2008 Human Rights Report: China
(includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
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).
Family members of activists and rights defenders, Falun Gong
practitioners, journalists, unregistered religious figures, and
former political prisoners were targeted for arbitrary arrest,
detention, and harassment. Some were required to leave Beijing
during the Olympics. Rights activist Zeng Jinyan, the wife of Hu
Jia, reportedly was held at a hotel in Dalian during the Olympics.
After returning Zeng Jinyan to her Beijing apartment, authorities
kept her under close surveillance. Yuan Weijing, the wife of legal
advisor Chen Guangcheng, continued to be subjected to ongoing
harassment, including strict surveillance, confinement to her home,
and denial of prison visits.
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
During the year the China Internet Network Information Center
reported that the number of Internet users increased to 298 million,
91 percent of whom had broadband access. The government took steps
to monitor Internet use, control content, restrict information, and
punish those who violated regulations, but these measures were not
universally effective. A large number of Internet users used proxy
servers to access banned content. During the year political
dissidents successfully used Internet instant-messaging technology
to hold large-scale, virtual meetings.
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.
Freedom of Association
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.
The government reportedly continued to limit access to mosques,
detain citizens for possession of unauthorized religious texts,
imprison citizens for religious activities determined to be
"extremist," pressure Muslims who were fasting to eat
during Ramadan, and confiscate Muslims' passports to strengthen
control over Muslim pilgrimages. Following violent clashes in
western Xinjiang during the Olympic Games, XUAR authorities imposed
widespread detentions, restricted movement within the XUAR, and
established curfews in some cities. XUAR party secretary Wang Lequan
declared in September that the XUAR government would carry out
"preemptive attacks," implement "antiseparatist
reeducation" across the region, and increase policing of
religious groups.
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.
Protection of Refugees
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 response to an increased awareness of domestic violence, there
were a growing number of shelters for victims. During the year the
ACWF reported 27,000 legal aid service centers, 12,000 special
police booths for domestic violence complaints, 400 shelters for
victims of domestic violence, and 350 examination centers for women
claiming to be injured by domestic violence had been established
nationwide. Most shelters were government run, although some
included NGO participation.
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.
Over the past five years, there reportedly was an increase in
cross-border trafficking cases, with most trafficked women and girls
coming from North Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam. Others came from
Burma, Laos, Russia, and Ukraine. All were trafficked into the
country for sexual exploitation, forced marriage, and indentured
servitude in domestic service or businesses. North Korean women and
girls were trafficked into the country to work in the sex industry
and for forced marriages and other purposes, including forced labor.
Because the government continued to classify all North Korean
trafficking victims as economic migrants, they were routinely
deported back to North Korea. North Korean women reportedly were
sold for RMB 2,900 to RMB 9,700(approximately $425 to $1,420). In
the year leading up to the Olympic Games, authorities stepped up
efforts to locate and forcibly repatriate North Korean refugees,
including trafficking victims. The UN reported that Chinese citizens
were most often trafficked to Malaysia, Thailand, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. Second-tier destinations included
Australia, European countries, Canada, Japan, Burma, Singapore,
South Africa, and Taiwan.
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.
Despite provisions in the new Employment Promotion Law,
discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B
carriers (including 20 million chronic carriers) remained widespread
in many areas. Persons with HIV/AIDS suffered discrimination, and
local governments sometimes tried to suppress their activities. At
the same time, international involvement in HIV/AIDS prevention,
care, and treatment, as well as central government pressure on local
governments to respond appropriately, brought improvements in some
localities. Some hospitals that previously refused to treat HIV/AIDS
patients had active care and treatment programs because domestic and
international training programs improved the understanding of local
healthcare workers and their managers. In Beijing dozens of local
community centers encouraged and facilitated HIV/AIDS support
groups.
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.
A decree prohibiting the use of child labor provides that
businesses illegally hiring minors or in whose employ a child dies
will be punished via administrative review, fines, or revocation of
their business license. The decree further provides that underage
children found working should be returned to their parents or other
custodians in their original place of residence.
Child labor was reportedly discovered in low-skill manufacturing
sectors such as toys, textiles, and shoes. In October in Hubei
Province, authorities announced a crackdown on child labor in
small-scale workshops in Wuhan, after a local photojournalist posted
an expose on the Internet, including photographs of child laborers
in local garment, silk screening, zipper, and mop factories. After
announcing its crackdown, there was no further press reporting on
the story and the relevant Internet postings were blocked.
In June an international NGO reported that some factories
licensed to make goods bearing the 2008 Olympics logo employed child
labor. A subsequent investigation by the government of Dongguan,
Guangdong Province, found that Lekit Stationery Company had hired
eight students under the age of 16. The students earned RMB 32
($4.70) for a 12-hour day and worked six days a week, according to
the investigation. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic
Games revoked the company's license to produce Olympic logo goods.
Social compliance auditors working for foreign buyers continued
to report a low but increasing incidence of child labor in factories
producing for export. Under the government-permitted work-study
programs, elementary schools supplied factories with low-cost child
labor under the pretext of vocational training.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
There was no national minimum wage, but the labor law requires
local governments to set their own minimum wage according to
standards promulgated by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social
Security. These standards include the minimum cost of living for
workers and their families, levels of economic development, and
employment in the area, as well as the level of social insurance and
other benefits contributions paid by the employees themselves. Labor
bureaus set these standards to cover basic needs. The regulation
states that labor and social security bureaus at or above the county
level are responsible for enforcement of the law. It provides that
where the ACFTU finds an employer in violation of the regulation, it
shall have the power to demand that the relevant labor bureaus deal
with the case.
During the early part of the year many cities increased their
minimum wages, typically by 10 to 15 percent, to keep up with a
rising cost of living. However, in November the MOHRSS announced
that it would postpone further planned increases in the minimum wage
nationwide, because of diminished economic growth and falling
consumer prices.
Wage arrears remained a common problem, especially among migrant
workers. Some migrant workers received wages once a year, when
settling with employers prior to returning home for the lunar New
Year. Governments at various levels continued their efforts to
prevent arrears to recover payment of missing wages and insurance
contributions. Legal aid lawyers and government sources reported
that nonpayment or underpayment of wages still accounted for a large
portion of labor disputes. The incidence of wage arrears increased
late in the year as many of the country's export-oriented
manufacturers, facing a sharp decline in orders from overseas, began
to lay off large numbers of workers.
Migrant workers, estimated between 130 and 230 million, faced
numerous other obstacles with regard to working conditions and labor
rights. Many were unable to access public services, such as public
education or social insurance, in the cities where they lived and
worked. Because pension benefits are not portable, many migrant
workers opted not to participate, or had to forfeit the majority of
social insurance contributions made on their behalf when they moved
to another jurisdiction.
Other widespread illegal practices effectively reduced workers'
wages. These included arbitrary fines and wage deductions levied by
employers for alleged breaches of company rules. Many employers used
an "extended shift" system, in which the employer set an
unrealistic production target that workers could not achieve within
designated work hours, forcing workers to work overtime without
additional compensation to meet the target and sometimes resulting
in actual hourly wages that were below the legal minimum wage. The
illegal practice of collecting wage deposits or paying wages in
arrears to prevent workers from quitting their jobs without the
employer's consent remained a common problem.
The labor law mandates a 40-hour standard workweek, excluding
overtime, and a 24-hour weekly rest period. It also prohibits
overtime work in excess of three hours per day or 36 hours per month
and mandates a required percentage of additional pay for overtime
work. However, in practice compliance with the law was weak, and
standards were regularly violated, particularly in the private
sector and in enterprises that used low-skilled migrant or seasonal
labor. In some cases local labor bureaus formally approved
employers' overtime policies that exceeded the legal maximum. Social
auditors found that factories routinely falsified overtime and
payroll records.
