A new human rights report documents increasing attacks on human rights activists in China

Just before the third German-Chinese government-consultations, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) released a new human rights report, which documents the increasing persecution of human rights activists in China. In the 56-page long report, the STP lists 347 examples of human rights activists in the People's Republic, who were harassed and persecuted in the years of 2013/2014. "Most of the efforts to improve the rule of law in China have failed," said Ulrich Delius, the STP's Asia-expert, in Göttingen on Thursday. "The ruling Communist Party increasingly relies on further intimidation and relentlessness to retain supremacy. Superb trade figures and jovial visits of the Chinese leaders abroad can not hide the fact that the authorities are ruling the country with an iron fist. Activists who advocate for minorities and their languages as well as human rights advocates and civil rights activists are acutely threatened in China."

In the report, the STP documents the fate of 19 Uyghurs, 69 Mongolians, 175 Tibetans and 85 Han Chinese, who were persecuted for their commitment to human rights in 2013/2014. These cases reflect hundreds of other people’s fates, the STP emphasizes. Thus, in the weeks prior to the 25th anniversary of the massacre on the Tiananmen Square alone, more than 100 Chinese civil rights activists were intimidated, put under house arrest or arrested. "We are especially alarmed about the campaign against human rights lawyers, who are threatened with withdrawal of their attorney's certificate if they continue to defend Uyghurs, Tibetans or Falun Gong practitioners in court," Delius reported.

The methods of silencing human rights activists – according to information by the STP – include systematic intimidation, summons for interrogation, arbitrary house arrests, "kin liability" for family members, targeted social isolation, loss of job, exclusion of children from education and social services, increased censorship, disappearances, years-long detentions without proper charges or trials, torture in detention, unfair criminal trials, secret prisons and institutionalized re-education camps and psychiatric facilities.

The unjust verdict against the Uyghur economics professor IlhamTohti – who was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2014 due to his criticism of China's nationalities policy – shows that the authorities are extraordinarily eager to silence the critics. Despite an official ban on torture, civil rights activists, critical Uyghurs, Tibetans and Mongolians are regularly tortured. The fates of the human rights lawyer GaoZhisheng – who was released in the summer of 2014 – and the Mongolian civil rights activist Hada, who is illegally detained for almost four years by now, clearly show the measures are intended to grind critics down, mentally and physically.

Linguist activists who are committed to preserve traditional languages and culture are persecuted both in Tibet and Xinjiang/East Turkestan. In both regions, the authorities are trying to suppress any public criticism of the Chinese policy by means of intimidation and arrests.

You can download our human rights report (in German) here.