热点|杂谈
按: 估计很多人不能访问原文的网站，所以贴在这里分享，一直有种说法，西方国家借助人权报告打压中国，无论这个报告什么目的，作为一个普通人，我看到里面提到了不少我们一直存在、有的习以为常、有的是正在奋争的问题，比如，刑讯逼供，看看可以作为我们提高自己社会的公平、公正性的一种借鉴。即使您认定它目的就是打压中国，也可以看看他们找的是什么借口，以便有理有据的回击。
另外，学英语的可以借此学学英语，我自己有时间时会好好读一读。
补充：刚到他们网站看了一眼，是希拉里。克林顿主持的部门（U.S. Department of State）下面的一个Bureau负责，这个Bureau下的一个子......子目录里列了世界各国的人权报告，包括很多我名字都没听说过的国家，看样，在美国人眼里是没有“干涉内政”这回事，根本不拿自己当外人呀。
11月23日添加：今天忽然恍然，Department of State是国务院呀，希拉里就相当于国务院总理，我们把美国总理译为国务卿(e.g. Secretary Clinton)。美国选举有分赃说，就是说资助了总统的竞选活动的人在总统当选后会领到不同的官职，这么说来，希拉里是奥巴马任命的。以此类推，温是胡任命的吗?
原文网址：http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119037.htm
Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs > Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor > Releases > Human Rights > 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices > East Asia and the Pacific
2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)
BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR
2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
February 25, 2009
(The section for Tibet, the report for Hong Kong, and the report for Macau are appended below.)
The People's Republic of China, with a population of approximately 1.3 billion, is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount source of power. Party members hold almost all top government, police, and military positions. Ultimate authority rests with the 25-member political bureau (Politburo) of the CCP and its nine-member standing committee. Hu Jintao holds the three most powerful positions as CCP general secretary, president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.
The government's human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas. During the year the government increased its severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), increased detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners, and maintained tight controls on freedom of speech and the Internet. Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the Olympics and the unrest in Tibet. As in previous years, citizens did not have the right to change their government. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both local and international, continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. Other serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor, including prison labor. Workers cannot choose an independent union to represent them in the workplace, and the law does not protect workers' right to strike.
The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, writers, activists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law. A lack of due process and restrictions on lawyers further limited progress toward rule of law, with serious consequences for defendants who were imprisoned or executed following proceedings that fell far short of international standards. The party and state exercised strict political control of courts and judges, conducted closed trials, and carried out administrative detention. Individuals and groups, especially those deemed politically sensitive by the government, continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble, their freedom to practice religion, and their freedom to travel. The government continued its coercive birth limitation policy, in some cases resulting in forced abortion or forced sterilization. The government failed to protect refugees adequately, and the detention and forced repatriation of North Koreans continued to be a problem. Serious social conditions that affected human rights included endemic corruption, trafficking in persons, and discrimination against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.
On October 17, the government made permanent rules granting foreign journalists greater freedoms, which were initially applied in the period leading up to and during the Olympic Games. The new rules eliminated previous requirements that foreign journalists first seek permission from local officials before conducting interviews in a particular province or locality.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
During the year security forces reportedly committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. No official statistics on deaths in custody were available. The outbreak of widespread unrest in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas in March and April resulted in significant loss of life, with many credible reports putting the number killed at over 200 (see Tibet Addendum).
On January 7, Wei Wenhua was beaten to death by municipal "urban management" officials in Tianmen, Hubei Province, after he filmed their clash with local residents on his mobile phone. Authorities detained 41 officials and sentenced four to short prison terms for their role in Wei's death. On February 6, authorities reportedly instructed the family of Falun Gong practitioner Yu Zhou, who had been arrested in Beijing on January 26, to come to an emergency center to see him. Yu was dead when the family arrived, and authorities claimed he had died of diabetes. However, Yu's family stated that he was healthy at the time of his arrest and that authorities refused the family's request for an autopsy. On May 26, the family of Tibetan protester Paltsal Kyab was informed he died in custody, after he was detained in April for participating in a March 17 protest. Authorities claimed Paltsal Kyab had died from kidney and stomach problems, although relatives reported he was healthy at the time of his arrest. According to witnesses his body was covered with bruises and burn blisters. There were no reports of any official investigation into his death. On July 16, 100 individuals reportedly attacked police in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, after a motorcyclist died. Police reported the man died in a traffic accident but his relatives claimed he was beaten to death by security guards.
There were no developments in a 2007 incident in which 18 persons were killed and 17 were arrested during a raid at a location in the XUAR that officials called a terrorist training camp.
Defendants in criminal proceedings were executed following convictions that sometimes took place under circumstances involving severe lack of due process and inadequate channels for appeal. On November 26, Yang Jia, who was accused of killing six Shanghai police officers on July 1, was executed following a decision by the Shanghai High Court to uphold his conviction. Yang's case included serious irregularities at trial, and the appellate court deprived him an opportunity to be examined for mental illness despite a request by Yang's new attorney to allow it. On November 28, biomedical researcher Wo Weihan was executed on charges of espionage. Wo, who was convicted in a closed trial, was reportedly coerced into confessing and mistreated in detention. Executions of Uighurs whom authorities accused of separatism, but which some observers claimed were politically motivated, were reported during prior reporting periods. In February 2007 authorities executed Ismail Semed, an ethnic Uighur from the XUAR, following 2005 convictions for "attempting to split the motherland" and other counts related to possession of firearms and explosives.
b. Disappearance
In May underground Catholic priests Zhang Li and Zhang Jianlin disappeared after authorities detained them while they were preparing to visit a Catholic shrine in Sheshan Province. At year's end their whereabouts remained unknown. The whereabouts of Wu Qinjing, the bishop of Zhouzhi, Shaanxi Province, who was detained in March 2007, also remained unknown. Human rights defender Gao Zhisheng was detained and questioned several times over the past two years, and during the reporting period his whereabouts were unknown. There were no new developments in the September 2007 disappearances of 21 farmers who reportedly traveled from Chengdu to Beijing to petition the government in a land compensation case. At year's end the government still had not provided a comprehensive, credible accounting of all those killed, missing, or detained in connection with the violent suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The law prohibits the physical abuse of detainees and forbids prison guards from extracting confessions by torture, insulting prisoners' dignity, and beating or encouraging others to beat prisoners. However, during the year there were reports that officials used electric shocks, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse.
Mao Hengfeng, a family planning issues petitioner, reportedly was physically and mentally abused in prison. During an August 13 phone call, Mao reportedly told her husband that scars on her wrists that resulted from being tied up tightly had not healed. On May 22, Heilongjiang resident and reform activist Liu Jie was transferred from a Qiqihar reeducation through labor (RTL) camp to the Harbin Drug Rehabilitation Center, where she reportedly was tortured. Human rights organizations also reported democracy activist and member of the China Democracy Party (CDP) Chi Jianwei reportedly was tortured in July 2007 for refusing to confess to "using an evil cult to hinder law enforcement."
In November the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) stated its deep concern about the routine and widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of suspects in police custody, especially to extract confessions or information used in criminal proceedings. However, UNCAT did acknowledge government efforts to address the practice of torture and related problems in the criminal justice system. Many alleged acts of torture occurred in pretrial criminal detention centers or RTL centers. Sexual and physical abuse and extortion occurred in some detention centers.
According to foreign researchers, the country had 20 ankang institutions (high-security psychiatric hospitals for the criminally insane) directly administered by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). Political activists, underground religious believers, persons who repeatedly petitioned the government, members of the banned Chinese Democracy Party (CDP), and Falun Gong adherents were among those housed with mentally ill patients in these institutions, and they had no mechanism for objecting to public security officials' determinations of mental illness. Patients in these hospitals reportedly were given medicine against their will and forcibly subjected to electric shock treatment. The regulations for committing a person to an ankang facility were not clear. Activists sentenced to administrative detention also reported they were strapped to beds or other devices for days at a time, beaten, forcibly injected or fed medications, and denied food and use of toilet facilities.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Conditions in penal institutions for both political prisoners and common criminals generally were harsh and often degrading. Prisoners and detainees often were kept in overcrowded conditions with poor sanitation. Inadequate prison capacity was an increasing problem in some areas. Food often was inadequate and of poor quality, and many detainees relied on supplemental food and medicines provided by relatives; some prominent dissidents were not allowed to receive such goods.
Many inmates in penal and RTL facilities were required to work, with minimal or no remuneration. In some cases prisoners worked in facilities directly connected with penal institutions; in other cases they were contracted to nonprison enterprises. Former prison inmates reported that workers who refused to work in some prisons were beaten. Facilities and their management profited from inmate labor.
In January 2007 Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qunan reportedly acknowledged that the government harvested organs from executed prisoners. Adequate, timely medical care for prisoners remained a serious problem, despite official assurances that prisoners have the right to prompt medical treatment. In October 2007 Chen Ningbiao died in prison, reportedly due to mistreatment and denial of medical treatment. Chen was one of seven villagers who led protests against forced land evictions in April 2007, and was convicted of "extortion and blackmail." Labor activist Yao Fuxin remained in prison in very poor health, in part because of abuse suffered in prison and inadequate access to medical attention. Authorities continued to deny his family's requests for medical parole. The poor health of reform activist Liu Jie reportedly eroded further as a result of inadequate medical care and other harsh treatment suffered while in detention. In April cyber dissident He Depu wrote a letter to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge complaining about deteriorating conditions for himself and other political prisoners. Prison officials reportedly denied a February request from family members that He be released on medical parole, and He's health reportedly remained poor due to medical neglect and maltreatment. Many other prisoners with serious health concerns remained in prison at year's end. Prison officials often denied privileges, including the ability to purchase outside food, make telephone calls, and receive family visits to those who refused to acknowledge guilt.
Conditions in administrative detention facilities, such as RTL camps, were similar to those in prisons. Beating deaths occurred in administrative detention and RTL facilities.
The law requires juveniles to be held separately from adults, unless facilities are insufficient. In practice children sometimes were held with adult prisoners and required to work. Political prisoners were segregated from each other and placed with common criminals, who sometimes beat political prisoners at the instigation of guards. Newly arrived prisoners or those who refused to acknowledge committing crimes were particularly vulnerable to beatings.
The government generally did not permit independent monitoring of prisons or RTL camps, and prisoners remained inaccessible to local and international human rights organizations, media groups, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
Arbitrary arrest and detention remained serious problems. The law permits police and security authorities to detain persons without arresting or charging them. Because the government tightly controlled information, it was impossible to determine accurately the total number of persons subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
The security apparatus is made up of the Ministries of State Security and Public Security, the People's Armed Police, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the state judicial, procuratorial, and penal systems. The Ministries of State Security and Public Security and the People's Armed Police were responsible for internal security. The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) and the Supreme People's Court (SPC) officials admitted that courts and prosecutors often deferred to the security ministries on policy matters and individual cases. The SPP was responsible for the investigation of corruption and duty crimes. The PLA was responsible for external security but also had some domestic security responsibilities.
The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) coordinates the country's law enforcement, which is administratively organized into local, county, provincial, and specialized police agencies. Some efforts were made to strengthen historically weak regulation and management of law enforcement agencies; however, judicial oversight was limited, and checks and balances were absent. Corruption at the local level was widespread. Security officials, including "urban management" officials, reportedly took individuals into custody without just cause, arbitrarily collected fees from individuals charged with crimes, and mentally and physically abused victims and perpetrators.
The SPP acknowledged continuing widespread abuse in law enforcement. Domestic news media reported the convictions of public security officials who had beaten to death suspects or prisoners in their custody. On October 23, Li Litian, a former policeman in Zhoukou City, Henan Province, was executed for killing laid-off worker Li Shengli in 2004. Li Litian and five other officers beat Li Shengli at the request of a local court official with whom Li Shengli had a dispute. After beating Li Shengli, police threw him off of the third story of the police station. The court official, Lu Liusheng, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in May 2007. Investigation of misconduct typically only came in response to publicity, public pressure, and persistent efforts by relatives of victims to petition the government.
Arrest and Detention
Public security organs do not require court-approved warrants to detain suspects under their administrative detention powers. After detention the procuracy can approve formal arrest without court approval. According to the law, in routine criminal cases police can unilaterally detain persons for up to 37 days before releasing them or formally placing them under arrest. After a suspect is arrested, the law allows police and prosecutors to detain a person for up to seven months while public security organs further investigate the case. Another 45 days of detention are allowed where public security organs refer a case to the procuratorate to decide whether to file charges. If charges are filed, authorities can detain a suspect for an additional 45 day period between filing and trial. However, in practice the police sometimes detained persons beyond the time limits stipulated by law. In some cases, investigating security agents or prosecutors sought repeated extensions, resulting in pretrial detention of a year or longer. The criminal procedure law allows detainees access to lawyers before formal charges are filed, although police often limited such access.
The criminal procedure law requires a court to provide a lawyer to a defendant who is blind, deaf, mute, a minor, or persons who may be sentenced to death, if the defendant has not already retained a lawyer. This law applies whether or not the defendant is indigent. Courts may also provide lawyers to other criminal defendants who cannot afford them, although courts often did not appoint counsel in such circumstances.
Detained criminal suspects, defendants, their legal representatives, and close relatives are entitled to apply for bail; however, in practice few suspects were released on bail pending trial.
The government used incommunicado detention. The law requires notification of family members within 24 hours of detention, but individuals often were held without notification for significantly longer periods, especially in politically sensitive cases. Under a sweeping exception, officials were not required to provide notification if doing so would "hinder the investigation" of a case. In some cases police treated those with no immediate family more severely.
There were numerous reports of citizens who reportedly were detained with no or severely delayed notice. For example, on February 5, a court in Hanzhou sentenced writer and rights activist Lu Gengsong to four years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power." Lu was detained in August 2007 following publication of articles critical of authorities. On March 5, consumer rights advocate Chen Shuwei was seized without warrant by a dozen police officers in a Beijing hotel and held without charge until March 20. On March 7, human rights activist and lawyer Teng Biao was taken by Beijing Public Security agents and held incommunicado for two days. On May 18, police detained Nanjing-based blogger and professor Guo Quan after Guo posted articles critical of the government's response to the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province. Guo was released 10 days later but was detained again on November 13 by Nanjing authorities on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power."
The law permits nonjudicial panels, called labor reeducation panels, to sentence persons without trial to three years in RTL camps or other administrative detention programs. The labor reeducation committee is authorized to extend a sentence up to one year. Defendants could challenge RTL sentences under the administrative litigation law and appeal for a reduction in, or suspension of, their sentences. However, appeals rarely succeeded. Many other persons were detained in similar forms of administrative detention, known as "custody and education" (for women engaged in prostitution and those soliciting prostitution) and "custody and training" (for minors who committed crimes). Administrative detention was used to intimidate political activists and prevent public demonstrations. On June 4, Chen Lianqing was detained while petitioning authorities in Beijing to investigate the murder of his father; he was later sent to RTL. Authorities used special reeducation centers to prolong detention of Falun Gong practitioners who had completed terms in RTL.
Authorities arrested persons on charges of revealing state secrets, subversion, and common crimes to suppress political dissent and social advocacy. Citizens also were detained and prosecuted under broad and ambiguous state secrets laws for, among other actions, disclosing information on criminal trials, meetings, and government activity. Information could retroactively be classified a state secret by the government.
During the year human rights activists, journalists, unregistered religious figures, and former political prisoners and their family members were among those targeted for arbitrary detention or arrest.
The government continued to use house arrest as a nonjudicial punishment and control measure against dissidents, former political prisoners, family members of political prisoners, petitioners, underground religious figures, and others it deemed politically sensitive. House arrest encompassed varying degrees of stringency but sometimes included complete isolation in one's own home or another location under lock and guard. In some cases house arrest involved constant monitoring, but the target of house arrest was occasionally permitted to leave the home to work or run errands. Sometimes those under house arrest were required to ride in the vehicles of their police monitors when venturing outside. When outside the home, the subject of house arrest was usually, but not always, under surveillance. In some instances security officials assumed invasive positions within the family home, rather than monitoring from the outside.