Inadequate and poorly enforced occupational health and safety
laws and regulations continued to put workers' health and lives at
risk. The State Administration for Work Safety (SAWS) acknowledged
that occupational health and safety concerns remained serious. The
work safety law states that employees have the right, after spotting
an emergency situation that threatens their personal safety, to
evacuate the workplace. Employers are forbidden to cancel the labor
contracts or reduce the wages or benefits of any employee who takes
such action. In practice such protective provisions were difficult
to enforce.
Overall there was a decline in reported accidents and fatalities
compared with the previous year. SAWS reported a 10.2 percent
decline in work and traffic-related fatalities compared with 2007
but did not publish separate statistics for work-related accidents
or fatalities.
The coal industry continued to have high accidents and
fatalities. SAWS reported that coal mine accidents and fatalities
fell during the year by 19.3 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively.
The drop in reported fatalities reflected, in part, the success of
government efforts to improve mine safety, which included a policy
of consolidating the industry into larger, better regulated mining
companies. About two-thirds of coal mine accidents occurred in small
mines, which accounted for only one-third of the country's coal
production. Although reported coal mine fatalities decreased in
absolute terms, the fatality rate remained very high by
international standards. There were 1.5 reported coal mine
fatalities per million metric tons of coal produced in 2007,
compared with 2.4 fatalities per ton in 2006.
The government sought to prosecute some employers responsible for
these incidents. In January police arrested individuals who
illegally reopened a closed coal mine in Linfen City, Shanxi
Province, after an explosion killed 25 workers. In February, also in
Linfen City, authorities publicly convicted and sentenced 17
individuals in connection with a mine explosion that killed 105
miners in December 2007.
Cover-ups of mine accidents and other work-related accidents were
common. Legislative and mine safety experts reported that mine
safety problems stemmed from an inadequate legal framework, weak
penalties, poor mine supervision, noncompliance with mine safety
regulations and mine closure orders, and inadequate training for
mine inspectors, mine operators, and miners. In September the
governor of Shanxi Province resigned following a mudslide that
killed 260 villagers adjacent to an illegally operated iron mine.
Work-related injuries and fatalities were also common outside the
mining sector. In January the Beijing Organizing Committee for the
Olympic Games denied allegations that 10 workers had died at Olympic
venue construction sites, but SAWS, which did not supervise the
construction industry directly, later confirmed the death of six
workers at Olympic construction sites over a three-year period. Also
in January the government reported that 18 rail workers were killed
in Shandong Province when struck by a passing high-speed train.
Many factories that used harmful materials or processes not only
failed to protect their workers against the ill effects of such
materials or processes but also failed to inform them about the
hazards, neglected to provide them with health inspections as
required by law, and denied their claims for compensation when they
fell ill. In February 130 workers at a lead refinery in Shaanxi
Province, which the government ordered closed in November 2007,
reportedly suffered from lead poisoning and were seeking
compensation after being dismissed from their jobs. In July, 20
workers at a battery factory in Jiangsu Province reportedly suffered
from cadmium poisoning and were seeking compensation.
NGOs reported that local labor and social security bureaus
frequently rejected claims for compensation by workers because
employers failed to provide them with documentation as required by
law. Workers showed a willingness to use lawsuits to pursue injury
and illness claims against employers, but access to legal aid was
limited.
While many labor laws and regulations were fully compatible with
international standards, implementation and enforcement were
generally poor. In addition labor contracts were executed rarely or
contained terms inconsistent with the law. The lack of written labor
contracts made it much more difficult for workers whose rights had
been violated to seek redress through administrative processes or
through the courts. The labor legislation that went into effect
during the year aims to improve the regulation of labor contracting
agencies and limit the conditions under which employers can use
contingent or temporary labor; however, the widespread use of such
workers continued to create legal gray areas that made labor law
enforcement more difficult.
The United States recognizes the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)
and Tibetan autonomous prefectures, counties, and townships in other
provinces to be a part of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The
Tibetan population within the TAR was approximately 2.8 million,
while the Tibetan population outside the TAR was an estimated 2.9
million. The government strictly controlled information about, and
access to, the TAR and Tibetan areas outside the TAR, making it
difficult to determine accurately the scope of human rights abuses.
These controls intensified following the outbreak of widespread
unrest in Tibetan areas on March 14.
The government's human rights record in Tibetan areas of China
deteriorated severely during the year. Authorities continued to
commit serious human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary
arrest, extrajudicial detention, and house arrest. Official
repression of freedoms of speech, religion, association, and
movement increased significantly following the outbreak of protests
across the Tibetan plateau in the spring. The preservation and
development of Tibet's unique religious, cultural, and linguistic
heritage continued to be of concern.
On March 10, monks and nuns from a number of monasteries mounted
peaceful protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities to
commemorate the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. During the
next few days, laypeople joined the protests. Local police attempted
to contain the demonstrations with tear gas and detentions and
conducted searches of local monasteries and homes. On March 14 and
15, rioting occurred in Lhasa after security officials used force to
arrest some demonstrators, including monks. Some protesters resorted
to violence, in some cases deadly, against ethnic Han and Hui
residents. Protesters damaged property and stole from non-Tibetan
businesses and government buildings. The demonstrations quickly
spread to other ethnic Tibetan communities in the TAR as well as in
Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces, as protesters conveyed
solidarity with the monks and nuns, and expressed frustration over
restrictions on fundamental rights, including religious practice,
and unequal economic and educational opportunities. The government
responded by deploying large numbers of People's Armed Police (PAP)
troops to Tibetan areas and violently suppressing demonstrations,
which resulted in killings. PAP troops also conducted random
searches and arbitrary arrests, and severely limited movement of
Tibetans and foreigners. Protests, which at times turned violent,
continued in the TAR and Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai
during the second half of the year.
Deprivation of Life
There were numerous reports that the government or its agents
committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. Observers estimated
security forces killed up to 218 Tibetans in March and April during
the outbreak of widespread protests in the TAR and other Tibetan
areas. According to eyewitness accounts, security forces used
firearms against demonstrators in Lhasa on March 14 and 15,
resulting in killings. However, on March 28, TAR Chairman Qiangba
Puncog asserted to a delegation of foreign diplomats in Lhasa that
security forces had not used deadly force to suppress the
demonstrations and riots in Lhasa. The government reported that 22
persons were killed in the Lhasa violence, including 18 civilians,
one police officer, and three rioters. Outside observers, including
Tibetan exile groups and such NGOs as the International Campaign for
Tibet (ICT) and the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
(TCHRD), variously placed the number of persons killed in Tibetan
areas due to official suppression that began March 10 at between 100
and 218. Because the government severely limited access by foreign
diplomats and journalists to Tibetan regions, it was not possible to
verify independently the number of killed and injured.
Following the March 14-15 riots in Lhasa, more than 125 protests
spread across the TAR and other Tibetan areas, occasionally becoming
violent. According to nongovernmental organization (NGO) reports, at
least 14 protests involved a significant degree of violence,
including the deaths of protesters. On March 15 or 16, in Phenpo
Lhundrup county (Linzhou) in the TAR, local police reportedly fired
on a crowd demanding the release of the monks arrested in Lhasa for
demonstrating. One businessman, Jinpa, was killed and hundreds of
monks and local residents were arrested. On March 16, press and NGOs
reported that police in Aba Prefecture, Sichuan Province, fired on
demonstrators near the Kirki monastery, resulting in the deaths of
at least 10 Tibetans, including monks and three high school
students. The Xinhua News Agency confirmed the incident, but
reported police had fired in self-defense and did not acknowledge
causalities. On April 3, the ICT reported a second incident in which
security forces fired on protesters at Tongkor monastery in Kardze
(Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan Province,
killing 10 to 15 persons, including three monks, six women and one
child. The TCHRD reported that on May 28, in Kardze, Sichuan
Province, security forces shot a Tibetan student staging a peaceful
and solitary protest and dragged her away from the scene. The ICT
reported that on March 28, more than 80 bodies were burnt together
at a crematorium in one county under Lhasa Municipality.
Some Tibetans injured in the unrest in Lhasa reportedly were
denied medical care and access to hospitals, possibly resulting in
an unknown number of otherwise preventable deaths.
