premier Li Peng to participate in the Conference of Presiding Officers of National Parliaments. In an open letter to IPU...
Xin Wenming issued a statement in response to the government shut-down of the New Culture Forum website. (below) The statement denounces the Chinese government for suppressing freedom of expression on the Internet and calls for the end to the nationwide crackdown on websites that engage in...
Chinese state security authorities have shut down the New Culture Forum website for posting "reactionary content." The site, which is the first China-based site started by veteran democracy activists, is run by a group of dissidents in Shandong Province. Authorities have begun a manhunt for the...
Tiananmen mothers operate in ever-more circumscribed space The woman at the forefront of the Tiananmen Mothers? campaign against impunity, Ding Zilin , describes the difficulties they face in their work, the reasons behind their focus on humanitarian assistance for victims? families and the...
As we go to press, in many parts of the globe former dictators who many thought could never be held accountable for the crimes they committed against the people they ruled are facing prosecution. The Chilean judiciary has just revoked the immunity from prosecution former president Augusto Pinochet...
DELEGATION TO UNITED NATIONS
Experiments in governance Many claims are made about the potential impact on China’s democratization of the election of village committees there. Cynics assert that these elections are nothing but show. Anne F. Thurston looks at the reality on the ground, including how village committees fit into...
The village committee, first introduced shortly after the communes began collapsing in the late 1970s, is only one of several organizations governing political life at the village level. The village assembly, the village representative assembly and the local branch of the Chinese Communist Party (...
Journalists and aid workers have documented the plight of escapees from North Korea who have taken shelter in northeastern China. These vulnerable people are increasingly being sent back to the country they fled, where they are believed to face torture, ill-treatment, imprisonment and even...
Announcing the launch of a global campaign Acting on the orders of the Chinese leadership, martial law troops brutally ended the Tiananmen Square protests when they opened fire with tanks and machine guns on the unarmed people of Beijing on June 4, 1989, initiating a massacre which took lives of...
Tiananmen Mother Su Bingxian describes her meeting with Lois Snow in Beijing in April and what happened to her as a result.
Lois Wheeler Snow describes her experiences during her recent visit to Beijing and explains why she has become an ardent supporter of the Tiananmen Mothers’ campaign for justice.
Detained in a psychiatric hospital for championing worker rights
China ignores international law in its treatment of North Korean refugees Beijing’s attitudes towards human rights have impacts beyond China’s borders. James D. Seymour writes of one case in which disregard for its obligations to protect the rights of refugees’ results in their being sent to face...
UN Committee highlights gap between law and practice
Inadequate official response allows torture to continue unchecked
Zhang Shanguang Suffering abuse in prison for seeking to help laid off workers
NEEDED: A bill of rights for the trade regime Robert A. Senser Three cheers for Sharon K. Hom’s article, “Playing by whose rules and for what ends?” in the Spring 2000 issue of China Rights Forum. To her credit, she raises basic questions about the values and goals of the World Trade Organization (...
From cautious observer to aspiring referee CHINA, THE UNITED NATIONS & HUMAN RIGHTS THE LIMITS OF COMPLIANCE Ann Kent, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999, 328 pp.
ASSAULT ON FALUNGONG
HRIC is frequently asked, “What can I do to make a difference?” This page gives suggestions on what you can do in specific areas of concern. HRIC is deeply concerned about the growing number of dissidents subjected to forced incarceration in mental facilities, without trial or independent...
Cultural revolution researcher detained and released
For some years now, the World Bank has been promoting the People’s Republic of China as a model of "best practice" for the developing world in the contested area of involuntary resettlement. This evaluation has been widely repeated, and most recently has been adopted in several papers commissioned...
Eleven years after the June Fourth 1989 Massacre (See "Report" session at our website), Ding Zilin and the Tiananmen Mothers are appealing for global support in their campaign for accountability by taking their cause to cyberspace and by allying with regional and international groups against...
Former Chinese official Bao Tong , issued a letter of complaint to China’s Ministry of Public Security yesterday, denouncing the escalated harassment that he and his wife have suffered at the hands of a group that shadows them 24 hours a day. The letter, made public today, was also sent to China’s...
On May 24, a letter signed by 108 family members of victims of the June Fourth 1989 Massacre was sent to China’s top prosecutorial body demanding the response to the petition they submitted at this time last year to which they are entitled under Chinese law. The letter, which is translated in full...
Today hearings on the report regarding China’s implementation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture begin at the United Nations in Geneva. The report was submitted by the Chinese government to the Committee that monitors this treaty. In a shadow report to the Committee, Human Rights in China (HRIC...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) expresses extreme disappointment in the failure of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to go forward with a resolution criticizing China’s human rights record today.
Human Rights in China (HRIC) urgently calls on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to pass a resolution criticizing China on its dismal human rights record. This last-ditch call for action comes on the eve of the monitoring body’s vote on the China resolution, and in the midst of the Chinese...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) is outraged by the Chinese government’s continued persecution of Ding Zilin and victims of the June 4, 1989 Beijing Massacre. On April 1, 2000, Lois Wheeler Snow, the 79-year-old widow of noted sinologist Edgar Snow, was barred from visiting Ding Zilin in her Beijing...
At yesterday’s session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Xiao Qiang delivered the following statement on behalf of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. Mr. Xiao is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights and Executive...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) will send a delegation to Geneva for the Commission on Human Rights from March 28 to April 14. HRIC Director Xiao Qiang and U.N. Liaison B?trice Laroche will be available for interviews to discuss the human rights situation in China. They can be reached at: Hotel Mon...
Joint press release from: Amnesty International, Human Rights In China, Human Rights Watch, Int'l Federation of Human Rights, International Campaign for Tibet, Reporters Sans Fronti?es. As the 56th session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights approaches, we, the undersigned organizations, urge...