On April 3, a Beijing court sentenced HIV/AIDS and environmental activist Hu Jia to three years and six months in prison for "inciting subversion" of state authority. Hu Jia was detained in December 2007 on suspicion of inciting subversion. Hu Jia's wife, activist Zeng Jinyan, remained under house arrest with the couple's newborn child. During the Olympics, authorities required Zeng and her child to go to the northeastern city of Dalian, and restricted Zeng's contact with outsiders. On May 31, police at Guiyang Airport apprehended human rights activist Chen Xi as he was attempting to fly to Beijing to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre. He was detained for nine hours without explanation and then sent home, where he remained under house arrest. Several underground Catholic clergy were under house arrest for varying periods during the year. The longest serving among them may be Bishop Su Zhimin, who has reportedly been detained in a form of house arrest in Baoding, Hebei Province, since 1997. An unverified 2006 press report stated that Bishop Su had died in custody; the government has never responded to inquiries about Bishop Su.
Police continued the practice of placing under surveillance, harassing, and detaining citizens around politically sensitive events, including before the third anniversary of Zhao Ziyang's death, the plenary sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and the Olympic Games. Authorities in the XUAR used house arrest and other forms of arbitrary detention against those accused of subscribing to the "three evils" of religious extremism, "splittism," and terrorism. Raids, detentions, arrests, and judicial punishments indiscriminately affected not only those suspected of supporting terrorism but also those who peacefully sought to pursue political goals or to worship.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law states that the courts shall exercise judicial power independently, without interference from administrative organs, social organizations, and individuals. However, in practice the judiciary was not independent. It received policy guidance from both the government and the CCP, whose leaders used a variety of means to direct courts on verdicts and sentences, particularly in politically sensitive cases. At both the central and local levels, the government and CCP frequently interfered in the judicial system and dictated court decisions. Trial judges decide individual cases under the direction of the adjudication committee in each court. In addition the CCP's law and politics committee, which includes representatives of the police, security services, procuratorate, and courts, had the authority to review and influence court operations at all levels of the judiciary; in some cases the committee altered decisions. People's congresses also had authority to alter court decisions, but this happened rarely.
Corruption often influenced judicial decision making, and safeguards against corruption were vague and poorly enforced. Local governments appointed judges at the corresponding level of the judicial structure. Judges received their court finances and salaries from these government bodies and could be replaced by them. Local authorities often exerted undue influence over the judges they appointed and financed. Several high-profile corruption cases involved procuracy officials.
Courts lacked the independence and authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws. The law permits organizations or individuals to question laws and regulations they believe contradict the constitution, but a constitutional challenge first requires consultation with the body drafting the questioned regulation and can only be appealed to the NPC. Accordingly, lawyers had little or no opportunity to use the constitution in litigation.
The SPC is followed in descending order by the higher, intermediate, and basic people's courts. These courts handle criminal, civil, and administrative cases, including appeals of decisions by police and security officials to use RTL and other forms of administrative detention. There were special courts for handling military, maritime, and railway transport cases.
The CCP used a form of discipline known as shuang gui for violations of party discipline, but there were reports of its use against nonparty members. Shuang gui is similar to house arrest and can be authorized without judicial involvement or oversight. Shuang gui requires the CCP party member under investigation to submit to questioning at a designated place and time. According to regulations of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) governing shuang gui, corporal punishment is banned, the member's dignity must be respected, and he or she is regarded as a comrade unless violations are proved. Absent any legal oversight, it is unclear how these regulations were enforced in practice.
Trial Procedures
Trials took place before a judge, who often was accompanied by "people's assessors," lay persons hired by the court to assist in decision making. According to law, people's assessors had authority similar to judges, but in practice they deferred to judges and did not exercise an independent jury-like function.
There was no presumption of innocence, and the criminal justice system was biased toward a presumption of guilt, especially in high-profile or politically sensitive cases. The combined conviction rate for first and second instance criminal trials was more than 99 percent in 2007; 933,156 defendants were tried, and 1,417 were found not guilty. In many politically sensitive trials, which rarely lasted more than several hours, the courts handed down guilty verdicts immediately following proceedings. Courts often punished defendants who refused to acknowledge guilt with harsher sentences than those who confessed. There was an appeals process, but appeals rarely resulted in reversed verdicts. Appeals processes failed to provide sufficient avenues for review, and there were inadequate remedies for violations of defendants' rights.
SPC regulations require all trials to be open to the public, with certain exceptions, such as cases involving state secrets, privacy, and minors. Authorities used the legal exception for cases involving state secrets to keep politically sensitive proceedings closed to the public and sometimes even to family members and to withhold access to defense counsel. Under the regulations, foreigners with valid identification are allowed the same access to trials as citizens, but in practice foreigners were permitted to attend court proceedings by invitation only. As in past years, foreign diplomats and journalists sought permission to attend a number of trials only to have court officials reclassify them as "state secret" cases, fill all available seats with security officials, or otherwise close them to the public. For example, foreign diplomats requested but were denied permission to attend Hu Jia's March 18 trial on charges of subverting state authority. Some trials were broadcast, and court proceedings were a regular television feature. A few courts published their verdicts on the Internet.
The law gives most suspects the right to seek legal counsel shortly after their initial detention and interrogation, although police frequently interfered with this right. Individuals who face administrative detention do not have the right to seek legal counsel.
Both criminal and administrative cases remained eligible for legal aid, although 70 percent or more of criminal defendants still went to trial without a lawyer. According to the Ministry of Justice, the number of legal-aid cases reached 420,000 in 2007, 3.3 times the 2002 figure. The country had 12,285 full-time legal aid personnel, including 5,927 lawyers, and 76,890 registered volunteers at the end of 2007, although the number of legal-aid personnel remained inadequate to meet demand. Nonattorney legal advisors and volunteers provided the only legal aid options in many areas. According to the SPC's March work report to the NPC, courts over the past five years have waived RMB 5.4 billion ($790 million) in litigation costs.
Government-employed lawyers often refused to represent defendants in politically sensitive cases, and defendants frequently found it difficult to find an attorney. When defendants were able to retain counsel in politically sensitive cases, government officials sometimes prevented effective representation of counsel. Officials deployed a wide range of tactics to obstruct the work of lawyers representing sensitive clients, including unlawful detentions, disbarment, intimidation, refusal to allow a case to be tried before a court, and physical abuse.
During the year the Beijing Judicial Bureau refused to renew the professional license of distinguished lawyer Teng Biao, who offered to represent Tibetans taken into custody for their role in the March protests in Lhasa. Other lawyers deprived of their license to practice law included Henan lawyers Li Wusi and Li Subin; Shanghai lawyers Zheng Enchong and Guo Guoting; Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng; and Guangdong lawyers Tang Jingling, Guo Yan, and Yang Zaixin. On June 2, Beijing-based lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who was barred from commemorating the June 4 massacre in Tiananmen Square, was followed by Beijing police and detained on June 3 for several hours.
According to the law, defense attorneys can be held responsible if their client commits perjury, and prosecutors and judges have wide discretion to decide what constitutes perjury. In some sensitive cases, lawyers had no pretrial access to their clients, and defendants and lawyers were not allowed to speak during trials. In practice criminal defendants often were not assigned an attorney until a case was brought to court. Even in nonsensitive criminal trials, only one in seven defendants reportedly had legal representation.
The mechanism that allows defendants to confront their accusers was inadequate; the percentage of witnesses who came to court in criminal cases was less than 10 percent and as low as 1 percent in some courts. According to one expert, only 1 to 5 percent of trials involved witnesses. In most criminal trials, prosecutors read witness statements, which neither the defendant nor his lawyer had an opportunity to question. Approximately 95 percent of witnesses in criminal cases did not appear in court to testify, sometimes due to hardship or fear of reprisals. Although the criminal procedure law states pretrial witness statements cannot serve as the sole basis for conviction, officials relied heavily on such statements to support their cases. Defense attorneys had no authority to compel witnesses to testify or to mandate discovery, although they could apply for access to government-held evidence relevant to their case. In practice pretrial access to information was minimal, and the defense often lacked adequate opportunity to prepare for trial.
Police and prosecutorial officials often ignored the due process provisions of the law, which led to particularly egregious consequences in death penalty cases. By law there are at least 68 capital offenses, including nonviolent financial crimes such as counterfeiting currency, embezzlement, and corruption.
In 2007 the SPC reassumed jurisdiction to conduct final review of death penalty cases handed down for immediate execution (but not death sentences handed down with a two-year reprieve). In most cases the SPC does not have authority to issue a new decision or declare a defendant innocent if it discovers errors in the original judgment, and can only approve or disapprove lower court decisions. SPC spokesman Ni Shouming stated that, since reassuming the death penalty review power in January 2007, the SPC had rejected 15 percent of the cases it reviewed due to unclear facts, insufficient evidence, inappropriateness of the death sentence in some cases, and inadequate trial procedures. The SPC remanded these cases back to lower courts for further proceedings, although it did not provide underlying statistics or figures. Because official statistics remained a state secret it was not possible to evaluate independently the implementation and effects of the procedures.
Following the SPC's reassumption of death penalty review power, executions were not to be carried out on the date of conviction, but only with the SPC's approval. On May 23, the chief judge of the third criminal law division of the SPC declared that since the implementation of this reform, the number of death sentences with a two-year reprieve surpassed the number of immediate-execution death sentences. Media reports stated that approximately 10 percent of executions were for economic crimes, especially corruption.
Through the monitoring of publicly available records and reports, Amnesty International estimated that in 2007 at least 470 persons were executed and 1,860 persons were sentenced to death, although Amnesty stated that the true figures were believed to be much higher. The foreign-based Dui Hua Foundation estimated that about 6,000 persons were executed in 2007, a 25 to 30 percent decrease from the previous year's estimate.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
Government officials continued to deny holding any political prisoners, asserting that authorities detained persons not for their political or religious views, but because they violated the law; however, the authorities continued to confine citizens for reasons related to politics and religion. Tens of thousands of political prisoners remained incarcerated, some in prisons and others in RTL camps or administrative detention. The government did not grant international humanitarian organizations access to political prisoners.
Foreign NGOs estimated that several hundred persons remained in prison for the repealed crime of "counterrevolution," and thousands of others were serving sentences under the state security law, which authorities stated covers crimes similar to counterrevolution. Foreign governments urged the government to review the cases of those charged before 1997 with counterrevolution and to release those who had been jailed for nonviolent offenses under provisions of the criminal law, which were eliminated when the law was revised. No systematic review has occurred. The government maintained that prisoners serving sentences for counterrevolution and endangering state security were eligible on an equal basis for sentence reduction and parole, but evidence suggested that political prisoners benefitted from early release at lower rates than those enjoyed by other prisoners. Dozens of persons were believed to remain in prison in connection with their involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen prodemocracy movement. International organizations estimated that at least 10 and as many as 200 Tiananmen activists were still in prison. The exact number was unknown because official statistics have never been made public.
Many political prisoners remained in prison or under other forms of detention at year's end, including rights activists Hu Jia and Wang Bingzhang; Alim and Ablikim Abdureyim, sons of Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer; journalist Shi Tao; dissident Wang Xiaoning; land-rights activist Yang Chunlin; Internet writers Yang Zili and Xu Wei; labor activists Yao Fuxin, Hu Mingjun, Huang Xiangwei, Kong Youping, Ning Xianhua, Li Jianfeng, Li Xintao, Lin Shun'an, Yue Tianxiang, Li Wangyang, and She Wanbao; CDP cofounder Qin Yongmin; family planning whistleblower Chen Guangcheng; Bishop Su Zhimin; Christian activist Zhang Rongliang; Inner Mongolian activist Hada; Uighurs Tohti Tunyaz and Dilkex Tilivaldi; and Tibetans Jigme Gyatso, Tenzin Deleg, and Gendun Choekyi Nyima. Labor activist Hu Shigen was released in August. Political prisoners obtained parole and sentence reduction much less frequently than ordinary prisoners.
Criminal punishments included "deprivation of political rights" for a fixed period after release from prison, during which the individual is denied the already-limited rights of free speech and association granted to other citizens. Former prisoners sometimes found their status in society, ability to find employment, freedom to travel, and access to residence permits and social services severely restricted. Former political prisoners and their families frequently were subjected to police surveillance, telephone wiretaps, searches, and other forms of harassment, and some encountered difficulty in obtaining or keeping employment and housing.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
Courts deciding civil matters suffered from internal and external limitations on judicial independence. The State Compensation Law provides administrative and judicial remedies for deprivations of criminal rights, such as wrongful arrest or conviction, extortion of confession by torture, or unlawful use of force resulting in bodily injury. In civil matters, prevailing parties often found it difficult to enforce court orders, and resistance to the enforcement sometimes extended to forcible resistance to court police.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The law states that the "freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens are protected by law;" however, the authorities often did not respect the privacy of citizens in practice. Although the law requires warrants before law enforcement officials can search premises, this provision frequently was ignored; moreover, the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and prosecutors can issue search warrants on their own authority without judicial consent, review, or consideration. Cases of forced entry by police officers continued to be reported.
During the year authorities monitored telephone conversations, facsimile transmissions, e-mail, text messaging, and Internet communications. Authorities also opened and censored domestic and international mail. The security services routinely monitored and entered residences and offices to gain access to computers, telephones, and fax machines. All major hotels had a sizable internal security presence, and hotel guestrooms were sometimes bugged and searched for sensitive or proprietary materials.
Some citizens were under heavy surveillance and routinely had their telephone calls monitored or telephone service disrupted. The authorities frequently warned dissidents and activists, underground religious figures, former political prisoners, and others whom the government considered to be troublemakers not to meet with foreign journalists or diplomats, especially before sensitive anniversaries, at the time of important government or party meetings, and during the visits of high-level foreign officials. Security personnel also harassed and detained the family members of political prisoners, including following them to meetings with foreign reporters and diplomats and urging them to remain silent about the cases of their relatives.
Forced relocation because of urban development continued and in some locations increased during the year. During the year protests over relocation terms or compensation, some of which included thousands of participants, were increasingly common and some protest leaders were prosecuted. There were numerous reports that evictions in Beijing were linked to construction for the Olympics. In rural areas relocation for infrastructure and commercial development projects resulted in the forced relocation of millions of persons.
The government restricted the rights of parents to choose the number of children they will have and the period of time between births. While the national family planning authorities shifted their emphasis from lowering fertility rates to maintaining low fertility rates and emphasized quality of care in family planning practices, the country's birth limitation policies retained harshly coercive elements in law and practice. The penalties for violating the law are strict, leaving some women little choice but to abort pregnancies. Although some officials suggested that adjustments to the policy were needed to address aging and sex-ratio at birth problems, during the year the family planning minister announced the policy would not change for at least a decade.
The law standardizes the implementation of the government's birth limitation policies; however, enforcement varied significantly. The law only grants married couples the right to have one birth and allows eligible couples to apply for permission to have a second child if they meet conditions stipulated in local and provincial regulations. The law requires couples that have an unapproved child to pay a "social compensation fee," which sometimes reached 10 times a person's annual disposable income, and grants preferential treatment to couples who abide by the birth limits. Although the law states that officials should not violate citizens' rights, these rights, as well as penalties for violating them, are not clearly defined. The law provides significant and detailed sanctions for officials who help persons evade the birth limitations.
Social compensation fees are set and assessed at the local level. The law requires family planning officials to obtain court approval before taking "forcible" action, such as detaining family members or confiscating and destroying property of families who refuse to pay social compensation fees. However, in practice this requirement was not always followed and the national authorities remained ineffective at reducing abuses by local officials.
The one-child limit was more strictly applied in the cities, where only couples meeting certain conditions (e.g., both parents are only children) were permitted to have a second child. In most rural areas the policy was more relaxed, with slightly more than half of women permitted to have a second child if the first was a girl or had a disability.