Disappearance
Following the March 14 and 15 riots in Lhasa, authorities
arrested Tibetans arbitrarily, including monks and nuns, many of
whom remained missing. Official statistics for the number detained
were incomplete and covered only certain areas. On July 11, official
media reported that 953 persons were detained or had surrendered to
police in Lhasa following the riots. The report stated that 42
persons were sentenced to prison in connection with the unrest, and
an additional 116 were awaiting trial. On November 4, the Xinhua
News Agency quoted a statement by TAR Vice Chairman Baema Cewang
that 55 persons were sentenced to three years to life in connection
with the March violence in Lhasa. Cewang added that 1,317 persons
had been detained, "of whom 1,115 subsequently were released,"
while the remainder "stood trial." At year's end at least
190 Tibetans had reportedly been sentenced by various county-level
courts in the TAR, according to TCHRD. In August the ICT released a
list with the names of more than 900 individuals detained in
connection with the March unrest, 263 of whom reportedly were still
in custody. In September the TCHRD reported that more than 1,000
Tibetans remained missing, including 80 monks from the Drepung
Monastery near Lhasa. Family members and monastic leaders often were
unable to receive information regarding missing family members from
local authorities following the unrest.
On March 18, Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche of Tehor Kardze Monastery, a
highly revered religious leader and head of Pangri and Yatseg
nunneries in Kardze (where demonstrations occurred), was arbitrarily
arrested in his home. His whereabouts were unknown at year's end. On
March 23, Dhondup Wangchen and Jigme Gyatso, who filmed a
documentary featuring interviews with Tibetans discussing their
views of the Beijing Olympic Games and conditions in Tibet,
reportedly were arrested, although their whereabouts remained
unknown at year's end.
According to the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development and
TCHRD, on April 7, following a midnight raid on the Ramoche Temple
in Lhasa, five monks, including Sonam Rabgyal, Damdul, and Rabgyal,
disappeared. No new information was available on the whereabouts of
Phuntsok Gyaltsen, the deputy head of Phurbu Township, Palgon
County, TAR, who was detained in April 2007.
The whereabouts of the Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima,
Tibetan Buddhism's second most prominent figure after the Dalai
Lama, and his family remained unknown. In August TAR Ethnic and
Religious Affairs officials maintained that his recognition as the
Panchen Lama was illegal, and that he valued his privacy and was in
good health.
Torture
The security regime employed torture and degrading treatment in
dealing with some detainees and prisoners. Tibetans repatriated from
Nepal reportedly suffered torture, including electric shocks,
exposure to cold, and severe beatings, and were forced to perform
heavy physical labor. Prisoners were subjected routinely to
"political investigation" sessions and were punished if
deemed insufficiently loyal to the state.
According to numerous sources, many of those detained after March
10 were subjected to extrajudicial punishments such as severe
beatings and deprivation of food, water, and sleep for long periods.
In some cases, detainees suffered broken bones and other serious
injuries at the hands of PAP and Public Security Bureau (PSB)
officers. According to eyewitnesses, the bodies of persons killed
during the unrest or subsequent interrogation were disposed of
secretly rather than returned to their families. Tibetan monk Jigme
Guri from the Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province told Associated
Press journalists that prison authorities beat him repeatedly during
two months of detention beginning March 21. According to Jigme, the
beatings left him unconscious for six days, and he required two
hospitalizations. On November 4, authorities reportedly detained
Jigme again for unknown reasons.
Tibetans seeking to flee to India and other countries overland
via Nepal risked violence and arrest at the hands of security
forces.
Prison Conditions
The mass detentions connected with the March unrest amplified
already crowded and harsh prison conditions. Some prisons used
forced labor, including those in the public security reeducation
through labor system (RTL), detention centers, and prison work
sites. The law states that prisoners may be required to work up to
12 hours per day, with one rest day every two weeks, but these
regulations often were not enforced.
Arbitrary Arrest and Detention
Arbitrary arrest and detention increased substantially in Tibetan
areas during the year. Police legally may detain persons for up to
37 days without formally arresting or charging them. Following the
37-day period, police must either formally arrest or release the
detainees. Police must notify the relatives or employer of an
arrested person within 24 hours of the arrest. In practice police
frequently violated these requirements, and international NGOs
reported that police detained thousands of Tibetans following the
Lhasa riots for months without notifying their families.
Official state media reported the detentions of 4,434 persons in
Tibetan areas (1,315 in Lhasa) between March and April, although
some NGOS placed the number at more than 6,500. On March 25, the
official Xinhua News Agency reported that 381 rioters in Ngaba (Aba)
TAP, Sichuan Province, had surrendered to police. On April 9, Xinhua
reported that in the Gannan TAP, Gansu Province, 2,204 persons,
including 519 monks, surrendered to police, although police later
released 1,870 of them. The same report noted that police formally
arrested eight persons in Gannan and placed 432, including 170
monks, in temporary custody.
On November 8, the Lhasa Evening News reported that on October
27, the Lhasa Intermediate Court sentenced Wangdu (Wangdui), a
former employee of an HIV/AIDS prevention project run by a foreign
NGO, to life in prison for engaging in "espionage" on
behalf of the "Dalai clique." The paper also reported that
six other Tibetans, including another former employee of a foreign
NGO, Migmar Dhondup, received sentences ranging from eight to 15
years for "espionage" or "providing intelligence to
foreigners."
Many prisoners were subject to the RTL system or other forms of
detention not subject to judicial review.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
Due to the lack of independent access to prisoners and prisons,
it was nearly impossible to ascertain the number of Tibetan
political prisoners. Many prisoners were held in the extrajudicial
RTL prisons operated by the Ministry of Public Security and never
appeared in court. The number of political prisoners in Tibetan
areas, estimated at 95 in 2007, rose sharply due to the March
unrest. Although exact figures were unavailable, the TCHRD placed
the number of Tibetans detained in the months following the protests
at more than 6,500.
Based on information available from the Congressional Executive
Commission on China's (CECC) political prisoner database (PPD), at
year's end there were 550 political prisoners imprisoned in Tibetan
areas. However, the actual number of Tibetan political prisoners and
detainees was believed to be much higher. Of the 550 documented
political prisoners and detainees, 463 were detained on or after
March 10 and 385 political prisoners were Tibetan Buddhist monks and
nuns. At year's end the CECC PPD contained sentencing information on
only 20 of the Tibetan political prisoners. The judicial system
imposed sentences on these 20 political prisoners ranging from one
year to life imprisonment. An unknown number of prisoners continued
to be held under the RTL system.
On May 19, security forces reportedly arrested 12 monks from the
Dingri Shelkar Choedhe Monastery for resisting patriotic education.
On July 26, authorities reportedly arrested Asang Bersatsand,
Ngoesoe Konkyaptsang, Jamsang, and Gadho from Nangchen County
(Yushu) in Qinghai Province for protesting the Summer Festival.
Prominent Buddhist figure Tenzin Delek Rinpoche remained in
Sichuan's Chuandong Prison. Dozens of monks and nuns who resisted
"patriotic education" campaigns before the March protests
continued serving prison terms.
The following persons remained in prison: Rongye Adrak; Adak
Lupoe, sentenced to 10 years in prison for "endangering
national security;" Jarib Lothog, sentenced to three years in
prison; Khenpo Jinpa, sentenced to three years in prison; Jarib
Lothog; art teacher and musician Kunkhyen, sentenced to nine years
in prison; Buchung; Penpa; Jigme Gyatso and Bangri Chogtrul
Rinpoche; monk Choeying Khedrub from Nagchu Prefecture, sentenced to
life in prison in 2001; Dawa (also called Gyaltsen Namdak),
sentenced in 2006 to five years' imprisonment for allegedly
distributing pamphlets containing political material; monk Lobsang
Palden from Ganzi Monastery, charged in 2006 for initiating
separatist activities based on his alleged possession of photographs
of the Dalai Lama; teacher Dolma Kyab; Sherab Yonten, Sonam Gyelpo,
and two others; and monk Tsering Dhondup.
