China: Enforced disappearance of Ms. Liu Jie

China
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CHN 007 / 1007 / OBS 128

Enforced disappearance /
Risk of torture or ill-treatment
People’s Republic of China
October 12, 2007

 
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), requests your urgent intervention on the following situation in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The Observatory has been informed by “Chinese Human Rights Defenders” (CRD) about the enforced disappearance of Ms. Liu Jie, an activist for the rights to complain and to seek justice.

 According to the information, on October 11, 2007, Ms. Liu was arrested by Beijing police around noon as she was leaving some friends at Beijing Zhong Ding Village, near South Train Station. She was taken to the nearby You-an Men police station where her cell phone was confiscated. Police officers then put her in a car and drove away.
Ms. Liu was the lead organiser of a public letter signed by 12,150 petitioners calling on Chinese Communist Party leaders at the 17th Party Congress to implement political and legal reforms. She and other organisers spent the last two months surveying petitioners and collecting signatures for the open letter addressed to the leaders of the Communist Party. They collected a rather large number of signatures by petitioners from many provinces, who had been to Beijing to file complaints about their mistreatments by local officials, many of whom suffered official harassment and police brutality. Since 2003, Ms. Liu has organised petitioners every year to submit open letters addressing Chinese leaders at important meetings, such as the annual National People’s Congress, advocating legal and political reforms. Other organisers of the open letter campaign are now in hiding.

 Ms. Liu’s arrest takes place in the context of a violent wave of repression against Chinese dissidents, in the perspective of the 17th Communist Party Congress to be held on October 23, 2007. In this regard, the Observatory recalls that three other human rights activists have been victims of enforced disappearances : the whereabouts of Messrs. Yao Lifa and Lu Banglie, two activists promoting local democratic elections in Hubei Province, have remained unknown for several days (see Urgent Appeal  CHN 006 / 1007 / OBS 127, dated October 11, 2007); the whereabouts of Mr. Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer and the director of the Beijing-based Shengzhi Law Office, have also remained unknown since his arrest, on September 22, 2007, by ten plainclothes State Security Protection officers (See Urgent Appeal CHN 009 / 1106 / OBS 136.2, dated September 27, 2007). Moreover, in this same context, Mr. Li Heping, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, was violently assaulted by a dozen plainclothes men, who are allegedly members of the National Security Protection Unit of the Beijing Public Security Bureau (See Urgent Appeal CHN 005 / 1007 / OBS 121, dated October 2, 2007).

 The Observatory expresses its deepest concern regarding Ms. Liu’s enforced disappearance, as well as the enforced disappearance of Messrs. Yao Lifa, Lu Banglie and Gao Zhisheng and fears for their physical and psychological integrity as they are at risk of being subjected to torture or ill-treatment by the security forces.

 Actions requested:

 Please write to the authorities in the People’s Republic of China, urging them to:

 i.                     Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Liu Jie, Messrs. Yao Lifa, Lu Banglie and Gao Zhisheng;

 

ii.                   Take prompt action in order to locate them, make public their whereabouts, and ensure their immediate release since their detention is arbitrary as it merely aims at sanctioning their human rights activities;

 

iii.                  Put an end to the harassment against all human rights defenders in the People’s Republic of China;

 

iv.                 Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially its Article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”, and Article 12.2, which provides that “the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”;

 

v.                   Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by the People’s Republic of China.

 

Addresses:

 

·         President Hu Jintao, People’s Republic of China, c/o Embassy of the People’s Republic of China; 2300 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., 20008, USA, Fax: +01 202 588-0032;

·         Minister of Justice of the People’s Republic of China, Buzhang Sifabu, Wu Aiying, 10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Chaoyangqu, Beijingshi 100020, People’s Republic of China, Fax: +86 10 6529 2345;

·         Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Buzhang Waijiaobu, Mr. Li Zhaoxing, 2 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Beijingshi 100701, People’s Republic of China, Fax: +86 10 6588 2594, Email: ipc@fmprc.gov.cn;

·         Ambassador Sha Zukang, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China, Chemin de Surville 11, P.O. Box 85, 1213 Petit-Lancy 2, Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +41 22 7937014, E-mail: mission.china@ties.itu.int;

·         Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Brussels, Avenue de Tervuren, 463 1160 Auderghem, Belgium, Tel: + 32 2 663 30 10 / + 32 2 663 30 17 / +32 2 771 14 97 / +32 2 779 43 33; Fax: +32 2 762 99 66 / +32 2 779 28 95; Email: chinaemb_be@mfa.gov.cn.

 

Please also write to the diplomatic mission or embassy of the People’s Republic of China in your respective country.

 

***

Geneva - Paris, October 12, 2007

 

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

 

The Observatory, a FIDH and OMCT venture, is dedicated to the protection of Human Rights Defenders and aims to offer them concrete support in their time of need. The Observatory was the winner of the 1998 Human Rights Prize of the French Republic.

 

To contact the Observatory, call the emergency line:

E-mail: Appeals@fidh-omct.org

Tel and fax FIDH + 33 (0) 1 43 55 20 11 / +33 1 43 55 18 80

Tel and fax OMCT + 41 (0) 22 809 49 39 / + 41 22 809 49 29

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This page contains a single entry by Marga Lacabe published on 12 de Octubre 2007 6:46 PM.

Pak - Supreme Court asks govt to regularise ‘disappearances’ was the previous entry in this blog.

BURMA: More journalists imprisoned as police round-up goes on is the next entry in this blog.

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