All provinces have regulations implementing the national family planning law. For example, Anhui Province's law permits 13 categories of couples, including coal miners, some remarried divorcees, and some farm couples, to have a second child. Ethnic minorities, such as the Uighurs and the Tibetans, are also allowed more than one child. Several provinces--Anhui, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jilin, Liaoning, and Ningxia--require "termination of pregnancy" if the pregnancy violates provincial family planning regulations. An additional 10 provinces--Fujian, Guizhou, Guangdong, Gansu, Jiangxi, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Yunnan--require unspecified "remedial measures" to deal with out-of-plan pregnancies.
Zhejiang and Hunan provinces revised their regulations to eliminate their birth spacing requirement to adjust for local circumstances. Birth spacing policies are set at the provincial level, typically requiring that a couple wait four years between births if the couple is eligible to have a second child. If the second pregnancy occurs during the four-year waiting period, it is considered an unapproved pregnancy and local officials may require termination. However, Hunan Province also raised the social compensation fee from two times a family's annual income to up to six times if the family was wealthy. Hunan Province also added that violators of the birth limitation regulations could not work as public servants.
The country's population control policy relied on education, propaganda, and economic incentives, as well as on more coercive measures. Those who violated the child limit policy by having an unapproved child or helping another do so faced disciplinary measures such as social compensation fees, job loss or demotion, loss of promotion opportunity, expulsion from the party (membership in which was an unofficial requirement for certain jobs), and other administrative punishments, including in some cases the destruction of private property. In the case of families that already had two children, one parent was often pressured to undergo sterilization. The penalties sometimes left women with little practical choice but to undergo abortion or sterilization.
In order to delay childbearing, the law sets the minimum marriage age for women at 20 years and for men at 22 years. It continued to be illegal in almost all provinces for a single woman to have a child. In November 2007, Hunan Province adopted new penalties for children conceived out of wedlock, requiring violators to pay 6 to 8 percent of their income from the previous year, in addition to the standard social compensation fee. The law states that family planning bureaus will conduct pregnancy tests on married women and provide them with unspecified "follow-up" services. Some provinces fined women who did not undergo periodic pregnancy tests. For example, in Hebei Province fines ranged from RMB 200 to RMB 500 (approximately $29 to $73), and in Henan Province fines ranged from RMB 50 to RMB 500 ($7 to $73).
Officials at all levels remained subject to rewards or penalties based on meeting the population goals set by their administrative region. Promotions for local officials depended in part on meeting population targets. Linking job promotion with an official's ability to meet or exceed such targets provided a powerful structural incentive for officials to employ coercive measures to meet population goals. In an effort to meet local sterilization targets, officials in Gansu Province, who were often promised a promotion and a monetary reward, reportedly forcibly detained and sterilized a Tibetan woman who had abided by local population planning requirements. There continued to be sporadic reports of violations of citizens' rights by local officials attempting to reduce the number of births in their region. In March family-planning officials in Henan Province reportedly forcibly detained a 23-year-old unmarried woman who was seven months pregnant. Officials reportedly tied her to a bed, induced labor, and killed the newborn upon delivery. In April population-planning officials in Shandong Province reportedly detained and beat the sister of a woman who had illegally conceived a second child in an attempt to compel the woman to undergo an abortion. In November in XUAR, family planning officials and police escorted a Uighur woman, Arzigul Tursun, who was more than six months pregnant with her third child, to the hospital for an abortion. Tursun had gone into hiding to save her pregnancy but returned amid threats that her family's home and land would be confiscated. After the situation was brought to the attention of central government officials, Tursun was released from the hospital without having to undergo the procedure.
According to law, citizens may sue officials who exceed their authority in implementing birth-planning policy. However, there were few protections for whistleblowers against retaliation from local officials.
Laws and regulations forbid the termination of pregnancies based on the sex of the fetus, but because of the intersection of birth limitations with the traditional preference for male children, particularly in rural areas, many families used ultrasound technology to identify female fetuses and terminate these pregnancies. National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) regulations ban nonmedically necessary determinations of the sex of the fetus and sex-selective abortions, but some Chinese experts believed that the penalties for violating the regulations were not severe enough to deter unlawful behavior. According to government estimates released on February 28, the male-female sex ratio at birth was 120 to 100 at the end of 2007 (compared with norms elsewhere of between 103 and 107 to 100).
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The law provides for freedom of speech and of the press, although the government generally did not respect these rights in practice. The government interpreted the CCP's "leading role," as mandated in the constitution, as superseding and circumscribing these rights. The government continued to control print, broadcast, and electronic media tightly and used them to propagate government views and CCP ideology. During the year the government increased censorship and manipulation of the press and the Internet during major events, including the Tibetan protests in March through June, the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, and the Olympic games. All media were expected to abide by censorship guidelines issued by the party. In a June 20 speech on propaganda work, CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao reiterated local media's subordinate role to the party, telling journalists they must "serve socialism" and the party.
Media outlets received regular guidance from the Central Propaganda Department, which listed topics that should not be covered, including politically sensitive topics. During the year propaganda officials issued guidelines restricting media coverage of sensitive topics, including demonstrations by parents whose children died in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake when their schools collapsed. On August 12, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that propaganda authorities had issued a 21-point directive outlining how the domestic media should handle certain stories during the Olympics. According to the directive, Chinese journalists were barred from reporting on the lifting of censorship of foreign Web sites during the Olympics, the private lives of visiting heads of state, and Tibetan and Uighur separatist movements, among other topics. The directive also ordered journalists to report positively on Olympic security arrangements.
So long as the speaker did not publish views that challenged the CCP or disseminate such views to overseas audiences, the range of permissible topics for private speech continued to expand. Political topics could be discussed privately and in small groups without punishment, and criticisms of the government were common topics of daily speech. However, public speeches, academic discussions, and speeches at meetings or in public forums covered by the media remained circumscribed, as did speeches pertaining to sensitive social topics.
The government also frequently monitored gatherings of intellectuals, scholars, and dissidents where political or sensitive issues were discussed. Those who aired views that disagreed with the government's position on controversial topics or disseminated such views to domestic and overseas audiences risked punishment ranging from disciplinary action at government work units to police interrogation and detention. To commemorate human rights day on December 10, a group of 303 intellectuals and activists released a petition calling for human rights and democracy. Security forces questioned or detained several signatories to the document. At year's end one signer, writer Liu Xiaobo, remained in detention. On May 21, police in Liaoning Province detained Shenyang resident Gao Qianhui a day after she posted a YouTube video criticizing the lack of entertainment during the national period of mourning for Sichuan earthquake victims.
The Central Propaganda Department continued to list subjects that were off limits to the domestic media, and the government maintained authority to approve all programming. Nearly all print media, broadcast media, and book publishers were owned by, or affiliated with, the CCP or a government agency. There were a small number of privately owned print publications, but no privately owned television or radio stations. International media were not allowed to operate freely and faced heavy restrictions.
In October the government permanently adopted the Olympics-related temporary regulations that expanded press freedoms for foreign media. In a September 17 statement, the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China (FCCC) noted some improvements in government transparency, including the release of more official data, especially on environmental matters, and increased access to government officials. However, the FCCC also reported that local authorities continued to infringe upon the freedom of foreign journalists to travel and conduct interviews, and that during the year harassment of foreign journalists rose sharply, particularly in the weeks before and during the Olympics. Between July 25, when the Olympics media center opened, and August 23, the day before the Olympics closing ceremony, the FCCC reported 30 cases of "reporting interference." On July 22, police manhandled Hong Kong journalists who were covering a crowd attempting to purchase Olympic tickets. In Kashgar, XUAR police detained and beat two Japanese journalists attempting to cover the aftermath of an August 4 deadly attack on a People's Armed Police unit. From August 8 to 11, a foreign writer and photographer and a foreign photojournalist were detained and searched repeatedly while attempting to cover bombings in the Xinjiang Province. On August 13, Beijing police roughed up and detained a journalist for Independent Television News who was covering a Tibet-related protest near the Olympic village. Foreign correspondents were still unable to visit the TAR without official permits, which rarely were granted.
Between January 1 and December 2, the FCCC reported 178 incidents of harassment compared with 160 cases for all of 2007. On January 24, thugs in Shandong Province threw stones at a German television crew attempting to meet with Yuan Weijing, the wife of imprisoned rights activist Chen Guangcheng. In November thugs beat a Belgian television crew attempting to cover the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Henan Province. The thugs also robbed the crew of its tapes, camera memory card, mobile phones, and money.
After protests and rioting broke out in Tibetan areas in March, more than two dozen foreign reporters were turned away from or forced to leave Tibetan areas, including Lhasa, Tibet's regional capital, and Xiahe in Gansu Province. Also in Xiahe, authorities barred a foreign film crew from using e-mail and ordered the crew not to report on the police in riot gear and soldiers they saw headed toward Labrang Monastery. Several other reporting teams were turned away from Tibetan areas during this period, including a foreign television crew, which was told that foreigners were not allowed into the area due to concerns for their safety. In the weeks after the riots, several Beijing-based foreign correspondents received death threats after their personal contact information, including mobile phone numbers, was revealed on the Internet.
In May police in Henan Province detained two Finnish journalists for seven hours while preparing a report on a migrant worker who had been employed on an Olympics-related construction site in Beijing.
In the immediate aftermath of the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, authorities generally allowed foreign reporters access to the disaster areas, although the FCCC reported some incidents of local authorities detaining journalists and confiscating photos and videos. However, this access was sharply curtailed by June when parents of children who had died in collapsed school buildings began organizing protests. The FCCC reported ten incidents of harassment and intimidation of foreign reporters attempting to report on the school collapses.
Officials can be punished for unauthorized contact with journalists. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Li Fuguo, a municipal official in Fuyang, Anhui Province, died in prison in March. RSF reported that Li was arrested in August 2007 after speaking with a journalist about an illegal requisition of farm land. Prison officials, RSF reported, claimed Li took his own life.
In December the Committee to Protect Journalists documented the cases of 28 imprisoned journalists. Editors and journalists continued to practice self-censorship as the primary means for the party to limit freedom of the press on a day-to-day basis. Official guidance on permitted speech was often vague, subject to change at the whim of propaganda officials, and retroactively enforced. Propaganda authorities can force newspapers to fire editors and journalists who print articles that conflict with official views and can suspend or close publications. The system of post-publication punishment encourages editors to take a conservative approach since a publication could face enormous business losses if it were suspended for inadvertently printing forbidden content. In September authorities ordered the China Business Post to suspend publication for three months as punishment for publication of an article critical of the Agricultural Bank of China.
Government officials used criminal prosecution, civil lawsuits, and other punishments, including violence, detention, and other forms of harassment, to intimidate authors and domestic journalists and block controversial writings. On January 4, officials in Xifeng, Liaoning Province, dispatched police to Beijing to arrest Zhu Wenna, a reporter for the magazine Faren Zazhi, on defamation charges after Zhu criticized a local communist party leader in a story about a contested land seizure in Xifeng. Xifeng officials abandoned efforts to arrest Zhu after a public and media outcry. On June 10, police in Chengdu detained Internet writer and activist Huang Qi, director and cofounder of the Tianwang Human Rights Center in Chengdu, after he posted an article on his Web site criticizing the government's handling of the May 12 earthquake. On August 8, a reporter for the Chengdu newspaper, Peng Shijun, was reportedly beaten by thugs and hospitalized while reporting on alleged false advertising by a language translation school in Xian, Shaanxi Province.
A domestic journalist can face demotion or job loss for publishing views that challenge the government. In April journalist Zhang Ping (who writes under the name Chang Ping) was demoted from his job as deputy editor of Nandu Weekly after publishing an article on his blog critical of official censorship surrounding the outbreak of protests in Tibet. In August Mehbube Ablesh, a Uighur writer, poet, and employee of Xinjiang People's Radio, was fired from her post and detained by police after posting articles online that criticized the central government and provincial leaders.
Journalists who remained in prison included Lu Gengsong, Lu Jianhua, Huang Jinqiu, Yu Huafeng, Li Minying, Cheng Yizhong, and Shi Tao. In February Ching Cheong, who had been imprisoned since 2005 on espionage charges, was released unexpectedly. During the year, Li Changqing, former deputy news director of the Fuzhou Ribao, was released after serving his two-year sentence in prison. However, authorities refused to issue Li Changqing a passport, preventing him from traveling overseas to receive the World Association of Newspapers' Gold Pen prize. Authorities stopped Li's wife, Bao Dingling, at Beijing's airport when she attempted to attend the June 2 award ceremony on her husband's behalf.
During the year journalists and editors who exposed corruption scandals frequently faced problems with the authorities. On May 16, police in Heilongjiang Province reportedly detained Ren Shangyan, assistant director of the corruption-monitoring Web site China Justice Advocacy Web (Zhonghua Shenzheng Wang), for her reporting on national and local corruption cases. Newspapers and journalists who reported on corruption without government or party approval faced possible sanction, although authorities allowed reporting on some high-profile cases. On May 13, Qi Chonghuai, a journalist in Shandong Province, was convicted of "extortion and blackmail" and sentenced to four years in prison. Qi was arrested in June 2007 after he and a friend published an article on the Xinhuanet Web site alleging official corruption in the Tengzhou Communist Party. The coauthor of the article, photographer Ma Shiping, remained in jail at year's end. On May 13, He Yanjie, who was working as Qi's research assistant, was sentenced to two years in prison.
According to an official report, during the year authorities confiscated more than 83 million copies of "pornographic, pirated, and unauthorized publications." Some copies of the July 24 edition of the Beijing News were removed from newsstands after the paper printed a photo related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The paper also removed the related story from its Web site.
Officials continued to censor, ban, and sanction reporting on labor, health, environmental crises, and industrial accidents. Official censorship, including strict media controls surrounding the Beijing Olympic Games, prevented timely reporting by Chinese journalists of the discovery of dairy products tainted with the chemical melamine. Authorities later restricted reporting on efforts by parents of children harmed by the tainted products to seek redress through the court system.
By law only government-approved publishing houses were permitted to print books. The State Press and Publications Administration (PPA) controlled all licenses to publish. No newspaper, periodical, book, audio, video, or electronic publication may be printed or distributed without the PPA and relevant provincial publishing authorities' approval of both the printer and distributor. Individuals who attempted to publish without government approval faced imprisonment, fines, confiscation of their books, and other sanctions. The CCP exerted control over the publishing industry by preemptively classifying certain topics as off-limits.
During a nationwide teleconference on January 17, party propaganda department head Liu Yunshan ordered officials to step up the campaign against "illegal publications," a term that includes pornography and pirated material, but also any content deemed politically subversive.
Many intellectuals and scholars exercised self-censorship, anticipating that books or papers on political topics would be deemed too sensitive to be published. The censorship process for private and government media also increasingly relied on self-censorship and, in a few cases, post-publication sanctions.
At year's end Korash Huseyin, the former editor of the Uighur-language Kashgar Literature Journal, remained in an undisclosed prison. In late 2004 Huseyin was sentenced to three years for publishing Nurmuhemmet Yasin's short story "Wild Pigeon," which authorities considered critical of CCP rule of Xinjiang. Yasin remained in prison serving a 10-year sentence. Authorities continued to ban books with content they deemed controversial.
The authorities continued to jam, with varying degrees of success, Chinese-, Uighur-, and Tibetan-language broadcasts of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the BBC. English-language broadcasts on VOA generally were not jammed. Government jamming of RFA and BBC appeared to be more frequent and effective. Internet distribution of "streaming radio" news and "podcasts" from these sources often was blocked. Despite jamming overseas broadcasts, VOA, BBC, RFA, Deutsche Welle, and Radio France International had large audiences, including human rights advocates, ordinary citizens, and government officials.
Television broadcasts of foreign news, which were largely restricted to hotels and foreign residence compounds, were occasionally subject to censorship. According to an October 18 report by the communication news Web site c114.net, in the first half of the year authorities confiscated more than 110,000 private satellite dishes and closed over 2,000 vendors of illegal satellite equipment. In the days following the outbreak of the March 14 riots in Lhasa and protests in other Tibetan communities, authorities cut off satellite feeds from the BBC World News and CNN when the stations aired reports about Tibet. Such censorship of foreign broadcasts also occurred around the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Individual issues of foreign newspapers and magazines were occasionally banned when they contained articles deemed too sensitive. Authorities banned the May issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, reportedly because of an article headlined, "Beijing Embraces Classical Fascism."