Denial of Fair Public Trial
Legal safeguards for Tibetans detained or imprisoned were
inadequate in both design and implementation. Twenty-one lawyers
from across China who had volunteered free legal representation to
detained Tibetans following the March protests received warnings
from authorities not to take on such cases. The lawyers were
questioned, threatened with punishment, and many were placed under
police surveillance. One such attorney, Beijing-based lawyer Teng
Biao, was barred from renewing his annual law license. Most judges
in the TAR had little or no legal training. According to a TAR
Bureau of Justice official, all seven cities and prefectures had
established legal assistance centers that offered services in the
Tibetan language. Prisoners may request a meeting with a
government-appointed attorney, but in practice many defendants did
not have access to legal representation. In cases involving state
security, trials were often cursory and closed. By law maximum
prison sentences for crimes such as "endangering state
security" and "splitting the country" are 15 years
for each count, not to exceed 20 years in total. Authorities
frequently sentenced Tibetans for alleged support of Tibetan
independence regardless of whether their activities involved
violence.
Authorities sentenced Tibetans convicted of crimes in connection
with their participation in the March and April protests in mass
sentencing trials, none of which were open to foreign observers
despite repeated requests from the international community. On April
29, the Lhasa Intermediate People's Court sentenced 30 Tibetans to
terms ranging from three years to life imprisonment. On June 19 and
20, the same court convicted an additional 12 persons. In October a
third sentencing occurred with seven Tibetans (including Wangdu)
receiving sentences ranging from eight years to life.
During a secret trial in November, a court reportedly sentenced
81-year-old Paljor Norbu, a Tibetan traditional painter, to seven
years in prison. His relatives received neither official
notification of his detention nor information regarding the charges
against him. His whereabouts were unknown at year's end.
Freedom of Speech and Press
Tibetans who spoke to foreign reporters, attempted to relay
information to foreigners outside China, or passed information
regarding the March and April protests were subject to harassment or
detention. According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), on April 19,
authorities detained Nyima Drakpa in Tawu (Daofu) County, Sichuan
Province, for allegedly passing information and sending photos of
protests to a reporter in Hong Kong. On November 3, a court
sentenced Norzin Wangmo, from Ngaba TAP in Sichuan Province, to five
years in prison for passing news of the situation in Tibet.
The government continued to jam radio broadcasts of Voice of
America's (VOA) and RFA's Tibetan- and Chinese-language services and
the Oslo-based Voice of Tibet. In Ganzi TAP, Sichuan Province,
police confiscated or destroyed satellite dishes suspected of
receiving VOA television broadcasts. Some Tibetans reported that at
times they were able to receive such radio broadcasts despite
frequent jamming. In the days following the March protests, official
censors cut off satellite feeds from the BBC World News and CNN when
the stations aired reports concerning the protests. Domestic media
showed images of the March 14-15 violence perpetrated by Tibetans in
Lhasa, but did not provide domestic audiences with reporting on the
violent official suppression thereof, or on the protests that
continued throughout the year. Authorities reportedly also disrupted
cell phone, landline, and Internet transmissions in Tibetan areas
following the riots.
The government severely restricted travel by foreign journalists
to Tibetan areas. Liberalized regulations governing foreign media
coverage during the Beijing Olympic Games, which permitted
unrestricted travel throughout China by foreign journalists, were
made permanent in October but did not apply to foreign journalists
traveling to the TAR.
After the March unrest, authorities barred a foreign film crew in
Xiahe, Gansu Province, from using email and ordered the crew not to
report on police activities at Labrang Monastery. Officials also
routinely denied foreign media representatives access to Tibetan
areas throughout the spring, ostensibly out of concern for their
safety.
Domestic journalists reporting on repression in Tibetan areas
faced punishment. Authorities at the Nandu Weekly demoted journalist
Zhang Ping from his position as deputy editor after Zhang published
an article critical of official censorship during the March unrest
on his blog in April.
Internet Freedom
The Internet blog of well-known Tibetan poet and journalist
Tsering Woeser, also known as Oser, remained inaccessible to
Internet users inside China due to official Internet filtering.
During the year hackers attacked Woeser's blog site and Skype
account. Authorities also refused to issue Woeser a passport. Most
foreign Tibet-related Web sites critical of official policy in the
TAR were blocked to users in China year-round. Following the March
protests, Internet Service Providers censored searches for news
reports and blocked Web site footage of the protests. On March 20,
Reporters Without Borders obtained a copy of a message from
authorities in charge of Internet censorship banning Internet users
from posting news about Tibetan events in Sichuan Province.
Critics of China's Tibet policy were subject to Internet-related
harassment. In the weeks after the March unrest, several
Beijing-based foreign correspondents received death threats after
their personal contact information, including mobile phone numbers,
was revealed on the Internet.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
Authorities in Tibetan areas required professors and students at
institutions of higher education to attend political education
sessions in an effort to prevent separatist political and religious
activities on campus. The government controlled curricula, texts,
and other course materials as well as the publication of
historically or politically sensitive academic books (see Protection
of Cultural Heritage). Academics in China who publicly criticized
the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) policies on Tibetan affairs
faced official reprisal.
Freedom of Religion
While the law provides for freedom of religious belief, the level
of repression in Tibetan areas increased significantly during the
year, especially following the March unrest. Religious freedom often
was restricted due to the government's linkage of reverence for the
Dalai Lama with political opposition to the government and the CCP.
Press and NGO reports suggested that continued tight government
controls on religious practices and places of worship in Tibetan
areas was a major factor leading 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.
Although regional differences in religious freedom remained
throughout the year, official respect for religious practice
deteriorated sharply after the protests of March 10. Following the
unrest in Lhasa of 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
monasteries. The government expanded and intensified patriotic
education campaigns in monasteries and nunneries, prompting
additional rounds of protests through June. By year's end, according
to reports from many monks and some abbots, considerably fewer monks
and nuns resided in monasteries and nunneries than in the previous
year.
Since March authorities reportedly detained more than 80 nuns in
Sichuan Province. On March 28-29, authorities arrested more than 570
monks from Ngaba Kirti Monastery in Ngaba County (Aba Xian), Sichuan
Province. On May 14, authorities arrested more than 55 nuns of
Pangri Na Tashi Gepheling Nunnery in Kardze County. The nuns were
peacefully demonstrating against the government's handling of
protesters, as well as official statements that the Dalai Lama had
masterminded the protests.
In August an annual religious festival normally attended by tens
of thousands of persons at Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province was
cancelled, reportedly due to official desire to prevent any
incidents from taking place during the Olympic Games. While
repression was less evident in Tibetan areas of Yunnan Province,
many monks from Sichuan Province's Aba Prefecture fled to Chengdu
and other areas to escape the government's harsh official response
to the March and April protests. As many as 80 percent of the
approximately 2,500 monks at Kirti Monastery in Aba's Ngaba county
left the monastery in June and July to avoid a continuing and
increasingly intense patriotic education campaign.
Following the March unrest, authorities forced many monks to
attend weekly, sometimes daily, political education sessions. On
April 3, the government ordered officials across the TAR to conduct
patriotic education programs at monastic institutions, workplaces,
businesses, and schools. In some areas these political education
campaigns involved forced denunciations of the Dalai Lama. Officials
also forced monks to remove portraits of the Dalai Lama from prayer
halls and personal residences, although enforcement varied
significantly by region. Restriction on religious expression was
most intense at high-profile monasteries, such as Labrang in Xiahe,
Gansu Province, and Drepung and Sera near Lhasa.
Security measures intensified in the TAR and other Tibetan areas
during the Dalai Lama's birthday, sensitive anniversaries, and
festival days. The prohibition on celebrating the Dalai Lama's
birthday on July 6 continued.
