At the opening of China Time 2010 in Hamburg, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) and the Tibet Initiative Deutschland (Hamburg regional group) presented their second report on the human rights situation in Shanghai. The 52-page study documents more than 1,900 politically motivated arrests in Hamburg's sister city in China in the past two years. "The Expo 2010 in Shanghai has fomented massive human rights abuses," reports Asia section head Ulrich Delius of the STP. "Hamburg must take these violations in its sister city more seriously."

"It is a disgrace that Hamburg's official representative in Shanghai is somehow not in a position to arrange discussions between civic authorities and prominent repressed human rights activists, while Dr. Helga Trüpel, Member of the European Parliament from Bremen, can pay official visits to these dissidents," criticized Delius. In October 2009, the Hamburg representative in Shanghai declared they were unable to contact civil rights activist Zheng Enchong. The former human rights lawyer has been taken in for questioning more than 90 times since June 2006, and security forces search his apartment regularly. "Anyone who claims they cannot find such a prominent dissident must be asked whether they even have the political will to address human rights issues when speaking with their Chinese associates."

The report presented today lists more than 1,660 arrests of petitioners who have been driven out of their homes, primarily due to the Expo, without adequate recompense. Some 18,000 families have had to leave their homes because of Expo 2010. Although acting within their rights under Chinese law, those who filed petitions with officials have been systematically intimidated and prevented from submitting their petitions. Many were placed under house arrest, held for weeks without charge in secret, illegal prisons, and tortured. Others were sent to work camps or sentenced to serve jail terms.

Furthermore, the report documents in detail the arrests of more than 220 Falun Gong practitioners. A large number of these prisoners were sent to re-education centers or work camps, while dozens more were imprisoned.

The two humans rights organizations presented their first report on the human rights situation in Shanghai in August 2008.

Translated by Elizabeth Crawford