Politically sensitive coverage in Chinese, and to a lesser extent in English, was censored more than coverage in other languages. The government prohibited some foreign and domestic films deemed too sensitive.
Internet Freedom
The MPS, which monitors the Internet under guidance from the Central Propaganda Department, employed thousands of persons at the national, provincial, and local levels to monitor electronic communications. Xinhua News Agency reported that during the year authorities closed 14,000 illegal Web sites and deleted more than 490,000 items of "harmful" content from the Internet. In 2007 authorities reported closing 62,600 illegal Web sites as part of a nationwide crackdown on "illegal and pornographic" publications. Many Web sites included images of cartoon police officers that warn users to stay away from forbidden content. Operators of Web portals, blog hosting services, and other content providers engaged in self-censorship to ensure their servers were free from politically sensitive content.
Individuals using the Internet in public libraries were required to register using their national identity card. Internet usage reportedly was monitored at all terminals in public libraries. Internet cafes were required to install software that allows government officials to monitor customers' Internet usage. Internet users at cafes were often subject to surveillance. Many cafes sporadically enforced regulations requiring patrons to provide identification.
The government consistently blocked access to Web sites it deemed controversial, especially those discussing Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, underground religious and spiritual organizations, democracy activists, and the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. The government also at times blocked access to selected sites operated by major foreign news outlets, health organizations, foreign governments, and educational institutions. During the year, particularly during the outbreak of unrest in Tibet and the run-up to the Olympic Games, authorities maintained tight control over Internet news and information. Computers set up at the Olympic press center were subject to censorship, and journalists complained that they were unable to visit some overseas Web sites. Following complaints by foreign reporters, many normally blocked Web sites were temporarily available during the games. During the Olympics, authorities temporarily blocked iTunes, reportedly because officials were concerned that Olympic athletes were downloading pro-Tibet songs.
Authorities employed an array of technical measures to block sensitive Web sites based in foreign countries. The ability of users to access sensitive foreign Web sites varied from city to city. Internet police were also able to automatically censor e-mail and web chats based on an ever-changing list of sensitive key words, such as "Falun Gong" and "Tibetan independence." While such censorship was effective in keeping casual users away from sensitive content, it was defeated easily through the use of various technologies. Software for defeating official censorship was readily available inside the country. Despite official monitoring and censorship, during the year some dissidents continued to use voice-over-Internet and instant messaging software, such as Skype, to conduct online meetings and events.
Given the limitations of technical censorship, self-censorship by Internet companies remained the primary means for authorities to restrict speech online. All Web sites are required to be licensed by, or registered with, the Ministry of Information Industry and all Internet content providers inside the country faced the potential suspension of their licenses for failing to adequately monitor users of e-mail, chat rooms, and instant messaging services. The Internet Society of China, a group composed of private and state-run Internet companies, government offices, and academic institutions, cosponsored a Web site, China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (ciirc.china.cn), which invited members of the public to report illegal online activity. Users were able to use the site to report crimes such as pornography, fraud and gambling, but also "attacks on the party and government." Self-censorship by blog-hosting services intensified in the weeks before and during the Olympic Games.
An October report by the OpenNet Initiative Asia and the Information Warfare Monitor revealed that TOM-Skype, a Chinese version of the Skype Internet communication software, was logging and saving user messages on to TOM-Skype servers based on the presence of sensitive key words, such as "Communist Party," "Falun Gong," and "Taiwan independence." In response to the report, Skype President Josh Silverman stated that while Skype's Chinese partner, TOM Online, monitored and blocked certain messages in accordance with Chinese law, the logging and storage of such messages was conducted without Skype's knowledge.
In January provisions went into effect reiterating licensing requirements for audio- and video-hosting Web sites, requiring them to be state owned or state controlled. In March the government reported the results of the two-month crackdown on audio and video, as well as online map and geographical information Web sites, reporting that it shut down 25 video Web sites and warned 32 others for, among other things, failing to have the proper license or "endangering the security and interest of the state." The government also reported that most of the 10,000 Web sites that provided online maps did so without approval and were subject to closure. In April the government began a year-long campaign to remove "illegal" maps from the Internet, including those that label Taiwan as a country or fail to note the government's territorial claims in the South China Seas, the Diaoyu Island, and the Chiwei Islands.
During the year authorities continued to jail numerous Internet writers for peaceful expression of political views. For example on June 5, authorities in Shanghai detained Feng Zhenghu, a rights defender, online writer, and freelance journalist, on suspicion of "intentionally disturbing public order." The charges came after Feng published and distributed a list of wrongful convictions handed down by Shanghai courts, along with other writings. Feng was released June 15. On June 27, Sun Lin, a reporter for the foreign-based Web site Boxun, was sentenced to four years in prison for creating social unrest. Sun and his wife He Fang were arrested in May 2007 after Sun wrote articles on sensitive subjects, including crime and police brutality. He Fang was also charged and given a suspended sentence. In July Internet writer Du Daobin was rearrested and ordered to serve the remaining two years of a previously suspended sentence for "inciting subversion of state power." On July 5, Shanghai PSB officers traveled to Suzhou to arrest 23-year-old blogger Jia Xiaoyin, who later was charged with libel for "spreading rumors" that Yang Jia's killing of six Shanghai police officers July 1 was "justifiable homicide" because police allegedly had tortured Yang (see section 1.a). Jia's parents were not notified of his arrest until mid-October. At year's end he was awaiting trial. In May Chen Daojun, an Internet writer and environmental activist based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province was arrested, and on November 21 he was sentenced to three years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power." Chen was arrested after he participated in an environmental protest and posted articles online supportive of Tibetan demonstrators. According to Chen's lawyer, three of his articles were submitted as evidence that he had attacked the CCP.
According to the PEN American Center, persons who remained in prison as a result of their online writings and activities included: Zhu Yufu (who was sentenced to two additional years in prison), Guo Qizhen, Jin Haike, Kong Youping, Li Zhi, Lu Zengqi, Ning Xianhua, Tao Haidong, Wu Yilong, Xu Wei, Yan Zhengxue, Yang Tongyan, Yang Zili, Yuan Qiuyan, Zeng Hongling, Zhang Jianhong (aka "Li Hong"), Zhang Honghai, Zhang Lin, and Zheng Yichun.
Regulations prohibit a broad range of activities that authorities interpret as subversive or slanderous to the state. Internet Service Providers were instructed to use only domestic media news postings, to record information useful for tracking users and their viewing habits, to install software capable of copying e-mails, and to end immediately transmission of so-called subversive material.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
The government did not respect academic freedom and increased restrictions on political and social discourse at colleges, universities, and research institutes during the period leading up to and during the Olympics. Scholars and researchers reported varying degrees of control regarding issues they could examine and conclusions they could draw. There were reports that academics who advocated political reform were discouraged from attending academic conferences in the run-up to the Olympics. Others were urged by their schools to keep a low profile and not publish during the Olympics. Instructors were not allowed to raise certain topics in class, such as the 1989 suppression of the Tiananmen protesters. In July the General Administration of Press and Publication banned the book The Real DPRK by writer Yu Yonglie, reportedly in response to complaints from the government of North Korea.
Authorities canceled university conferences involving foreign and domestic academics on short notice when they deemed the topics too sensitive. Information outreach, educational exchanges, and other cultural and public diplomacy programs organized by foreign governments occasionally were subject to government interference. Foreign experts invited to participate in foreign government-sponsored programs on certain topics were denied visas. During the year the government imposed new restrictions on cultural expression and banned artists it deemed controversial. In November authorities banned the album "Chinese Democracy" by the band Guns N'Roses, both because of the album title and song lyrics. In March, according to media reports, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) issued orders to television stations and print media to pull all advertising featuring the actress Tang Wei, allegedly because of Tang's work in the film Lust, Caution, which some officials deemed unpatriotic. In February the General Administration of Press and Publications announced a ban on the sale of horror movie videos. In January SARFT banned the film Lost in Beijing and also barred the film's producer from working in the film industry for two years. Prior to the Olympics, customs officials seized a painting by New York-based artist Zhang Hongtu because officials disliked the painting's portrayal of the Olympic "Bird's Nest" stadium.
The government continued to use political attitudes and affiliations as criteria for selecting persons for the few government-sponsored study abroad programs but did not impose such restrictions on privately sponsored students. The government and the party controlled the appointment of high-level officials at universities. While party membership was not always a requirement to obtain a tenured faculty position, scholars without party affiliation often had fewer chances for promotion.
Researchers residing abroad also were subject to sanctions, including denial of visas, from the authorities when their work did not meet with official approval. For example, during the year some scholars who contributed to the 2004 book Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland reported subsequent difficulty obtaining visas.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Freedom of Assembly
The law provides for freedom of peaceful assembly; however, the government severely restricted this right in practice. The law stipulates that such activities may not challenge "party leadership" or infringe upon the "interests of the state." Protests against the political system or national leaders were prohibited. Authorities denied permits and quickly suppressed demonstrations involving expression of dissenting political views.
All concerts, sports events, exercise classes, or other meetings of more than 200 persons require approval from public security authorities. Although peaceful protests are legal, in practice police rarely granted approval. Despite restrictions, during the year there were many demonstrations, but those with political or social themes were broken up quickly, sometimes with excessive force. Social inequalities and uneven economic development, combined with dissatisfaction over widespread official corruption, increased social unrest. As in past years, the vast majority of demonstrations concerned land disputes, housing issues, industrial, environmental, and labor matters, government corruption, taxation, and other economic and social concerns. Others were provoked by accidents or related to personal petition, administrative litigation, and other legal processes.
On June 28, an estimated 30,000 persons rioted and set fire to government buildings and vehicles in Weng'an, Guizhou Province, after a female middle school student died under mysterious circumstances. On July 19, 400 rubber farmers clashed with police in Menglian County, Yunnan Province. Police fired plastic bullets at the rioters and state media reported two deaths and 54 persons injured, including 41 police officers.
Beijing Olympic organizers designated three parks as special protest zones during the August 8-24 Olympic Games. However, the Beijing PSB did not approve a single application to stage a demonstration, although reportedly 77 persons applied. At least six of those who applied to use the protest zones later were detained and several were returned forcibly to their home provinces. Two elderly women who applied were administratively sentenced to one year of RTL, although authorities later reportedly rescinded these sentences.
Police detained foreign citizens attempting to demonstrate near the Olympic Village or on Tiananmen Square. Most foreign demonstrators were expelled from the country within 24 hours.
During the Olympics Beijing-based dissidents were forced to leave the city, placed under house arrest, or subjected to 24-hour police surveillance. Many reported that in the weeks leading up to the opening ceremony, they were visited by state security officials who warned them to keep a low profile. Some dissidents were also warned against granting media interviews.
Persons petitioning the government continued to face restrictions on their rights to assemble and raise grievances. Most petitions mentioned grievances about land, housing, entitlements, the environment, or corruption. Most petitioners sought to present their complaints at national and provincial "letters and visits" offices.
Efforts to rid Beijing of petitioners resulted in heightened harassment, detention, incarceration, and restrictions on rights to assemble and raise grievances. During the year police in Beijing stepped up a campaign to rid the capital of petitioners before the Olympics. As the Olympics approached, Beijing hotels reportedly were pressured by police not to rent rooms to petitioners. Police from provinces across the country dispatched officers to the capital to apprehend petitioners from their jurisdictions. During the Olympics police cars from numerous provinces were seen near the offices of the State Bureau of Letters and Calls, the primary government agency responsible for receiving petitions. Police were also stationed outside the Beijing municipal letters and calls office. In December the Beijing News newspaper reported that authorities in Xintai, Shandong Province, had been abducting petitioners and confining them to mental hospitals and that some petitioners were reportedly force fed drugs. Officials from Nanyang City, Henan Province, reportedly operated a "black" or illegal jail in Beijing to detain Nanyang petitioners arriving in the capital to press grievances for property claims, police brutality, and official corruption. An official at the "black jail" reportedly stated that the detention site operated with central government permission.
Although regulations banned retaliation against petitioners, reports of retaliation continued. This was partly due to incentives provided to local officials by the central government to prevent petitioners in their regions from raising complaints to higher levels. Incentives included provincial cadre evaluations based in part on the number of petitions from their provinces. This initiative aimed to encourage local and provincial officials to resolve legitimate complaints but also resulted in local officials sending security personnel to Beijing and forcibly returning the petitioners to their home provinces. Such detentions occurred before and after the enactment of the new regulations and often went unrecorded.
The law provides for freedom of association, but the government restricted this right in practice. CCP policy and government regulations require that all professional, social, and economic organizations officially register with, and be approved by, the government. In practice these regulations prevented the formation of truly autonomous political, human rights, religious, spiritual, labor, and other organizations that might challenge government authority.
The government maintained tight controls over civil society organizations and in recent years heightened legal restraints and surveillance aimed at controlling them, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics. A government task force aimed at blocking NGOs involved in social, political and charitable activities, and groups dedicated to combating discrimination against women, persons with disabilities, and minorities from fomenting political change.
To register, an NGO must find a government agency to serve as its organizational sponsor, have a registered office, and hold a minimum amount of funds. Some organizations with social or educational purposes that previously had been registered as private or for-profit businesses reportedly were requested to find a government sponsor and reregister as NGOs during the year. Although registered organizations all came under some degree of government control, some NGOs were still able to operate with some degree of independence.
The number of NGOs continued to grow, despite tight restrictions and regulations. According to official statistics, by the end of 2007 there were 387,000 registered NGOs, a 9.3 percent increase from 2006. NGOs existed under a variety of formal and informal guises, including national mass organizations created and funded by the CCP. The lack of legal registration created numerous logistical challenges for NGOs, including difficulty opening bank accounts, hiring workers, and renting office space. To register, private NGOs often had to partner with government agencies, while other NGOs chose to register as commercial consulting companies, which allowed them to obtain legal recognition at the cost of forgoing tax-free status. Security authorities routinely warned domestic NGOs, regardless of their registration status, not to accept donations from the National Endowment for Democracy and international organizations deemed sensitive by the government. Authorities supported the growth of some NGOs that focused on social problems, such as poverty alleviation and disaster relief, but authorities remained concerned that these organizations might emerge as a source of political opposition among disgruntled citizens. Several NGOs working in Tibetan areas were forced to delay some activities following the outbreak of riots in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities in March.
No laws or regulations specifically govern the formation of political parties. But the CDP remained banned, and the government continued to monitor, detain, and imprison current and former CDP members.
c. Freedom of Religion
The constitution and laws provide for freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe, although the constitution only protects religious activities defined as "normal." The government sought to restrict legal religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of the activity of both registered and unregistered religious groups, including house churches. To be considered legal, religious groups must register with a government-affiliated patriotic religious association (PRA) associated with one of the five recognized religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. The PRAs supervised the activities of each of these religious groups and liaised with government religious affairs authorities charged with monitoring religious activity. The government tried to control and regulate religious groups, particularly unregistered groups, and repression and harassment of unregistered religious groups intensified in the run-up to the Olympics. Nonetheless, freedom to participate in religious activities continued to increase in many areas. Religious activity grew not only among the five main religions, but also among the Eastern Orthodox Church and folk religions.