The government maintained and intensified its criticism of the
Dalai Lama after the events of March 14 and 15, blaming him for
instigating the widespread protests and rejecting claims that the
protests signaled systemic problems with its Tibet policy. According
to the domestic press, shortly after the events of March 14-15,
Secretary of the CCP TAR Committee Zhang Qingli told regional
officials that the Dalai Lama was "a wolf in Buddhist monk's
robes, an evil spirit with a human face and the heart of a beast."
An official white paper released by the government in September
stated, "the Dalai Lama and his clique are the chief
representatives of the backward feudal serfdom system and culture of
theocratic rule and religious despotism that used to prevail."
In May, July, and November Chinese government officials and
representatives of the Dalai Lama held three rounds of discussions
with no progress.
The government continued to ban pictures of Gendun Choekyi Nyima,
the boy recognized by the Dalai Lama as the Panchen Lama. Photos of
the "official" Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu, were not
widely displayed except at some high-profile monasteries and then
only at the insistence of government leaders. However, photos of the
previous Panchen Lama, his daughter, and the Karmapa (the leader of
Tibetan Buddhism's Karma Kagyu schools and one of the most
influential religious figures in Tibetan Buddhism who fled to India
in 1999) were widely sold and displayed.
The TAR had 1,750 registered religious venues. Government
officials closely associated Buddhist monasteries with
pro-independence activism in Tibetan areas.
The government restricts ethnic Han Buddhists from living and
studying in monasteries in the TAR and other Tibetan areas. Monks
outside the TAR who want to study in the TAR are required to obtain
official permission from the religious affairs bureaus (RABs) of
their home province and the TAR or Tibetan area involved, and such
permission was not readily granted.
Although Tibetan monks were not allowed to conduct large-scale
religious teachings outside Tibetan areas, many monks continued to
give private teachings to audiences in non-Tibetan regions of China.
According to reports, ethnic Han Buddhists outside Tibetan areas
were sometimes discouraged from inviting Tibetan monks to give
teachings. Such visits required explicit permission from both the
monk's local RAB and the receiving province's RAB. Nevertheless,
Tibetan monks sometimes traveled in plain clothes outside the TAR to
teach.
Monasteries in the TAR were not allowed to establish
relationships with other monasteries or hold joint religious
activities.
The Government continued to fund restoration efforts of religious
and cultural sites as part of its program to develop tourism in
Tibetan areas. The Xinhua News Agency reported that on April 18 the
government launched a RMB 570 million (approximately $83 million)
program to preserve 22 historical and cultural sites in the TAR,
including 15 monasteries. The same report noted that, "over the
past two decades China has invested more than RMB 700 million to
preserve and maintain more than 1,400 monasteries, cultural relics
and religious sites." Nevertheless, many monasteries destroyed
during the Cultural Revolution were not rebuilt or repaired, and
others remained only partially repaired. Most recent restoration
efforts were funded privately, although a few religious sites also
received government support for reconstruction projects during the
year.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2008 International
Religious Freedom Report at www.state.gov/g/drl/irf/rpt.
Freedom of Movement
The law provides for the freedom to travel; however, in practice
the government strictly regulated travel and freedom of movement of
Tibetans. Many Tibetans, particularly prominent religious figures,
scholars, and dissidents, as well as those from rural areas,
continued to report difficulties obtaining passports.
After March 14, freedom of movement in Tibetan areas was limited
severely within Lhasa, throughout the TAR, and in Qinghai, Gansu,
and Sichuan. The PAP and local Public Security Bureaus set up
multiple roadblocks and checkpoints on major roads, in cities, and
on the outskirts of monasteries. Following the March protests in
Lhasa and other Tibetan communities, authorities sent many monks
from outside the TAR back to their home monasteries even if they had
resided in Lhasa monasteries for several years. Several monks also
reported encountering severe difficulty traveling between
monasteries following the March unrest. Authorities barred foreign
nationals from entering most Tibetan areas. Movement in some areas
opened up slightly at the end of the summer, and in late June
foreign nationals with permission were allowed to travel to Lhasa
again, although their movements within the city and surrounding
areas remained restricted.
Tibetans continued to encounter substantial difficulties and
obstacles in traveling to India for religious, educational, and
other purposes. The government placed restrictions on the movement
of Tibetans during sensitive anniversaries and events and increased
controls over border areas at these times. There were reports of
arbitrary detention of persons, particularly monks and nuns,
returning from India and Nepal. Detentions generally lasted for
several months, although in most cases authorities did not bring
formal charges against prisoners.
The reinforcement of border controls during the year sharply
reduced the number of people crossing the border into Nepal and
India. The Tibet Reception Center in Dharamsala, India, received 627
visitors during the year.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
reported a drastic reduction in the number of Tibetans who arrived
at the Tibetan Reception Center in Nepal during the year. Arrivals
virtually ceased following the breakout of unrest in March and the
ensuing near closure of the China/Nepal border. At the end of the
summer, Tibetans began to trickle across the border, but by year's
end there were only 596 arrivals, compared to 2,156 in 2007. The few
arrivals who succeeded in entering Nepal reported an intimidating
police presence in the border areas. Monks and nuns also reported
greater difficulty traveling within Tibet.
The Dalai Lama, the Karmapa, and leaders of all other schools of
Tibetan Buddhism remained in exile.
The government also regulated foreign travel to the TAR. In
accordance with a 1989 regulation, foreign visitors were required to
obtain an official confirmation letter issued by the government
before entering the TAR. Most tourists obtained such letters by
booking tours through officially registered travel agencies. After
the March 14 demonstrations, access to the area by foreign nationals
was impossible in practice. Authorities prohibited more than two
dozen foreign reporters from entering Tibetan areas, and authorities
forced some reporters to leave. According to Chinese press reports,
the region reopened to domestic tourists on April 24 and foreign
tourists on June 25, although tourists and diplomats reported
continued difficulty in securing permission to travel. Foreign
diplomats must obtain permission from the TAR's Foreign Affairs
Office for each visit to the TAR.
Official visits to the TAR were supervised closely and afforded
delegation members very few opportunities to meet local persons not
previously approved by the authorities. Foreigners could not travel
freely in most Tibetan areas outside the TAR after March 14. With
the exception of a few highly controlled trips, authorities
repeatedly denied requests for international observers to visit
Tibetan areas to assess the situation, including a request by then
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.
National Minorities
Although TAR census figures show that Tibetans made up 92 percent
of the TAR's permanently registered population, official figures did
not include a large number of long-, medium-, and short-term Han
residents, such as cadres, skilled workers, unskilled laborers,
military and paramilitary troops, and their dependents. Chinese
social scientists estimated the number of this floating population,
including tourists and visitors on short-term business trips, for
Lhasa alone was more than 200,000 (nearly half the population of
Lhasa and more than 10 percent of the TAR's population) during the
May to November high season for tourism and migrant workers. Some
Tibet experts in China asserted that the catastrophic May 12
earthquake in Sichuan Province led to a temporary decrease in the
TAR's migrant population as many migrants returned to their
hometowns in the disaster area to assist relatives in rebuilding.
Migrants to the TAR overwhelmingly were concentrated in urban
areas, where government economic policies disproportionately
benefited Han Chinese. Small businesses, mostly restaurants and
retail shops, run by Han and Hui migrants predominated in cities
throughout Tibetan areas. Tibetans continued to make up nearly 98
percent of the rural population, according to official census
figures.
Family planning policies permitted Tibetans and members of other
minority groups to have more children than Han. Urban Tibetans,
including CCP members, and some ethnic Han living in Tibetan areas,
generally were limited to two children. Rural Tibetans were
encouraged, but not always required, to limit births to three
children.
Since 2000 the government implemented a resettlement campaign of
Tibetan nomads into urban areas across the TAR and other Tibetan
areas. Officials offered nomads monetary incentives to kill or sell
their livestock and move to newly created Tibetan communities.
However, reports existed of incidences of compulsory resettlement
with promised compensation that either failed to materialize or was
inadequate.
In January 2007 TAR Party Secretary Zhang Qingli stated that the
restructuring of Tibetan farming and grazing communities was not
only to promote economic development but also to counteract the
Dalai Lama's influence. He also stated that to do so was essential
for "continuing to carry out major development of west China."