Ding Zilin issues protest letter to Chinese leaders, condemning the persecution of Lu Wenhe and his elderly father. Lu was prevented from delivering over $25,000 in humanitarian assistance funds to Ding and Tiananmen victims, and was forced to sign over the funds to State Security authorities. Lu’s...
During a recent visit to China, Wen-he Lu was forcibly prevented from delivering over $25,000 in humanitarian assistance funds to Ding Zilin and the families of June 4 victims. On his way to Ding Zilin’s home, Lu was pulled over, coercively detained for interrogation and placed under residential...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) welcomes the decision by the U.S. government to introduce a resolution censuring China’s human rights situation at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva this March.
Human Rights in China (HRIC) strongly condemns the secret show trials and severe sentencing to up to eighteen years imprisonment of four key members of the Falun Gong spiritual group on December 26. Two of the sentences, for 18 years in one case and 16 years in another, were the harshest sentences...
On Thursday, December 9, Human Rights in China (HRIC) received a Defenders' Day Award from the International League for Human Rights , a non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to strengthening international human rights institutions.
Veteran activist Wang Wanxing has been forcibly re-committed to a psychiatric facility. Wang had already spent over seven years confined to Ankang Hospital, a psychiatric institution run by the Beijing Public Security Bureau, after a 1992 attempt to unfurl a banner in Tiananmen Square,...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) held its annual board meeting on November 5, electing prominent astrophysicist Fang Lizhi and seasoned human rights advocate Robert L. Bernstein as co-chairs of the board of directors. The meeting - which marked HRIC’s first gathering of directors in the organization’s...
On November 1, June Fourth activist Jiang Qisheng was tried for "propagating and instigating subversion." His main "crime" was organizing an open letter to the Chinese public that called for the collective commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre. His lawyer, Mao Shaoping...
Human Rights in China calls on President Jiang Zemin and his foreign counterparts to put human rights at the forefront of bilateral discussions during the Chinese leader’s six-nation tour. Jiang’s visit to the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia provides a valuable...
To “prepare” for the National Day celebrations, for some months police in cities across the country have been detaining people in a “clean-up” campaign to clear the streets of those deemed undesirable by urban authorities. The vast majority of detainees are ordinary migrant workers. Other prime...
Fortune magazine’s 1999 Global Forum opened in Shanghai today, with the issue of human rights glaringly absent from the agenda. The omission occurs despite Human Rights in China’s repeated appeals to Fortune editors, Time Warner executives and business leaders who are attending the conference. As...
(Includes HRIC letter to Fortune conference participants and list of urgent cases of political imprisonment.)
In the latest of a series of trials which represent egregious violations of international human rights standards, an abuse of the law and a slap in the face to the international community, the Chinese government sentenced dissident Liu Xianbin to 13 years in prison, the harshest sentence meted out...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) strongly condemns the current crackdown on Falungong practitioners, including the detention of more than 100 group leaders and thousands of followers, apparently solely for engaging in peaceful protests and exercising their rights to freedom of association and freedom...
A group of 105 victims and family members of those killed in the 1989 crackdown have submitted a legal petition to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (China’s prosecutor general) demanding that it conduct a criminal investigation into the June Fourth Massacre and bring prosecutions against those...
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights today shied away from condemning the deteriorating human rights situation in China. The Commission ignored reports, both from its own human rights mechanisms and from independent NGOs, that the Chinese government routinely violates its citizens’ most fundamental...
A joint press release from Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center and Human Rights in China
Man who Exposed "Blacklist" Ill in Prison China Rights Forum , Summer 1999 On April 19, Human Rights in China and Human Rights Watch issued an appeal for the release of Chen Meng.
Human Rights in China welcomes the decision today by the U.S. government to introduce a resolution on China’s human rights situation at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
Ten years after the June Fourth Massacre, China is experiencing another wave of severe repression of human rights and democracy activists. HRIC and FIDH urge the European Union to implement the resolution adopted today by the European Parliament calling on the E.U. to “make China a priority at the...
To : Delegates of the National People's Congress Re: Proposals for making human rights protections a key focus of the upcoming session
Human Rights in China is outraged with the sentencing of China Democracy Party (CDP) founders Wang Youcai and Xu Wenli to prison terms of 11 and 13 years, respectively. The sentences were handed down after separate one-day trials that were closed to the public. Both Wang Youcai and Xu Wenli were...
Liu Nianchun, veteran democracy and labor activist, was released on medical parole today and exiled to the United States. His release comes after more than one year in incommunicado detention, over two years of Reeducation Through Labor, and protracted mistreatment. Human Rights in China welcomes...
Venue: Human Rights Watch Conference Room, New York Ladies and Gentlemen: Standing before you today, I feel very strange, as if in a dream. Only two days ago, I was in a Reeducation Through Labor camp in China. I was extremely sick, and it was very difficult to get a medical examination, and even...
Human Rights in China condemns the Chinese government's resort to the notion of "state security" as a tool of political repression. Thousands of peaceful democracy and religious activists remain behind bars in China today. The repeated use of "state security" as a political weapon to silence...
Human Rights in China (HRIC) strongly condemns China's decision to prosecute Lin Hai, a computer company owner who allegedly provided addresses of Chinese Internet users to the U.S.-based on-line magazine Dacankao. HRIC believes the prosecution of Lin Hai to be a blatant violation of the right to...
China's persecution of protestants continues as house church leader - Cheng Meiying is beaten unconscious, Li Qingrui is shot, and others are detained and given exorbitant fines. Over 70 protestants remain in detention. Following the October 26 and November 5 crackdowns on Protestants in the Henan...

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