The government's repression of religious freedom intensified in Tibetan areas and in the XUAR. Authorities reportedly requested that some house church groups in Beijing, including those with large congregations, those that were high-profile, or those located near Olympic venues, suspend meetings during the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, although few groups reported that this request was enforced. Authorities reportedly asked some Beijing area house church leaders to sign a written agreement not to meet, although there were no confirmed instances in which any church leaders were required to sign the document. Beijing authorities reportedly closed or requested a very small number of unregistered groups to stop meeting during the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, although at least one large group ignored the request with impunity. Officials detained and interrogated several foreigners about their religious activities and in several cases alleged that the foreigners had engaged in "illegal religious activities" and cancelled their visas. Officials in the XUAR, the TAR, and other Tibetan areas tightly controlled religious activity. Followers of Tibetan Buddhism, including those in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region and most Tibetan autonomous areas, faced more restrictions on their religious practice and ability to organize than Buddhists in other parts of the country. The "patriotic education" campaigns in the TAR and other Tibetan regions, which often required monks and nuns to sign statements denouncing the Dalai Lama, and other new restrictions on religious freedom were major factors that led monks and nuns to mount peaceful protests at a number of monasteries on March 10. The protests and subsequent security response gave way to violence in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities by March 14 and 15. "Underground" Roman Catholic clergy faced repression. The government continued to repress groups that it designated as "cults," which included several Christian groups and Falun Gong.
Government officials stated that the five PRAs were the only groups registered as religious organizations under the Regulations on Social Organizations, which are administered by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and cross-referenced under the regulations on religious affairs (RRA). The RRA states that all religious venues are required to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) or its provincial or local offices, which are known as Religious Affairs Bureaus (RABs). SARA and the RABs were responsible for monitoring and judging whether religious activity was "normal" and therefore lawful. SARA and the CCP's United Front Work Department provided policy guidance and supervision over implementation of government regulations on religious activity.
The RRA and supplementary regulations issued between 2005 and 2007 provide some legal advantages and protections for activities in registered religious venues. Inability to register under the RRA deprived groups of the ability to hold funds in their own names and enter lease contracts. Vague language and inconsistent implementation limited the effectiveness of these regulations even for registered groups, and the legal protections remain limited in scope, conditioned on government approval, and applicable only to state-sanctioned religions.
The law requires religious groups to register religious venues, although many thousands of religious groups did not register. Spiritual activities in religious venues that have not registered may be considered illegal and participants can be punished. Government officials stated that private homes where family and friends gather to study the Bible would not be required to register. Clergy did not have to be approved by the government but had to be reported to the government after being selected pursuant to the rules of the relevant government-affiliated religious association. Reports of government pressure on religious groups to register or to come under the supervision of official religious organizations continued during the year. Various unofficial groups reported that authorities refused them registration without explanation or that they were denied registration because of their failure to affiliate with a PRA or to employ PRA-approved clergy. The government acknowledged that only those groups associated with a PRA would be allowed to register a religious venue. Some religious groups were reluctant to comply with the regulations out of principled opposition to state control of religion. In the past some groups expressed a fear of adverse consequences if they revealed, as required, the names and addresses of church leaders and members. Members of some house church groups reported that they did not want to become a registered meeting point or venue of a state-approved church, because they would not be able to administer communion or baptism and would not be able to choose their own clergy.
Local authorities' handling of unregistered Protestant groups varied in different regions of the country. In some regions unregistered groups or house churches with hundreds of members met openly, with the full knowledge of local authorities, who characterized the meetings as informal gatherings. In other areas meetings of more than a handful of family members and friends were strictly proscribed. Leaders of unauthorized groups were sometimes the target of abuse. Authorities disrupted church meetings and retreats; detained, beat, and harassed leaders and church members; and confiscated the personal property of church leaders and members. Unregistered groups were more likely to encounter difficulties when their membership was large or when they forged links with other unregistered groups or foreign organizations. Unregistered groups also faced increased scrutiny from authorities when they engaged in discussions of legal or political activism.
In June several prominent Christians were harassed, placed under surveillance, restricted to their homes, or forced to leave Beijing during the visit of a delegation of foreign officials. These individuals included religious freedom attorneys Li Baiguang and Li Heping, Christian writer Yu Jie, and pastor Zhang Mingxuan and his wife. Zhang Mingxuan was detained on and off for the last six months of the year, including during the Olympics and during a celebration to commemorate the third anniversary of the China House Church Alliance (CHCA). Security officials in Beijing also severely beat his sons, Zhang Jian and Zhang Chuang, and detained Zhang's wife and sister-in-law. Authorities also pressed Zhang to sign a document agreeing to abolish the CHCA, and when Zhang refused and attempted to file an administrative statement of complaint, the court refused to accept his case.
During the year there were numerous reports of detention and harassment of unregistered Protestant groups. On November 5, pastor Lou Yuanqi was tried for using superstition in violation of the criminal law. He was accused of organizing people in his residence to preach religion, contacting overseas individuals and organizations, and providing them with false information to influence international opinion.
On June 24, the government extended the detention of Beijing bookstore owner Shi Weihan, who was taken into police custody on March 19, for two months. Shi was initially detained in November 2007 for the illegal publication of Bibles and Christian literature, but authorities released him in January due to "insufficient evidence." PSB officials reportedly denied him contact with his family since March, and Shi was not granted access to his lawyer until April.
On May 27, the Kashgar District Intermediate People's Court, XUAR, tried Alimujiang Yimiti, a Uighur Christian employed by a foreign-owned company, on the charge of "endangering national security." The court sent Yimiti's case back to prosecutors due to "insufficient evidence," yet reportedly had not released him at year's end. Yimiti had been arrested in January on charges of engaging in illegal religious activities "in the name of business" and preaching Christianity to ethnic Uighurs. On May 11, authorities disrupted a worship service at the unregistered Shouwang Church in Beijing and ordered church members to stop meeting prior to the Olympics. However, Shouwang Church continued to meet before and during the Olympics and the government did not interfere again. Officials had previously rejected multiple attempts by the church to register.
The government permitted registered and unregistered religious groups to play a larger role in providing social services. Some groups were permitted to provide assistance in response to natural disasters, including the May earthquake in Sichuan Province.
Harassment of unregistered Catholic bishops, priests, and laypersons continued, including government surveillance and detentions. On August 24, officials reportedly detained 74-year-old Jia Zhiguo, an underground bishop of the diocese of Zhengding, Hebei Province. There was no new information about unregistered Bishop Su Zhimin, who remained unaccounted for since his reported detention in 1997.
The Catholic Patriotic Association did not recognize the authority of the Holy See to appoint bishops. However, it allowed the Vatican's discreet input in selecting some bishops.
The distinction between the official Catholic Church, which the government controlled politically, and the unregistered Catholic Church has blurred over time. In some official Catholic churches, clerics led prayers for the pope, and pictures of the pope were displayed. An estimated 90 percent of official Catholic bishops have reconciled with the Vatican. Likewise, the large majority of Catholic bishops appointed by the government have received official approval from the Vatican through "apostolic mandates."
Traditional folk religions, such as Fujian Province's "Mazu Cult," were still practiced in some locations. They were tolerated to varying degrees, often seen as loose affiliates of Taoism or as ethnic minority cultural practices. However, the government labeled folk religions "feudal superstition" and sometimes repressed them. An administrative division at SARA was responsible for the activities of folk religions and religions outside the main five, including the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Buddhists made up the largest body of organized religious believers. The traditional practice of Buddhism continued to expand among citizens in many parts of the country. However, in Tibetan areas, the level of repression of Tibetan Buddhists increased significantly during the year, especially following the outbreak of protests across the Tibetan Plateau in the spring.
Press and NGO reports suggested that continued tight government controls on religious practices and places of worship in Tibetan areas was a major factor contributing to the widespread protests that began in March. Although authorities permitted many traditional practices and public manifestations of belief, they promptly and forcibly suppressed activities they viewed as vehicles for political dissent or advocacy of Tibetan independence, including worshipping the Dalai Lama.
Following violent protests in Lhasa on March 14 and 15, authorities locked down many monasteries across Tibetan areas and detained and physically abused an unknown number of monks and nuns, or expelled them from their monastery. The government expanded and intensified patriotic education campaigns in monasteries and nunneries, prompting additional rounds of protests through June. At year's end some of the monasteries in Tibetan areas remained closed. Following the outbreak of demonstrations in Tibetan areas in March, government officials and representatives of the Dalai Lama held three rounds of discussions in May, July, and November, with no progress.
The government tightly controlled the practice of Islam, and official repression of Uighur Muslims in the XUAR increased. Regulations restricting Muslims' religious activity, teaching, and places of worship continued to be implemented forcefully in the XUAR. Measures to tighten control over religion in XUAR included increasing surveillance of mosques, religious leaders, and practitioners; detaining and arresting persons engaged in unauthorized religious activities; curbing illegal scripture readings; and increasing accountability among implementing officials. On August 5, authorities in Kashgar reportedly issued accountability measures to local officials responsible for high-level surveillance of religious activity in the region. Also in August in Kashgar, authorities called for enhancing controls of groups that included religious figures as part of broader CCP measures of "prevention" and "attack." Authorities in Hotan reportedly restricted women from wearing head coverings (Hijab) in government offices. Coupled with news of a proposed government ban on headscarves, this led to large protests in March. In addition some men were required to shave their beards.
XUAR authorities maintained the most severe legal restrictions in the country on children's right to practice religion. Authorities continued to prohibit the teaching of Islam outside the home to elementary-and middle-school-age children in some areas, and children under the age of 18 were prohibited from entering mosques. In August authorities reportedly forced the return of Uighur children studying religion in another province and detained them in the XUAR for engaging in "illegal religious activities."
According to procuratorial officials, XUAR authorities arrested nearly 1,300 persons on state security charges during the first 11 months of the year. Authorities approved the prosecution of 1,154 of these individuals for committing one or more of the "three evils" of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. This was a dramatic increase from 2007, when the number of individuals arrested for state security crimes nationwide was 744.
Authorities reserved the right to censor imams' sermons, and imams were urged to emphasize the damage caused to Islam by terrorist acts in the name of the religion. Certain Muslim leaders received particularly harsh treatment. Authorities in some areas conducted monthly political study sessions for religious personnel, which, according to one CCP official who took part in a study session, called for "creatively interpreting and improving" religious doctrine. Authorities also reportedly tried to restrict Muslims' opportunities to study religion overseas. The China Islamic Conference required religious personnel to study "new collected sermons" compiled by an Islamic Association of China (IAC) committee, including messages on patriotism and unity aimed at building a "socialist harmonious society." In contrast to the heavy-handed approach to Muslims in the XUAR, officials in Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Yunnan Provinces did not interfere heavily in Muslims' activities.
In addition to the restrictions on practicing religion placed on party members and government officials throughout the country, teachers, professors, and university students in the XUAR were sometimes not allowed to practice religion openly. Authorities imposed restrictions on state employees' observance of Ramadan and prohibitions on closing restaurants during periods of fasting. A local party secretary, Zhang Zhengrong, reportedly called on schools to strengthen propaganda education during Ramadan and to put a stop to activities including fasting and professing a religion. The Kashgar Teachers College reportedly implemented a series of measures to prevent students from observing Ramadan, including imposing communal meals and requiring students to obtain permission to leave campus. School authorities also made students gather for a school assembly at a time of day coinciding with Friday prayers.
The government took steps to prevent Muslims from traveling on unauthorized pilgrimages. The government continued to enforce a policy barring Muslims from obtaining hajj visas outside of China. The government published banners and slogans discouraging hajj pilgrimages outside those organized by the IAC. Foreign media reported that XUAR officials confiscated the passports of Uighur Muslims in some areas to prevent unauthorized hajj pilgrimages. Government officials in some areas also arbitrarily detained Muslims to prevent them from going on the hajj, required them to show that their hajj travel funds were not borrowed from other sources, required them to pay a large deposit to retrieve their passports for overseas travel, and required them to pass a health test.
Official reports noted that 11,900 Muslims traveled to Mecca during the year for the hajj pilgrimage. This figure did not include participants who were not organized by the government, for whom there were no official estimates but who numbered in the thousands in previous years.
The law does not prohibit religious believers from holding public office; however, party membership is required for almost all high-level positions in government, state-owned businesses, and many official organizations.
Despite regulations encouraging officials to be atheists, some party officials engaged in religious activity, most commonly Buddhism or a folk religion but also Christianity. The NPC included several religious representatives. Religious groups also were represented in the CPPCC, an advisory forum for "multiparty" cooperation and consultation led by the CCP, and in local and provincial governments. CPPCC Standing Committee vice chairmen included Pagbalha Geleg Namgyal, a Tibetan reincarnate lama, and Cao Shengjie, president of the China Christian Council.
The authorities continued a general crackdown on groups considered to be "cults." These "cults" included not only Falun Gong and various traditional Chinese meditation and exercise groups (known collectively as qigong groups), but also religious groups that authorities accused of preaching beliefs outside the bounds of officially approved doctrine.
Actions against members of such groups continued during the year. Police also continued efforts to close down the underground evangelical group Shouters, an offshoot of a pre-1949 indigenous Protestant group. Government action against the South China Church continued.
Public Falun Gong activity in the country remained negligible, and practitioners based abroad reported that the government's crackdown against the group continued. In the past the mere belief in the discipline (even without any public practice of its tenets) sometimes was sufficient grounds for practitioners to receive punishments ranging from loss of employment to imprisonment. Falun Gong sources estimated that since 1999 at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been sentenced to prison, more than 100,000 practitioners have been sentenced to RTL, and almost 3,000 have died from torture while in custody. Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in RTL camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher.
Over the past several years, Falun Gong members identified by the government as "core leaders" were singled out for particularly harsh treatment. More than a dozen Falun Gong members were sentenced to prison for the crime of "endangering state security," but the great majority of Falun Gong members convicted by the courts since 1999 were sentenced to prison for "organizing or using a sect to undermine the implementation of the law," a less serious offense. Most practitioners, however, were punished administratively. Some practitioners were sentenced to RTL. Some Falun Gong members were sent to "legal education" centers specifically established to "rehabilitate" practitioners who refused to recant publicly their belief voluntarily after their release from RTL camps. Government officials denied the existence of such "legal education" centers. In addition hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners were confined to mental hospitals, according to overseas groups.
Police continued to detain current and former Falun Gong practitioners and used possession of Falun Gong material as a pretext for arresting political activists. The government continued its use of high-pressure tactics and mandatory anti-Falun Gong study sessions to force practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. Even practitioners who had not protested or made other public demonstrations of belief reportedly were forced to attend anti-Falun Gong classes or were sent directly to RTL camps. These tactics reportedly resulted in large numbers of practitioners signing pledges to renounce the movement.
The government supported atheism in schools. Authorities in many regions barred school-age children from attending religious services at mosques, temples, or churches and prevented them from receiving religious education outside the home.
Official religious organizations administered local religious schools, seminaries, and institutes to train priests, ministers, imams, Islamic scholars, and Buddhist monks. Students who attended these institutes had to demonstrate "political reliability," and all graduates had to pass an examination on their political, as well as theological, knowledge to qualify for the clergy. The government permitted registered religions to train clergy and allowed an increasing number of Catholic and Protestant seminarians, Muslim clerics, and Buddhist clergy to go abroad for additional religious studies, but some religion students had difficulty getting passports or obtaining approval to study abroad. In most cases foreign organizations provided funding for such training programs.
Although Bibles and other religious texts were available in most parts of the country, the government tightly regulated the publication of religious texts and prohibited individuals from printing religious material.
In 2007, XUAR authorities also confiscated 25,000 illegal religious publications. The Xinjiang People's Publication House was the only publisher officially permitted to print Muslim literature.
The supply of Bibles was adequate in most parts of the country, but some members of underground churches complained that the supply and distribution of Bibles, especially in rural locations, was inadequate. Individuals could not order Bibles directly from publishing houses. Customs officials continued to monitor for the "smuggling" of religious materials into the country. Authorities in a few areas reportedly sometimes confiscated Bibles, Korans, and other religious material. In August Kunming officials confiscated 315 Bibles that four foreign citizens imported into the country. The Bibles were returned when the visitors departed China.