According to a December 27 report by the Xinhua News Agency, during
the year 57,800 TAR nomad and farming households were resettled into
permanent housing. The report states "to date, 860,000 farmers
and herders from 170,000 families have moved into the new houses."
Improving housing conditions and education for Tibet's poorest were
among the goals of resettlement, yet a requirement that villagers
build houses according to strict official specifications within two
or three years often forced resettled families into debt to cover
construction costs.
Although a 2007 state media report noted that Tibetans and other
minority ethnic groups made up 60 percent of government employees in
the TAR, ethnic Han continued to hold the top CCP positions in
nearly all counties and prefectures, including that of TAR party
secretary. Tibetans holding government positions were prohibited
from worshipping at monasteries or practicing their religion.
The economic and social exclusion of Tibetans was a major reason
why such a varied cross section of Tibetans, including business
operators, workers, students, university graduates, farmers, and
nomads, participated in the protests. Some Tibetans reported that
they experienced discrimination in employment and claimed that Han
Chinese were hired preferentially for many jobs and received greater
pay for the same work. Some Tibetans reported that it was more
difficult for Tibetans than Han to obtain permits and loans to open
businesses. The use of the Mandarin language was widespread in urban
areas, and many businesses limited employment opportunities for
Tibetans who did not speak Mandarin.
The TAR tourism bureau continued its policy of refusing to hire
Tibetan tour guides educated in India or Nepal. Government officials
stated that all tour guides working in the TAR were required to seek
employment with the Tourism Bureau and pass a licensing exam on
tourism and political ideology. The government's stated intent was
to ensure that all tour guides provided visitors with the
government's position opposing Tibetan independence and the
activities of the Dalai Lama. Some ethnic Tibetan tour guides in the
TAR complained of unfair competition from government-sponsored "Help
Tibet" tour guides brought in from outside the TAR and put to
work after receiving a crash course on Tibet.
Women and Children
There were no formal restrictions on women's participation in the
political system, and women held many lower-level government
positions. However, women were underrepresented at the provincial
and prefecture levels of government. According to an official Web
site, female cadres in the TAR accounted for more than 30 percent of
the TAR's total cadres.
There was no information on the incidence of rape or domestic
violence.
Prostitution was a growing problem in Tibetan areas, and hundreds
of brothels operated semi-openly in Lhasa. International development
workers in the TAR reported there were no reliable data on the
number of persons engaged in the commercial sex trade in Lhasa and
Shigatse, the TAR's two largest cities, although some estimates
placed the number as high as 10,000. Some of the prostitution
occurred at sites owned by the CCP, the government, and the
military. Most prostitutes in the TAR were ethnic Han women,
predominantly from Sichuan Province. However, some ethnic Tibetans,
mainly young girls from rural or nomadic areas, also engaged in
prostitution. While the incidence of HIV/AIDS among those in
prostitution in Tibetan areas was unknown, the TAR Health Bureau
reported 56 cases of HIV/AIDS in the TAR between 1994 and 2007. Lack
of knowledge about HIV transmission and economic pressures on women
and girls in prostitution to engage in unprotected sex made them
particularly vulnerable.
The TAR is one of the few areas of China that does not have a
skewed sex ratio resulting from sex-selective abortion and
inadequate health care for female infants.
According to official policy, primary education was compulsory,
free, and universal. According to official TAR statistics, 96.5
percent of children between the ages of six and 13 attended school,
and 90 percent of the TAR's 520,000 primary school students
completed lower middle school, for a total of nine years of
education. In 2003 the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Education reported that official Chinese education statistics did
not accurately reflect attendance and were not independently
verified. Miscellaneous fees for the TAR's 131,000 middle school
students were abolished in 2007.
Protection of Cultural Heritage
Rapid economic growth, the expanding tourism industry, the
resettlement of nomads, and the introduction of more modern cultural
influences continued to disrupt traditional living patterns and
customs.
The 2002 revision of the 1987 "Regulation on the Study, Use,
and Development of the Tibetan Language in the TAR" formally
lowered the status of the Tibetan language from the primary working
language to an optional language in many official contexts.
The Dalai Lama and other observers expressed concern that
development projects and other central government policies
disproportionately benefited non-Tibetans and continued to promote a
considerable influx of Han, Hui, and other ethnic groups into the
TAR. The opening of the Qinghai-TAR railroad in 2006 increased
migration of non-Tibetans into the TAR. The government reported the
railroad carried 1.5 million passengers in 2007, approximately half
of whom were non-tourists.
Residents lacked the right to play a role in protecting their
cultural heritage, including their environment. In 2007 the TAR
government revised the TAR Cultural Relics Protection Regulations,
asserting ownership over religious relics and monasteries. In recent
years the government attempted to restore some temples and other
physical vestiges of Tibetan Buddhism and culture that were damaged
or destroyed before and during the Cultural Revolution.
Tibetan and Mandarin are official languages in the TAR, and both
languages appear on public and commercial signs. Mandarin was widely
spoken and was used for most official communications. The illiteracy
rate among Tibetans was more than five times higher (47.6 percent)
than the national average (9.1 percent), according to 2000 census
data. In many rural and nomadic areas, children received only one to
three years of Tibetan-language education before continuing their
education in a Mandarin-language school. According to official
figures, the illiteracy rate was 15 percent at the end of 2005.
However, the illiteracy rate for this group was much higher in some
areas. According to a 2006 report by the Xinhua News Agency, a
looser definition of literacy was used for Tibetan speakers than for
Mandarin speakers in rural Tibet. Tibetan-speaking peasants and
nomads were considered literate if they could read and write the 30
letters of the Tibetan syllabary and read and write simple notes.
Mandarin-speaking nomads and herders were considered literate if
they could recognize 1,500 Chinese characters.
The government established a comprehensive national
Tibetan-language curriculum, and many elementary schools in Tibetan
areas used Tibetan as the primary language of instruction. Tibetan
students also were required to study Chinese, and Chinese generally
was used to teach certain subjects, such as arithmetic and science.
In middle and high schools--even some officially designated as
Tibetan schools--teachers often used Tibetan only to teach classes
in Tibetan language, literature, and culture and taught all other
classes in Chinese.
As a practical matter, proficiency in Mandarin was essential to
qualify for higher education. China's most prestigious universities
provided instruction only in Mandarin, while the lower-ranked
universities established to serve ethnic minority students only
offered Tibetan-language instruction in courses focused on the study
of the Tibetan language or culture. At the minority universities,
Tibetans and other ethnic minority students typically achieved high
proficiency in Mandarin, since much of the curriculum, such as
computer and business courses, was in Mandarin.
Leading universities generally required English language
proficiency for matriculation. Most graduates of Tibetan schools,
however, learned only Mandarin and Tibetan and were thus unable to
attend the better universities. This resulted in a shortage of
Tibetans trained in science and engineering and, consequently, a
near total reliance on imported technical specialists from outside
the TAR to work on development projects inside the TAR.
Hong Kong, with a population of approximately seven million, is a
Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of
China (PRC). The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question
of Hong Kong and the SAR's constitution, the Basic Law of the SAR
(the Basic Law), specify that Hong Kong will enjoy a high degree of
autonomy except in matters of defense and foreign affairs. In
September, in generally free and fair elections, the Fourth Term
Legislative Council (LegCo) was elected from a combination of
geographic and functional constituencies. Civilian authorities
generally maintained effective control of the security forces.