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were no reports of societal abuses of religious practitioners or anti-Semitic acts during the year. The government does not recognize Judaism as an ethnicity or religion.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2008 International Religious Freedom Report at www.state.gov/g/drl/irf/rpt.
d. Freedom of Movement, Internally Displaced Persons, Protection of Refugees, and Stateless Persons
The law provides for freedom of movement within the country, foreign travel, emigration and repatriation; however, the government generally did not respect their rights in practice. Authorities heightened restrictions periodically, particularly curtailing the movement of individuals deemed politically sensitive before key anniversaries and visits of foreign dignitaries, and to forestall demonstrations. Freedom of movement was extremely limited in the TAR and other Tibetan areas following the protests and unrest in March. Police checkpoints were established in most counties and on roads leading into many towns, as well as within major cities such as Lhasa. The government continued to consider all North Koreans "economic migrants" rather than refugees, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continued to have limited access to North Korean refugees inside China. The lack of access to UNHCR-supported durable solutions and options, as well as constant fear of forced repatriation by authorities, left North Korean refugees vulnerable to human traffickers. Even refugees under UNCHR care were subjected to harassment and restrictions by authorities.
Although the government maintained restrictions on the freedom to change one's workplace or residence, the national household registration system (hukou) continued to change, and the ability of most citizens to move within the country to work and live continued to expand. Rural residents continued to migrate to the cities, where the per capita disposable income was more than four times the rural per capita income, but many could not officially change their residence or workplace within the country. Most cities had annual quotas for the number of new temporary residence permits that could be issued, and all workers, including university graduates, had to compete for a limited number of such permits. It was particularly difficult for peasants from rural areas to obtain household registration in more economically developed urban areas.
The household registration system added to the difficulties rural residents faced even after they relocated to urban areas and found employment. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) reported that there were approximately 230 million migrant workers from rural areas engaged in wage employment in urban areas. These economic migrants lacked official residence status in cities, and it was difficult for them to gain full access to social services, including education, despite laws, regulations, and programs meant to address their needs. Furthermore, law and society generally limited migrant workers to types of work considered least desirable by local residents, and such workers had little recourse when subject to abuse by employers and officials. Some major cities maintained programs to provide migrant workers and their children access to public education and other social services free of charge, but migrants in some locations reported that it was difficult to qualify for these benefits in practice.
Under the "staying at prison employment" system applicable to recidivists incarcerated in RTL camps, authorities denied certain persons permission to return to their homes after serving their sentences. Some released or paroled prisoners returned home but were not permitted freedom of movement.
The government permitted legal emigration and foreign travel for most citizens. There were reports that some academics faced travel restrictions around the year's sensitive anniversaries, particularly the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Olympics. Most citizens could obtain passports, although those whom the government deemed threats, including religious leaders, political dissidents, and ethnic minorities were refused passports or otherwise prevented from traveling overseas. In March prominent human rights lawyer Teng Biao told reporters that authorities seized his passport. On May 14, the Chaoyang People's Court in Beijing upheld an administrative decision that barred Yuan Weijing, the wife of lawyer Chen Guangcheng, from leaving the country in August 2007 to receive an award on her imprisoned husband's behalf. In July Tsering Woeser, a well-known Tibetan writer, filed a lawsuit against the government for denying her a passport for more than three years.
The law neither provides for a citizen's right to repatriate nor otherwise addresses exile. The government continued to refuse reentry to numerous citizens who were considered dissidents, Falun Gong activists, or troublemakers. Although some dissidents living abroad were allowed to return, dissidents released on medical parole and allowed to leave the country often were effectively exiled. Activists residing abroad were imprisoned upon their return to the country.
Some 2,445 Tibetans reportedly fled Tibetan areas for India in 2006, most of them teenagers and novice monks and nuns seeking religious education. Police vowed to "strike hard" against such border crossings as part of a campaign against "separatists." The government continued to try to prevent many Tibetans from leaving and detained many who were apprehended in flight (see Tibet Addendum). By year's end Tibetan arrivals in the UNHCR reception center in Kathmandu were down to 550, a 75 percent decrease from 2,164 in 2007. The biggest disparities in arrivals occurred during the heavily trafficked fall and winter months when border security historically has been weak. Decreased flows were attributed to tightened security across Tibet, along the border and inland, in the wake of the Lhasa crackdown in March.
Although the country is a signatory of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, the law does not provide for the granting of refugee or asylum status. The government largely cooperated with the UNHCR when dealing with the resettlement of ethnic Han Chinese or ethnic minorities from Vietnam and Laos resident in the country. During the year the government and UNHCR continued ongoing discussions concerning the granting of citizenship to these residents. However, the government continued to deny the UNHCR permission to operate along its northeastern border with North Korea.
In practice the government did not provide protection against the expulsion or return of refugees to countries where their lives or freedom would be threatened. During the year, reportedly in preparation for the Olympics, authorities stepped up efforts to locate, detain, and forcibly return North Koreans to North Korea, where many faced persecution and some may have been executed. Police in Yanbian reportedly offered an award of RMB 2,000 ($292) to RMB 2,700 ($395) for turning over North Koreans. Some North Koreans were permitted to travel to third countries after they entered diplomatic compounds in the country. The intensified crackdown against North Korean refugees reportedly extended to harassment of religious communities along the border. The undocumented children of some North Korean asylum seekers and of mixed couples (i.e., one Chinese parent and one North Korean parent) reportedly did not have access to health care and other social services. The government also arrested and detained individuals who provided food, shelter, transportation, and other assistance to North Koreans. According to reports, some activists or brokers detained for assisting North Koreans were charged with human smuggling, and in some cases the North Koreans were forcibly returned to North Korea. There were also reports that North Korean agents operated clandestinely within the country to forcibly repatriate North Korean citizens.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
The law does not provide citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens cannot freely choose or change the laws and officials that govern them. The CCP continued to control appointments to positions of political power.
Elections and Political Participation
According to the law, the NPC is the highest organ of state power. Formally the NPC, composed of 2,987 deputies, elects president and vice president, the premier and vice premiers, and the chairman of the State Central Military Commission. In practice the NPC Standing Committee, which is composed of 175 members, oversaw these elections and determined the agenda and procedure for the NPC. The NPC Standing Committee remained under the direct authority of the CCP's nine-member Politburo Standing Committee. Despite its broad authority under the state constitution, the NPC does not have power to set policy independently or remove political leaders without the party's approval. At the March NPC plenary session, Hu Jintao was reelected to a five-year term as president; Xi Jinping was elected vice president.
All of the country's approximately one million villages were expected to hold competitive, direct elections for members of local village committees, which were subgovernment organizations. The direct election of officials by ordinary citizens remained narrow in scope and strictly confined to the local level. The government estimated that one-third of all elections had serious procedural flaws. Corruption, vote buying, and interference by township-level and party officials continued to be problems. The law permits each voter to cast proxy votes for up to three other voters.
Although the law includes a provision for recalling village committee members, local implementing regulations proved sufficiently vague or cumbersome so as to prevent most attempted recalls. In cases of alleged corruption, a handful of local legislative deputies, but not village heads, were recalled.
The election law governs legislative bodies at all levels. Under this law, citizens have the opportunity to vote for local people's congress representatives at the county level and below, although in most cases the nomination of candidates in those elections was strictly controlled by the party. Legislators selected people's congress delegates above the county level. For example, provincial-level people's congresses selected delegates to the NPC. Local CCP secretaries generally served concurrently as the head of the local people's congress, thus strengthening party control over legislatures.
In 2006 and 2007 independent candidates not selected by local authorities ran or attempted to run in CPC elections held across the country. While a small number of independents were elected in some areas, local officials reportedly exerted manipulation and pressure to prevent others from winning. Local police detained and monitored independent candidates, seized campaign materials, and intimidated supporters, family members, and friends. Some activists also alleged that vote counts were rigged to ensure defeat.
Although the CCP controlled appointments of officials to government and party positions at all levels, some township, county, and provincial elections featured experiments with increased competition, including self-nomination of candidates, campaign speeches by candidates, public vetting of nominees, and a two-tiered indirect election system. State-run media reported in April that 16 candidates used a live television debate format while running for four Nanjing municipal government positions. Each of the candidates, including a nonparty member, gave a speech and answered questions. A studio audience of more than 240 commented and voted on candidates. Candidates with the most votes were recommended to the Nanjing Municipal Party Committee for final selection.
Official statements asserted that "the political party system China has adopted is multiparty cooperation and political consultation under" the CCP leadership. However, the CCP retained a monopoly on political power and forbade the creation of new political parties. The government recognized nine parties founded prior to 1949, but not the CDP, an opposition party founded in 1998 and subsequently declared illegal. Dozens of CDP leaders, activists, and members have been arrested, detained, or confined. One of the CDP's founders, Qin Yongmin, who was imprisoned in 1998, remained in prison at year's end, as did others connected with a 2002 open letter calling for political reform and reappraisal of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. More than 30 current or former CDP members reportedly remained imprisoned or held in RTL camps, including Chen Shuqing, Zhang Lin, Sang Jiancheng, He Depu, Yang Tianshui, Wang Rongqing, and Jiang Lijun.
The government placed no special restrictions on the participation of women or minority groups in the political process. However, women held few positions of significant influence in the CCP or government structure. There was one female member of the CCP's 25-member Politburo, who also concurrently served as one of five state councilors. During the year women headed three of the country's 27 ministries.
The government encouraged women to exercise their right to vote in village committee elections and to stand for those elections, although only a small fraction of elected members were women. In many locations, a seat on the village committee was reserved for a woman, who was usually given responsibility for family planning.
Minorities, who made up approximately 8.4 percent of the population, constituted 13.9 percent of the NPC. All of the country's 55 officially recognized minority groups were represented in the NPC membership. The 17th Communist Party Congress elected 40 members of ethnic minority groups as members or alternates on the Central Committee. The only ministerial-level post held by an ethnic minority was the ethnic affairs post, and there was one ethnic minority, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, on the Politburo. Minorities held few senior party or government positions of significant influence.
Government Corruption and Transparency
Corruption remained an endemic problem. The National Audit Office in 2007 found that 56 ministerial level departments and their affiliates made unauthorized use of RMB 6.87 billion (approximately $1 billion) during the first 11 months of the year. During the year a report delivered to the NPC by the National Audit Office stated that in 2007 the office audited 53 departments at the central level and 368 affiliated organs, and that RMB 46.37 billion (approximately $6.78 billion) had been misused. Corruption plagued courts, law enforcement agencies, and other government agencies.
During the year the courts and party agencies took disciplinary action against many public and party officials. In the first five months of the year, prosecutors filed and investigated 20,294 cases of embezzlement, bribery, or dereliction of duty, down 9.6 percent from the same period in 2007. From December 2002 to June 2007, the CCP's CDIC reported that 518,484 party members were punished for breaking party discipline. From November 2007 to November, 151,000 party officials and cadres were disciplined. Of the 4,960 persons who were at or above director level, 801 were transferred to judicial organs for investigation of possible violations of law.
The government experimented with various forms of public oversight of government, including telephone hot lines and complaint centers, administrative hearings, increased opportunity for citizen observation of government proceedings, and other forms of citizen input in the local legislative process, such as hearings to discuss draft legislation. Citizens continued to file administrative lawsuits to seek legal redress against government malfeasance. According to official statistics, 101,510 administrative lawsuits were filed against the government in 2007, slightly more than in the previous year. Petitioning officials directly and outside the court system was also a common avenue used by citizens to redress grievances.
The national regulations on the disclosure of government information went into effect on May 1. The regulations seek to ensure access to government information in accordance with the law, enhance government transparency, promote law-based government administration, and foster open access to government information for use in the service of the people's productivity and livelihood in social and economic activities. According to a state council official, the regulations attempt to protect "the public's right to know, the right to participate, and the right to supervise," and seek to "curb corruption at its source, largely reducing its occurrence."
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
The government sought to maintain control over civil society groups, halt the emergence of independent NGOs, and prevent what it has called the "westernization" of the country. The government did not permit independent domestic NGOs to monitor openly or to comment on human rights conditions; existing domestic NGOs were harassed. The government tended to be suspicious of independent organizations and increased scrutiny of NGOs with links overseas. Most large NGOs were quasigovernmental, and all NGOs had to be sponsored by government agencies.
An informal network of activists around the country continued to serve as a credible source of information about many human rights violations. The information was disseminated through organizations such as the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy and the foreign-based Human Rights in China.
The government remained reluctant to accept criticism of its human rights record by other nations or international organizations. It criticized reports by international human rights monitoring groups, claiming that such reports were inaccurate and interfered with the country's internal affairs. Representatives of some international human rights organizations reported that authorities denied their visa requests or restricted the length of visas issued to them. The government-established China Society for Human Rights is an NGO whose mandate is to defend the government's human rights record. The government maintained that each country's economic, social, cultural, and historical conditions influence its approach to human rights. Many domestic and international NGOs were required to suspend meetings and other activities around the Olympics. Some foreign NGO employees reported difficulty obtaining and renewing visas during the period leading up to the Olympics.
The ICRC operated an office in Beijing, but the government did not authorize the ICRC to visit prisons. The government continued unofficial discussions on human rights and prisoner issues with a foreign-based human rights group, although the government's cooperation with the group was not as extensive as in previous years.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuse, and Trafficking in Persons
There were laws designed to protect women, children, persons with disabilities, and minorities. However, in practice some discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, and disability persisted.
Women
Rape is illegal, and some persons convicted of rape were executed. The law does not recognize expressly or exclude spousal rape. According to official statistics, 31,833 cases of rape were reported to police in 2007, down from 32,352 cases in 2006. In June media reports indicated that riots erupted in the Southwest over what was seen as a cover-up by police of a schoolgirl's rape and murder. Police arrested up to 200 protesters who claimed that police were attempting to protect the suspect of the crime, reportedly the son of a local politician. The protests became violent when it became known that the 15-year-old girl's uncle died, allegedly due to police beatings after questioning the police's conclusion that his niece had committed suicide.
Violence against women remained a significant problem. There was no national law criminalizing domestic violence, but the criminal law, marriage law, and other laws on public security provide for mediation and administrative penalties in cases of domestic violence. Critics asserted that these penalties are vague and lack specific measures for implementation.
Although the NPC amended the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights specifically to prohibit domestic violence in 2005, critics complained that the provision failed to define domestic violence. According to media reports, approximately 30 percent of families suffered from domestic violence, while 90 percent of the victims were women and children. The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) reported that it received some 300,000 letters per year complaining about general family problems, mostly involving domestic violence. In 2007 ACWF reported that it received approximately 40,000 specific complaints about domestic violence, more than double the number received in 2000. The actual incidence was believed to be higher because spousal abuse largely went unreported. ACWF also reported that approximately one-quarter of the 400,000 divorces registered each year were the result of family violence. According to experts, domestic abuse was more common in rural areas than in urban centers. An ACWF study found that only 7 percent of rural women who suffered domestic violence sought help from police.
In August a district court in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, issued a precedent-setting court order on the protection of personal safety, prohibiting a husband from intimidating or beating his wife who had tried to divorce him and who, he claimed, had not provided him with a son. A second, similar order was issued in September at a district court in Changsha, Hunan Province. The two protection orders were based on guidance issued by the SPC in May, intended for rulings on family cases involving domestic violence. Building on lessons learned at the provincial level and placing an emphasis on protection of victims, the recommendations addressed a range of issues affecting domestic violence cases, including typical behavior patterns of the offender and victim, protection of victims during trial, testimony of children, and special considerations for evidence collection, as well as effective mediation techniques to be used in such cases.
Experts pointed out that in addition to the new guidance, 25 of 33 provinces and administrative regions have adopted their own legislation to combat domestic violence. In July seven ministries, including the MPS, the Ministries of Civil Affairs and Health, as well as the ACWF issued new guidelines on the prevention and elimination of domestic violence, which lay out specific actions to be taken to raise awareness of the issue, properly handle domestic violence cases, protect victims, and provide legal assistance where needed.
The law prohibits the use of physical coercion to compel persons to submit to abortion or sterilization. However, intense pressure to meet birth limitation targets set by government regulations resulted in instances of local birth-planning officials using physical coercion to meet government goals (see section 1.f.). Such practices required the use of birth control methods (particularly intrauterine devices and female sterilization, which according to government statistics, accounted for more than 80 percent of birth control methods employed), and the abortion of certain pregnancies.
Although prostitution is illegal, experts estimated that between 1.7 million and 6 million women were involved in prostitution in the country. According to state-run media, one out of every five massage parlors in the country was involved in prostitution, with the percentage higher in cities. In December Xinhua reported that, according to Beijing's municipal health bureau, only 47 percent of Beijing's 90,000 sex workers used condoms. The report also mentioned that sexual transmission surpassed intravenous drug use as the primary method of infection, which accounted for 55 percent of all HIV transmissions in the capital.
Although the government made some efforts to crack down on the sex trade, media reports claimed that some local officials were complicit in prostitution, owned prostitution venues, or received proceeds from such businesses. Prostitution involved organized crime groups and businesspersons as well as the police and the military. According to official statistics, 94,687 cases involving prostitution were investigated by police in 2007. Courts prosecuted persons who organized or procured prostitutes, but actions to curtail prostitution had limited results.
After the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights was amended in 2005 to include a ban on sexual harassment, the number of sexual harassment complaints increased significantly. In June a court in Chengdu sentenced a manager from a high-tech firm to five months in prison for molesting a female employee, marking the first sexual harassment conviction in the country.
The constitution states "women enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life." The Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests provides for equality in ownership of property, inheritance rights, and access to education. The ACWF was the leading implementer of women's policy for the government, and the State Council's National Working Committee on Children and Women coordinated women's policy. Nonetheless, many activists and observers were concerned that the progress made by women over the past 50 years was eroding. They asserted that the government appeared to have made the pursuit of gender equality a secondary priority as it focused on economic reform and political stability.
Women continued to report that discrimination, sexual harassment, unfair dismissal, demotion, and wage discrepancies were significant problems. In 2007 the ACWF reported that female migrant workers, comprising more than 30 percent of all migrant workers in the country, faced numerous challenges in the workplace. The survey found that female migrant workers lacked legal protection (more than 50 percent had no labor contract, compared with 40 percent of male migrants), had long working hours (more than 40 percent worked nine to 10 hours a day while 24.8 percent worked more than 11 hours a day), earned low wages, and did not have access to safe and sanitary work environments. The ACWF studies also showed that 21 percent of rural women working in cities were fired after becoming pregnant or giving birth and that some women delayed motherhood for fear of losing job and promotion opportunities.
Authorities often did not enforce laws protecting the rights of women. According to legal experts, it was difficult to litigate a sex discrimination suit because the vague legal definition made it difficult to quantify damages, so very few cases were brought to court. Some observers noted that the agencies tasked with protecting women's rights tended to focus on maternity-related benefits and wrongful termination during maternity leave rather than on sex discrimination, violence against women, and sexual harassment. Women's rights advocates indicated that in rural areas women often forfeited land and property rights to their husbands in divorce proceedings. In principle rural contract law and laws protecting women's rights stipulate that women enjoy equal rights in cases of land management, but experts argued that in practice, this was rarely the case due to the complexity of the law and difficulties in its implementation.
Many employers preferred to hire men to avoid the expense of maternity leave and childcare, and some lowered the effective retirement age for female workers to 40 (the official retirement age for men was 60 and for women 55, with the exception of men and women involved in physically demanding jobs for which the retirement age was 55 and 45, respectively). In addition work units were allowed to impose an earlier mandatory retirement age for women than for men, which limited a woman's lifetime earning power and career span. Lower retirement ages also reduced pensions, which generally were based on the number of years worked. Job advertisements sometimes specified height and age requirements for women.
Women had less earning power than men, despite government policies mandating nondiscrimination in employment and occupation. MOHRSS and the local labor bureaus were responsible for ensuring enterprises complied with the labor law and the employment promotion law, each of which contains antidiscrimination provisions. Despite the existence of administrative and civil remedies for discrimination, labor law enforcement was generally lax. Lawyers explained that there were very few cases of disputes regarding alleged discrimination, as such allegations were difficult to prove.
The UN Economic and Social Council reported that less than 2 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 24 were illiterate. According to 2008 official government statistics, women comprised more than 70 percent of all illiterate persons above the age of 15. In some underdeveloped regions, the female literacy rate lagged behind the male literacy rate by 15 percent or more.
A high female suicide rate continued to be a serious problem. According to the World Bank and the World Health Organization, there were approximately 500 female suicides per day. The Beijing Psychological Crisis Study and Prevention Center reported that the suicide rate for females was three times higher than for males. Many observers believed that violence against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, the traditional preference for male children, the country's birth limitation policies, and other societal factors contributed to the high female suicide rate. Women in rural areas, where the suicide rate for women is three to four times higher than for men, were especially vulnerable.
While the gap in the education levels of men and women narrowed, differences in educational attainment remained a problem. Men continued to be overrepresented among the relatively small number of persons who received a university-level education. According to Ministry of Education statistics, in 2006 women accounted for 48 percent of undergraduate and college students, 44 percent of postgraduate students, and 34 percent of doctoral students. Women with advanced degrees reported discrimination in the hiring process as the job distribution system became more competitive and market-driven.
Children
The law prohibits maltreatment of children and provides protection for a wide range of children's rights. However, accurate statistics were difficult to obtain from the official sources, and enforcement of laws remained weak. The State Council's National Working Committee on Children and Women was tasked with carrying out policy on children. Parents must register their children in compliance with the national household registration system within one month of birth. Children not registered cannot access public services.
The law provides for nine years of compulsory education for children. However, in economically disadvantaged rural areas, many children did not attend school for the required period and some never attended at all. Public schools were not allowed to charge tuition but faced with insufficient local and central government funding, many schools continued to charge miscellaneous fees. Such fees and other school-related expenses made it difficult for poorer families and some migrant workers to send their children to school.
According to reports, the proportion of girls attending school in rural and minority areas was smaller than in cities; in rural areas 61 percent of boys and 43 percent of girls completed education higher than lower middle school. The government reported that nearly 20 million children of migrant laborers followed their parents to urban areas. Most children of migrant workers who attended school did so at schools that were unlicensed and poorly equipped.
The Law on the Protection of Juveniles forbids infanticide; however, there was evidence that the practice continued. According to the NPFPC, a handful of doctors have been charged with infanticide under this law. Female infanticide, sex-selective abortions, and the abandonment and neglect of baby girls remained problems due to the traditional preference for sons and the coercive birth limitation policy. Female babies also suffered from a higher mortality rate than male babies, contrary to the worldwide norm. State media reported that infant mortality rates in rural areas were 27 percent higher for girls than boys and that neglect was one factor in their lower survival rate.
There were more than 150,000 urban "street children," according to state-run media. This number was even higher if the children of migrant workers who spend the day on the streets were included. In August state media reported that the number of children in rural areas left behind by their migrant worker parents totaled 5.8 million.
The law forbids the mistreatment or abandonment of children. The vast majority of children in orphanages were girls, many of whom were abandoned. Boys in orphanages were usually disabled or in poor health. Medical professionals sometimes advised parents of children with disabilities to put the children into orphanages.
The government denied that children in orphanages were mistreated or refused medical care but acknowledged that the system often was unable to provide adequately for some children, particularly those with serious medical problems. Adopted children were counted under the birth limitation regulations in most locations. As a result, couples that adopted abandoned baby girls were sometimes barred from having additional children.
Trafficking in Persons
The law prohibits trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation; however, there were reports that men, women, and children were trafficked to, from, through, and within the country for sexual exploitation and forced labor. The government increased efforts to combat trafficking, including raising public awareness, expanding social services, and improving international cooperation. However, trafficking laws do not fully comply with international standards, and the definition of trafficking did not include forced labor or trafficking of men and boys; minors were defined as persons under 14 years of age.
The country was both a source and destination for trafficking in persons. Most trafficking was internal for the purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labor, and forced marriage. Women and children, who made up 90 percent of trafficking cases, were often trafficked from poorer, rural areas where they were abducted or lured to urban centers with false promises of employment and then trafficked into prostitution or forced labor. The MPS estimated that 10,000 women and children were abducted and sold each year, and NGOs estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 were trafficked annually.
Domestic and cross-border trafficking continued to be significant problems, although the exact number of persons involved could only be estimated, due in part to an itinerant population of approximately 150 million. The MPS reported about 2,500 trafficking cases during the year, although experts claimed the number was much higher.
In April state media reported that police dismantled a trafficking ring that allegedly was trafficking elementary and middle school students from Liangshan, Sichuan Province, to factories in coastal cities. In June the Fujian Provincial High Court reportedly upheld criminal sentences for a group of men convicted of trafficking more than 130 individuals to various countries from 2002 to 2006. The three ringleaders of the group were sentenced to jail terms of 13, 8, and 5 years. Between February and July, police in Guangdong Province reportedly handled 33 trafficking cases and arrested 57 suspects involved in trafficking in persons, 15 of whom were foreign nationals.
In November police in Fujian Province cracked a trafficking case involving 18 Vietnamese women who had been trafficked to Yunnan, Guangxi, and other provinces in China. The women were reportedly sold into marriages in rural communities for RMB 20,000 (approximately $3,000) to RMB 30,000 (approximately $4,400) each. In Guizhou Province state media reported that courts heard a case involving 30 suspects accused of trafficking more than 80 women over a four-year period from Guizhou to Shanxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, and other provinces. The women were led to believe they were being provided employment, but instead were trafficked to rural areas for forced marriage.
Some experts and NGOs suggested trafficking of persons has been fueled by economic disparity and the effects of population planning policies and that a shortage of marriageable women fueled the demand for abducted women, especially in rural areas. The serious imbalance in the male-female sex ratio at birth, the tendency for women to leave rural areas to seek employment, and the cost of traditional betrothal gifts all made purchasing a wife attractive to some poor rural men. Some men recruited women from poorer regions, while others sought help from criminal gangs. Once in their new "families," these women were "married" and sometimes became victims of forced labor and/or rape. Some joined their new communities, others struggled and were punished, and a few escaped. Some former trafficking victims became traffickers themselves, lured by the prospect of financial gain.
Trafficked persons became entangled with alien smuggling rings, which often had ties to organized crime and were international in scope. Persons trafficked by alien smugglers paid high prices for their passage to other countries, where they hoped their economic prospects would improve. Some reportedly promised to pay RMB 231,000 to RMB 385,000(approximately $33,791 to $56,320) for passage. Upon arrival many reportedly were forced to repay traffickers for the smuggling charges and their living expenses by working in specified jobs for a set period of time. Living and working conditions for trafficked persons were generally poor. Traffickers restricted their movements and confiscated their travel documents. Threats to report trafficking victims to the authorities or to retaliate against their families if they protested made trafficked persons even more vulnerable.
The revised law on the protection of minors, which took effect in June 2007, prohibits trafficking, kidnapping, and sexual exploitation of minors. Persons convicted of forced prostitution, abduction, or commercial exploitation face criminal sanctions including fines, confiscation of personal property, life imprisonment, and, in extreme cases, the death penalty; convictions for trafficking minors carry heavier sentences. Victims and their families can also bring civil suits against offenders, but in practice few civil suits made it beyond initial stages. In cases where they did go beyond initial stages, victims encountered obstacles in claiming their award compensation.
Kidnapping and the buying and selling of children for adoption increased over the past several years, particularly in poor rural areas. There were no reliable estimates of the number of children trafficked. Most children trafficked internally were sold to couples unable to have children, particularly sons. Those convicted of buying an abducted child may be sentenced to three years' imprisonment. In the past most children rescued were boys, but increased demand for children reportedly drove traffickers to focus on girls as well.
NGOs reported an increase in child trafficking, especially in rural areas, and in cases of children forced to work as beggars, petty thieves, and prostitutes. Some children worked in factories, but many ended up under the control of local gangs and were induced to commit petty crimes such as purse snatching (see section 6.d.).
MPS officials stated that repatriated victims of trafficking no longer faced fines or other punishment upon their return. However, authorities acknowledged that some victims continued to be sentenced or fined because of corruption among police, provisions allowing for the imposition of fines on persons traveling without proper documentation, and the difficulty in identifying victims. Trafficking victims often lacked proper identification, which made it difficult to distinguish them from persons who illegally crossed borders. MPS trained border officials to spot potential victims of trafficking, and MPS opened two border liaison offices on the Burma and Vietnam borders to process victims. However, the ACWF reported that ongoing problems required intervention to protect trafficking victims from unjust punishment.
The law criminalizing the purchase of women makes abduction and sale separate offenses. There were reports of local officials' complicity in both alien smuggling and in prostitution, which sometimes involved trafficked women. In some cases village leaders sought to prevent police from rescuing women who had been sold to villagers. Authorities had yet to take sufficient steps to deter or prevent trafficking-related corruption in the country.
Principal organs responsible for combating trafficking or assisting its victims were the MPS, the State Council's Work Committee for Women and Children, and the ACWF. It was central government policy to provide funds to provincial and local police to house victims and return them to their homes. Government-funded women's federation offices and other women's organizations provided some counseling on legal rights, rehabilitation, and other assistance to trafficking victims, although lack of funding reportedly limited services in many areas. The government and NGOs also supported centers in communities with large numbers of migrant laborers, to train members of at-risk groups to avoid being trafficked and to get out of trafficking situations. The government distributed information to combat trafficking, and schools provided antitrafficking training to students. The December 2007 National Action Plan on Combating Trafficking of Women and Children formalizes cooperation among government agencies and establishes a national information and reporting system. However, there were no plans for resources to be allocated to local and provincial governments for the implementation of the plan. Additionally, the plan covered only sex trafficking of females, and did not address labor trafficking or male victims of sex trafficking. The ACWF assisted victims in obtaining medical and psychological treatment. Overseas NGOs provided treatment to trafficking victims and conducted educational outreach programs to educate rural youth about the dangers of trafficking. However, the country continued to lack comprehensive, countrywide victim protection services.
The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report can be found at www.state.gov/g/tip.
Persons with Disabilities
The law protects the rights of persons with disabilities and prohibits discrimination; however, conditions for such persons lagged far behind legal dictates, failing to provide persons with disabilities access to programs designed to assist them.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China Disabled Persons Federation, a government-organized civil association, were the main entities responsible for persons with disabilities. State-run media reported that there were 83 million persons with disabilities living in the country. According to government statistics, 3,250 educational and vocational centers provided training and job-placement services for persons with disabilities. In 2007, 572,000 persons with disabilities received education or training, but approximately 1.15 million urban and 3.37 million rural persons with disabilities were unemployed.
The law prohibits discrimination against minors with disabilities and codifies a variety of judicial protections for juvenile offenders. In 2007 the Ministry of Education reported that nationwide there were 1,618 schools for children with disabilities. During the year there were 63,400 new enrollments, bringing the total number of children with disabilities at school to 419,000. The physical abuse of children can be grounds for criminal prosecution. Nationwide 243,000 school-age children with disabilities did not attend school. Nearly 100,000 organizations existed, mostly in urban areas, to serve those with disabilities and protect their legal rights. The government, at times in conjunction with NGOs, sponsored programs to integrate persons with disabilities into society. However, misdiagnosis, inadequate medical care, stigmatization, and abandonment remained common problems.
According to reports, doctors frequently persuaded parents of children with disabilities to place their children in large government-run institutions, where care was often inadequate. Those parents who chose to keep children with disabilities at home generally faced difficulty finding adequate medical care, day care, and education for their children. Government statistics showed that almost one-quarter of persons with disabilities lived in extreme poverty. Unemployment among adults with disabilities remained a serious problem. Under the Employment Promotion Law, local governments were required to offer incentives to enterprises that hired persons with disabilities. Existing regulations in some parts of the country also required employers to pay into a national fund for the disabled when the employees with disabilities did not make up the statutory minimum percentage of the total workforce. Standards adopted for making roads and buildings accessible to persons with disabilities were subject to the Law on the Handicapped, which calls for their "gradual" implementation; compliance with the law was lax. Students with disabilities were discriminated against in access to education. The law permits universities legally to exclude otherwise qualified candidates from higher education.