The government generally respected the human rights of its
citizens, although core issues remained. The terms of the Basic Law
limit the ability of citizens to participate in and change their
government. Claims of press self-censorship persisted. The
legislature was limited in its power to introduce or amend
legislation and could not approve executive appointments. Violence
against women remained a concern. Workers had a number of problems,
including a minimum wage and a guaranteed right to bargain
collectively.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports that the government or its agents committed
arbitrary or unlawful killings.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment
The Basic Law prohibits torture and other forms of abuse, and the
government generally observed the prohibition in practice. In the
first half of the year, there were 189 allegations of assault by
police officers on persons in detention. As of June, 81 of the
officers had been investigated with results endorsed by the
Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC); the rest were pending
at year's end. Investigations found one case to be unsubstantiated,
five to be false, and 10 to be not pursuable; the remaining 65
allegations were withdrawn. Forty-two cases of assault by police
officers on persons not in custody were filed, with 26 pending
investigation as of June. Investigations into the remaining 16 were
endorsed by the IPCC, with four cases found not pursuable and 12
complaints withdrawn.
Police use of strip searches during detentions of protesters and
criminal suspects prompted public complaints and a formal LegCo
query. Media reported concerns about, and the legislature raised
questions regarding, police use of strip searches. An IPCC review of
one case led the Police Department's Complaints Against Police
Office (CAPO) to rule in July that repeated searches conducted each
time an individual entered and departed a holding facility were
incorrect. In response the police revised the guidelines for
conducting both regular searches and searches involving removal of
some or all of the detained person's garments.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison conditions generally met international standards, and the
government permitted visits by independent human rights observers
and the media; however, there were no requests during the year. For
the first six months of the year, the average prison occupancy rate
was 96 percent. Overcrowding occurred in some prisons, particularly
in maximum security prisons, which operated at an average occupancy
rate of 112 percent.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention, and the
government generally observed these prohibitions.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
Civilian authorities maintained effective control over the
police, and the government had generally effective mechanisms to
investigate and punish abuse and corruption.
There were no reports of impunity involving the security forces
during the year. On July 12, LegCo passed a bill granting a
statutory basis to the existing IPCC, which is charged with
overseeing the CAPO. The IPCC has a number of authorities to monitor
investigations undertaken by CAPO, including the authority to raise
questions regarding investigations and to request investigative
documents. IPCC members and observers are also empowered to attend
any interview conducted by the police concerning a reportable
complaint and observe the collection of evidence by the police in
the investigation of a reportable complaint at any time and without
prior appointment. However, human rights activists and some
legislators expressed concern that all IPCC members are appointed by
the chief executive and that the IPCC's lack of power to conduct
independent investigations limits its oversight capacity. While the
UN Committee Against Torture "welcomed the enactment of the
Independent Police Complaints Council Ordinance...and the new
Guidelines on Searching of Detained Persons," it "recommended
that Hong Kong continue to take steps to establish a fully
independent mechanism mandated to receive and investigate complaints
on police misconduct."
Arrest and Detention
Suspects were apprehended openly with warrants based on
sufficient evidence and issued by a duly authorized official.
Suspects must be charged within 48 hours or released, and the
government respected this right in practice. There is a functioning
bail system, and detainees are allowed prompt access to a lawyer and
family members. The law provides accused persons with the right to a
prompt judicial determination.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government
generally respected judicial independence in practice. The
judiciary, underpinned by the Basic Law's provision that the common
law tradition be maintained, provided citizens with a fair and
efficient judicial process. The courts may interpret those
provisions of the Basic Law that address matters within the limits
of the SAR's autonomy. The courts also interpret provisions of the
Basic Law that touch on mainland government responsibilities or on
the relationship between the central authorities and the SAR.
However, before making final judgments on these matters, which are
not subject to appeal, the courts must seek an interpretation of the
relevant provisions from the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress (NPCSC). The Basic Law requires that courts follow
the NPCSC interpretation of Basic Law provisions, although judgments
previously rendered are not affected. As the final interpreter of
the Basic Law, the NPCSC also has the power to initiate
interpretations of the Basic Law.
The NPCSC's mechanism for interpretation is its Committee for the
Basic Law, composed of six mainland and six Hong Kong members. The
chief executive, the LegCo president, and the chief justice nominate
the Hong Kong members. Human rights and lawyers' organizations
expressed concern that this process, which can supersede the Court
of Final Appeal's power of final adjudication, could be used to
limit the independence of the judiciary or could degrade the court's
authority.
Trial Procedures
The law provides for the right to a fair public trial, and an
independent judiciary generally enforced this right in practice.
Trials are by jury except at the magistrate court level. An attorney
is provided at the public's expense if defendants cannot afford
counsel. Defendants can confront and question witnesses testifying
against them and present witnesses to testify on their behalf.
Defendants and their attorneys have access to government-held
evidence relevant to their cases. Defendants have the right of
appeal.
Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence except in official
corruption cases. Under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, a
current or former government official who maintains a standard of
living above that commensurate with his official income, or who
controls monies or property disproportionate to his official income,
is guilty of an offense unless he can satisfactorily explain the
discrepancy. In practice the courts upheld this ordinance. Court is
conducted in either Cantonese or English, the SAR's two official
languages.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
There is an independent and impartial judiciary for civil matters
and access to a court to bring lawsuits seeking damages for, or the
cessation of, human rights violations.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The law prohibits such actions, and the government generally
respected these prohibitions in practice.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data works to
prevent the misuse, disclosure, or matching of personal data without
the consent of the subject individual or the commissioner. Certain
exemptions allow authorities to transfer personal data to a PRC body
for safeguarding the security, defense, or international relations
of the SAR and for the prevention, detection, or prosecution of a
crime.
The use of covert surveillance and the interception of
telecommunications and postal communications can be granted only to
prevent or detect "serious crime" or protect "public
security." A 2006 law established a two-tiered system for
granting approval for surveillance activities, under which
surveillance of a more intrusive nature requires the approval of a
judge, and surveillance of a less intrusive nature requires the
approval of a senior law enforcement official. Applications to
intercept telecommunications must involve crimes with a penalty of
at least seven years' imprisonment, while applications for covert
surveillance must involve crimes with a penalty of at least three
years' imprisonment or a fine of at least HK$1 million
(approximately $128,000).
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The law provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the
government generally respected these rights in practice.
The Code of Ethics of the Hong Kong Journalists Association
(HKJA) states that "a journalist shall not lend himself/herself
to the distortion or suppression of the truth because of advertising
or other considerations." However, reports of media
self-censorship continued during the year. Most media outlets were
owned by businesses with interests on the Mainland, which led to
claims that they were vulnerable to self-censorship. The Hong Kong
University Public Opinion Program reported that an average of 45.8
percent of polled respondents believed that news media practiced
self-censorship, down 3 percent from 2007. According to a 2007
Lingnan University survey, 29.5 percent of respondents within the
industry said they practiced self-censorship. In its July annual
report, the HKJA expressed concern that rising nationalism could
threaten press freedom. The HKJA report noted a growing reluctance
on the part of many media outlets to address mainland issues that
were sensitive to the government in Beijing. These included matters
of national security, including dissident and separatist activities,
as well as human rights issues, corruption, and allegations of
illegal land transfers and sales.
Although Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee stressed that the
right of protest during the 2008 Olympics and the right of persons
from abroad to travel to Hong Kong to participate in those protests
would be honored, he faced criticism for stating that those seen as
seeking to disrupt the Olympics would be barred from entry to the
SAR. In advance of Olympic events and the Olympic torch relay, some
critics of the PRC were barred, including Western critics of PRC
policy on Darfur.
On April 29, Zhang Yu, secretary-general of the Independent
Chinese PEN Center, who was traveling to Hong Kong to chair a World
Press Freedom Day conference and participate in other human rights
activities, was denied permission to enter.
The publication or importation of print or other media is subject
to regulation by provisions to safeguard the interest of readers, as
in the case of obscene print materials and other media not regulated
by the Broadcasting Ordinance.
Controversy continued over the independence of government-owned
and -operated Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). In 2007 a
government-appointed review panel recommended that a new public
service broadcaster be established, but the panel did not comment on
the future of RTHK. Several media groups criticized the findings,
noting that RTHK was already widely accepted as an independent
public broadcaster. Media groups criticized the composition of the
panel, none of whose members were public broadcasting experts. The
panel's findings were widely interpreted as a threat to media
freedom. At year's end, although a new program director had been
appointed, the government had not decided the fate of RTHK.