The law forbids the marriage of persons with certain acute mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. If doctors find that a couple is at risk of transmitting disabling congenital defects to their children, the couple may marry only if they agree to use birth control or undergo sterilization. The law stipulates that local governments must employ such practices to raise the percentage of healthy births. Media reports publicized the forced sterilization of mentally challenged teenagers in Nantong, Jiangsu Province.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Most minority groups resided in areas they traditionally inhabited. Government policy calls for members of recognized minorities to receive preferential treatment in birth planning, university admission, access to loans, and employment. However, the substance and implementation of ethnic minority policies remained poor, and discrimination against minorities remained widespread.
Minority groups in border regions had less access to education than their Han counterparts, faced job discrimination in favor of Han migrants, and earned incomes well below those in other parts of the country. Government-run development programs often disrupted traditional living patterns of minority groups and included, in some cases, the forced relocation of persons. Han Chinese benefited disproportionately from government programs and economic growth. As part of is emphasis on building a "harmonious society," the government downplayed racism against minorities, which remained the source of deep resentment in the XUAR, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Tibetan areas.
Minorities constituted nearly 14 percent of the NPC, which was higher than their percentage in the population. According to 2007 government statistics, 36.3 percent of Guangxi's cadres were ethnic minorities. All five of the country's ethnic minority autonomous regions had governors from minority groups for the first time in history. However, the Communist Party secretaries of these five autonomous regions were all Han. Han officials continued to hold most of the most powerful party and government positions in minority autonomous regions, particularly the XUAR.
The government's policy to encourage Han Chinese migration into minority areas has significantly increased the population of Han in the XUAR. In recent decades the Han-Uighur ratio in the capital of Urumqi has shifted from 20 to 80 to 80 to 20 and was a deep source of Uighur resentment. Discriminatory hiring practices gave preference to Han and discouraged job prospects for ethnic minorities. According to 2005 statistics published by XUAR officials, eight million of the XUAR's 20 million official residents were Han. Hui, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uighur, and other ethnic minorities comprised approximately 12 million XUAR residents. Official statistics understated the Han population, because they did not count the tens of thousands of Han Chinese who were long-term "temporary workers." While the government continued to promote Han migration into the XUAR and fill local jobs with migrant labor, overseas human rights organizations reported during the year that local officials under direction from higher levels of government have deceived and pressured young Uighur women to participate in a government sponsored labor transfer program.
The XUAR government took measures to dilute expressions of Uighur identity, including measures to reduce education in ethnic minority languages in XUAR schools and to institute language requirements that disadvantaged ethnic minority teachers. The government continued to apply policies that prioritized Mandarin Chinese for instruction in school, thereby reducing or eliminating ethnic-language instruction. Graduates of minority language schools typically needed intensive Chinese study before they could handle Chinese-language course work at a university. The dominant position of standard Chinese in government, commerce, and academia put graduates of minority-language schools who lacked standard Chinese proficiency at a disadvantage.
During the year authorities increased repression in the XUAR, and targeted the region's ethnic Uighur population. In August officials in XUAR reiterated a pledge to crack down on the government-designated "three forces" of religious extremism, "splittism," and terrorism. In September XUAR CCP Chair Wang Lequan stated that "this winter and next spring we will launch a concentrated antiseparatist reeducation campaign across the whole region." It was sometimes difficult to determine whether raids, detentions, and judicial punishments directed at individuals or organizations suspected of promoting the "three forces" were instead actually used to target those peacefully seeking to express their political or religious views. The government continued to repress Uighurs expressing peaceful political dissent and independent Muslim religious leaders, often citing counterterrorism as the reason for taking action.
Uighurs were sentenced to long prison terms, and in some cases executed, on charges of separatism. In April 2007 foreign citizen Huseyin Celil was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly plotting to split the country and 10 years in prison for belonging to a terrorist organization, reportedly after being extradited from Uzbekistan and tortured into giving a confession. During the year the government reportedly sought the repatriation of Uighurs living outside the country, where they faced the risk of persecution.
Possession of publications or audiovisual materials discussing independence or other sensitive subjects was not permitted. According to reports, those possessing such materials received lengthy prison sentences, such as Uighur Mehbube Ablesh, who was detained for expressing sensitive views online. Uighurs who remained in prison at year's end for their peaceful expression of ideas the government found objectionable included Abdulla Jamal, Tohti Tunyaz, Adduhelil Zunun, Abdulghani Memetemin, and Nurmuhemmet Yasin.
During the year XUAR officials defended the campaign against separatism as necessary to maintain public order and continued to use the threat of violence as justification for extreme security measures directed at the local population and visiting foreigners.
Han control of the region's political and economic institutions also contributed to heightened tension. Although government policies brought economic improvements to the XUAR, Han residents received a disproportionate share of the benefits.
(See also the Tibet addendum.)
Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination
No laws criminalize private homosexual activity between consenting adults. Societal discrimination and strong pressure to conform to family expectations deterred most gay individuals from publicly discussing their sexual orientation. Published reports stated that more than 80 percent of gay men married because of social pressure.
The Employment Promotion Law, which went into effect January 1, improves protection against discrimination in employment, and local governments began modifying their regulations to reflect the new law. Under the new law and adopted regulations, employment discrimination against persons carrying an infectious disease is prohibited, and provisions allow such persons to work as civil servants. While the new law improves protection against discrimination in employment, it does not address some common types of discrimination in employment, including discrimination based on height, physical appearance, or place of origin.
Some NGOs working with HIV/AIDS patients and their family members continued to report difficulties with local governments, particularly in Henan Province, where thousands were infected in government-run blood-selling stations during the 1990s. Henan authorities successfully provided free treatment to persons with HIV/AIDS, but foreign and local observers noted that local governments were reluctant or even hostile toward coordinating efforts with NGOs and preferred to work independently.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
Although the law provides for the freedom of association, in practice workers were not free to organize or join unions of their own choosing. Workers cannot choose an independent union to represent them in the workplace, as independent unions are illegal. The right to strike is also not protected in law.
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which was controlled by the CCP and chaired by a member of the Politburo, was the sole legal workers' organization. The trade union law gives the ACFTU control over all union organizations and activities, including enterprise-level unions, and requires the ACFTU to "uphold the leadership of the Communist Party." In some cases, the ACFTU and its constituent unions influenced and implemented government policies on behalf of workers. During the first half of the year, the ACFTU claimed to have 209 million members in 1.7 million constituent unions in 3.6 million enterprises. The number of active members and union organizations was unknown.
Already established in the state-owned sector, where union representatives frequently held senior management positions, the ACFTU continued its 2006 campaign to organize unions in foreign-invested enterprises. Labor laws make no distinction between domestic and foreign-invested enterprises with respect to the establishment of unions. The ACFTU set a goal to organize unions in 80 percent of foreign-invested enterprises by the end of September; the actual percentage was unknown at year's end. The ACFTU dropped barriers to migrant workers joining ACFTU unions, and launched a campaign to increase the number of migrant worker members.
Direct election by workers of union leaders was rare, occurred only at the enterprise level, and was subject to supervision by higher levels of the union or Communist Party organization. Although the law states that trade union officers at each level should be elected, most were appointed by higher levels of the ACFTU, often in coordination with employers. In enterprises where direct election of union officers took place, regional ACFTU offices and local party authorities retained control over the selection and approval of candidates.
Some workers acted outside the ACFTU structure to demand back wages, pension or health insurance contributions, or other benefits owed by employers. During the year strikes and labor protests throughout the country were increasingly widespread and well-organized. Reports of protests in which workers blocked traffic or damaged employers' facilities appeared to increase during the year. Most of these protests occurred at export-oriented Hong Kong and Taiwan-invested factories, which shut down suddenly due to deteriorating business conditions without paying back wages or severance pay.
During the year the government acted against some activist workers, especially when they engaged in organized campaigns. Some workers who complained to local labor and social security bureau offices about working conditions reported that they faced harassment from their employers and police and sometimes from labor bureau officials. Labor rights activists complained throughout the year of police surveillance, including interviews with police. In March authorities in Guangzhou arrested and subsequently detained 13 workers from three factories in Guangzhou's Panyu District who were involved in public protests over unpaid wages. Authorities used force to suppress the demonstrations, bringing criminal charges against the protestors, and continued to use administrative detention, which is not subject to judicial review, as a penalty for involvement in such protests.
Although the government showed some tolerance for civil society organizations and law firms involved in protecting workers' rights, authorities continued to monitor labor rights organizations closely, especially those receiving funding from foreign sources. In some cases local authorities interfered with the programs or activities of labor organizations. On May 16, Chen Yuping was reportedly sentenced to 18 months of RTL for "disturbing public order" after he applied to the AFTCU to establish a labor union for workers involuntarily retired or laid off by their former employer, Jilin Oilfield. According to international NGOs, authorities detained two other workers connected with the case for 10 days after they talked to overseas media. Labor organizations reported close surveillance by government security agencies, including close attention to sources of funding and connections to foreign organizations. Some labor organizations reported pressure from local governments to cancel certain activities and public events.
Labor activists detained in previous years were reportedly still in detention at year's end, including Yao Fuxin, Wang Sen, He Zhaohui, Yue Tianxiang, Miao Jinhong, Ni Xiafei, Huang Xiangwei, Li Xintao, Hu Mingjun, Li Wangyang, Liu Zhihua, Luo Mingzhong, Luo Huiquan, Kong Youping, Ning Xianhua, Li Jianfeng, Lin Shun'an, Chen Wei, She Wanbao, and Zhu Fangming. Family members of some imprisoned labor activists reported surveillance and harassment by public security officials.
The trade union law acknowledges that strikes may occur, in which case the union is to reflect the views and demands of workers in seeking a resolution of the strike. Local government interpretations of laws and regulations with respect to the right to strike vary, with some jurisdictions showing limited tolerance for strikes. Other jurisdictions continued to treat worker protests as illegal demonstrations. Without a clearly defined right to strike, workers had only a limited capacity to influence the negotiation process.
In some cases workers did strike to demand better conditions and benefits. During the year labor strikes and protests throughout the country became increasingly widespread and well organized. In January in Guangzhou and Dongguan in Guangdong Province, thousands of workers from Hong Kong and Taiwan-invested factories protested wage arrears and other grievances. Some of these strikers reportedly clashed with police.
During the year there were numerous media accounts of worker protests other than strikes, involving actual or feared job loss, wage or benefit arrears, dissatisfaction with new contracts offered in enterprise restructuring, failure to honor contract terms, or discontent over substandard conditions of employment. In March pilots flying out of Kunming simultaneously turned their planes around in flight in what the press reported was an organized protest against new airline policies affecting their take home pay. In July the airline suspended or demoted 13 of the pilots involved in the March incident. In November and December, there were also a series of spontaneous taxi strikes, beginning in Chongqing and spreading to other cities, in which taxi drivers protested high operating fees and competition from unlicensed cabs. Labor experts reported that such protests were typically initiated by small numbers of workers and organized through text messaging.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The labor law permits collective bargaining for workers in all types of enterprises; however, in practice collective bargaining fell far short of international standards. Under the law, collective contracts are to be developed through collaboration between the labor union and management and should specify such matters as working conditions, wage scales, and hours of work. In the private sector, where active labor unions were rare and alternative union organizations had no legal standing to negotiate, workers faced significant obstacles to bargaining collectively with management.
The trade union law specifically addresses unions' responsibility to bargain collectively on behalf of workers' interests. Regulations required the union to gather input from workers prior to consultation with management and to submit collective contracts to workers or their congress for approval. There is no legal obligation for employers to negotiate, and some employers refused to do so.
On January 1, the new labor contract law went into effect. A key article of the labor contract law requires employers to consult with labor unions or employee representatives on matters that have a direct bearing on the immediate interests of their workers. Although the central government had not clarified the meaning of this article, some local jurisdictions interpreted it as a mandate for collective bargaining and reflected such an interpretation in local regulations on collective contract negotiations. During the year the ACFTU also called on its local organizations to carry out more aggressively their mandate to conclude collective contracts with employers. In 2007 the ACFTU reported that there were more than 975,000 collective contracts in place, covering 1.7 million enterprises and 128 million workers; 343,000 of these were contracts specifically covering wages. During the first half of the year, the ACFTU reported that there were more than 1.09 million collective contracts in place, covering 1.8 million enterprises and 143 million workers; 376,000 collective contracts specifically addressed the issue of wages. However, the majority of the collective contracts were prefabricated contracts adopted without negotiation. Collective contracts generally reflected statutory minimum labor standards. The majority of collective contracts did not address the issue of wages.
The law provides for labor dispute resolution through a three-stage process: mediation between the parties, arbitration by officially designated arbitrators, and litigation. The labor dispute mediation and arbitration law, which went into effect in May, improved workers' access to and streamlined this three-stage process. During the year the volume of cases processed through this system increased sharply, with some jurisdictions, especially in the coastal exporting regions, posting increases of 300 to 500 percent, according to government statistics. The number of such officially adjudicated labor disputes had already more than doubled between 2001 and 2007. Experts claimed that this notable rise in recorded disputes was due to both an increase in actual disputes and to the government's increased capacity to record and handle these disputes.
The trade union law provides specific legal remedies against antiunion discrimination and specifies that union representatives may not be transferred or terminated by enterprise management during their term of office. Collective contract regulations provide similar protections for employee representatives during collective consultations. ACFTU officials and other observers reported that such protections were difficult to enforce in practice.
Workers and their advocates suffered harassment and intimidation by criminal elements often hired by employers. In January the local press reported that 31 migrant workers in Beijing involved in a dispute with their employer over unpaid wages were beaten by club-wielding thugs. In March unknown assailants beat and severely injured two Shenzhen labor lawyers with steel pipes after luring them to a remote area by claiming to be workers seeking legal advice. This occurred two days before the lawyers were to represent a group of over 20 workers in a labor arbitration case.
There are no special laws or exemptions from regular labor laws in export processing zones.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits forced and compulsory labor, including by children, but such practices occurred. In April police in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, rescued more than 100 Yi minority youths, following reports that labor brokers in the city were supplying workers to factories and workshops on contract terms that violated labor, child welfare, and antitrafficking laws. Press reports claimed that more than 1,000 underage Yi workers were working in Dongguan. These workers reportedly received less than the minimum wage, worked longer than the maximum number of hours permitted, and received no social insurance benefits. There were also reports some of the female workers were sexually exploited. The workers were recruited, sometimes with the complicity of their families, through a network of informal labor brokers from the impoverished Liangshan Yi Minority Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province. Employers reportedly paid the wages directly to the labor brokers who kept a portion and passed the rest to the workers' families. Press reports indicated that many of the workers had false documentation, but were really between 12 and 15 years old, and that some workers appeared to be younger than 10. Dongguan authorities reported that all the rescued workers had documentation indicating they were over 16, and that few of the workers wanted to return to Liangshan. After the initial press reports, local authorities suppressed reporting about the incident. In June the MPS asserted that "the information in the report on Dongguan Child Labor Issues was not factual, nor did we find any enterprises in Dongguan City using child labor." In March police in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, rescued 33 migrant construction workers, several of whom were persons with mental disabilities, from confinement in a room 98 feet square. State media reported the workers lived under "slave-like" conditions, and had been lured with false promises of paid employment by traffickers, who targeted vulnerable workers at train and bus stations.
Forced labor remained a serious problem in penal institutions. Many prisoners and detainees in RTL facilities were required to work, often with no remuneration. There was no effective mechanism to prevent the export of goods made under such conditions.
It remained common for employers to withhold several months' wages, or to require unskilled workers to deposit several months' wages, as security against the workers departing early from their labor contracts. These practices prevented workers from exercising their right to leave their employment.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The law prohibits the employment of children under the age of 16, but the government had not adopted a comprehensive policy to combat child labor and child labor remained a persistent problem. The labor law specifies administrative review, fines, and revocation of business licenses of those businesses that illegally hire minors. The law also stipulates that parents or guardians should provide for children's subsistence. Workers between the ages of 16 and 18 were referred to as "juvenile workers" and were prohibited from engaging in certain forms of physical work, including labor in mines.
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