International media organizations operated freely. Foreign
reporters needed no special visas or government-issued press cards.
The independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of
views without restriction.
Internet Freedom
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet
or reports that government monitored e-mail or Internet chat rooms.
Commercial Internet service was widely available, including a number
of government-supplied wireless (WiFi) "hot spots" and
public and commercial venues in which WiFi or other access was
provided at no charge to visitors and customers. Individuals and
groups could engage in the peaceful expression of views via the
Internet, including by e-mail.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
There were generally no restrictions on academic freedom and
cultural events.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The law provides for freedom of assembly and association, and the
government generally respected these rights in practice. The
government routinely issued the required permits for public meetings
and demonstrations.
Some activists alleged instances of police using any physical
contact between protesters and police as a basis to detain
protesters on charges of assaulting police. In July a magistrate
dismissed the case of an activist detained in 2007 on charges of
interfering with and assaulting police officers. Media reported that
video footage taken by a witness showed aggressive police behavior,
while the activist himself remained calm and did not initiate
physical contact with police. The activist further reported to media
that officers assaulted him and others detained at the scene and at
the police station.
c. Freedom of Religion
The law provides for freedom of religion, and the government
generally respected this right in practice.
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
No major societal abuses or acts of religious discrimination,
including anti-Semitic acts against the small Jewish community, were
reported during the year.
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 residents freedom of movement, freedom of
emigration, and freedom to enter and leave the territory, and the
government generally respected these rights in practice, with some
prominent exceptions. Although the SAR is not party to the 1951
Convention on Refugees, the government cooperated with the Office of
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian
organizations in providing temporary permission to enter the SAR and
assistance to internally displaced persons, refugees, returning
refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and other persons of
concern.
Most residents easily obtained travel documents from the SAR
government; however, limits on travel to the Mainland were sometimes
imposed by the mainland government on outspoken political figures.
Government policy was to repatriate undocumented migrants who
arrive from the Mainland, and authorities were not able to consider
them for refugee status under the "one country, two systems"
framework. During the first half of the year, 1,352 migrants were
repatriated to the Mainland. The government does not recognize the
Taiwan passport as valid for visa endorsement purposes, although
convenient mechanisms exist for Taiwan passport holders to visit
Hong Kong.
The law does not provide for, and the government did not use,
forced exile.
PRC authorities do not permit some Hong Kong human rights
activists and most prodemocracy legislators to visit the Mainland.
An exception to this general practice occurred following the Sichuan
earthquake, as LegCo President Rita Fan led a delegation including
democratic legislators normally barred from the Mainland to view
quake sites and reconstruction efforts.
Protection of Refugees
The 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its
1967 protocol do not extend to Hong Kong, and the SAR has no
temporary protection policy. The director of immigration has
discretion to grant refugee status or asylum on an ad hoc basis, but
only in cases of exceptional humanitarian or compassionate need. The
Immigration Ordinance does not provide foreigners the right to have
asylum claims recognized. The government's practice was to refer
refugee and asylum claimants to a lawyer or the UNHCR. In November
the UN Committee Against Torture expressed concern that there was
"still no legal regime governing asylum and establishing a fair
and efficient refugee status determination procedure."
In 2006, due to budget cuts, the UNHCR stopped providing
financial support to individuals awaiting status assessment. In
response the government began offering limited allowances to adult
claimants through its Social Welfare Department. As of November 30,
approximately 2,879 persons were receiving assistance-in-kind, based
on the needs assessed by professional workers, under the government
support program. The UNHCR worked with potential host country
representatives to resettle persons designated as refugees.
A July court of appeal decision found current policies regarding
detention of persons seeking relief from removal to be at odds with
the Bill of Rights Ordinance, because the grounds by which the
director of immigration made determinations that a person should be
detained were not sufficiently "certain and accessible."
The High Court ruled in favor of six applicants for relief from
removal under the Convention Against Torture; they had challenged
the SAR's process for handling their applications in a December 2007
case. The High Court found the SAR's process flawed in that it made
no provision for applicants to have counsel present during
completion of their application questionnaires (including free
counsel for those unable to afford their own). The court also struck
down the system of having one officer conduct the interview portion
of the application while another officer made the decision to grant
or deny relief without firsthand contact with the applicant. The
court further determined that the appeal process must grant both the
opportunity for an oral hearing with officials making the
determination and access by the applicant to any external advice
given to the Security Bureau or Immigration Department in making a
determination on the application.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of
Citizens to Change Their Government
The right of residents to change their government peacefully is
limited by the Basic Law, which provides for the selection of the
chief executive by an 800-person election committee (composed of
individuals who are directly elected, indirectly elected, and
appointed). The Basic Law provides for the direct election of 30 of
the 60 LegCo members and the inclusion of appointed members to the
elected district councils. The approval of the chief executive,
two-thirds of the LegCo, and two thirds of Hong Kong's delegates to
the Mainland's National People's Congress (NPC) is required to place
an amendment of the Basic Law on the agenda of the NPC, which has
the sole power to amend the Basic Law.
Elections and Political Participation
In March 2007 the Chief Executive Election Committee selected
incumbent Donald Tsang. In April 2007 Tsang was appointed as chief
executive, and the mainland government approved his new cabinet in
June 2007.
On September 7, Hong Kong voters in six geographic constituencies
elected 30 legislators, half of the total LegCo, in elections that
were generally free and fair. A record number of candidates, both
party affiliated and independent, contested the elections. Concerns
were raised over the use of exit polling data by organizations with
political party affiliations to assist parties in directing their
supporters to support particular candidates. Use of polling is not
illegal if the data is not publicly released prior to the close of
the polls; however, the question was raised whether polling
activities in support of particular political parties should be
recognized as an official election expense subject to the monetary
limits and reporting requirements of the law.
The other 30 seats in the LegCo were elected by 28 functional
constituencies (FCs), which represent key economic and social
sectors. The 28 FCs represent only 230,000 voters, less than the
electorate in a single geographic constituency. Of this number of
voters, 150,000 are represented by the three largest FCs, while the
four smallest have less than 200 voters. FCs set their own voting
rules, with some allowing heads of corporations to vote on behalf of
their companies. Persons with interests in more than one sector
represented by an FC may thus be able to cast three or more votes
(one in their geographic constituency and one in each FC for which
they meet eligibility requirements). Fourteen FC seats were returned
uncontested, which spurred critics to renew calls that the FCs be
abolished in the process of establishing a LegCo elected by
universal suffrage.
As of October 31, the Independent Commission Against Corruption
(ICAC) had received 108 complaints related to the LegCo elections on
September 7. Of these, approximately 60 percent concerned corrupt
conduct and 30 percent to illegal conduct.
The Basic Law substantially limits the ability of the legislature
to influence policy by requiring separate majorities among members
elected from geographical and functional constituencies to pass a
bill introduced by an individual member. Another Basic Law provision
prohibits the LegCo from putting forward bills that affect public
expenditure, political structure, or government policy. Bills that
affect government policy cannot be introduced without the chief
executive's written consent. The government has adopted a very broad
definition of "government policy" to block private member
bills, and the president of LegCo has upheld the government's
position.
District councils are responsible for advising the government on
matters affecting the well-being of district residents, the
provision and use of public facilities, and the use of public funds
allocated for local public works and community activities. The
District Council Ordinance gives the chief executive authority to
appoint 102 of 529 of the district councilors, and he exercised this
power in practice.
Hong Kong sends 36 delegates to the NPC. Four pandemocratic
candidates were among the 50 candidates for the NPC, but none was
selected by the NPC electoral committee for the 36-member Hong Kong
delegation.
Women were elected to seven of the 30 directly elected LegCo
seats and four of the 30 functional constituency seats. Women made
up between 17 and 23 percent of the membership in the major
political parties. Four political parties or movements represented
in the LegCo were headed by women, and several women were party vice
chairs. More than one-third of civil servants were women, and four
of the 22 most senior government officials were women.
There is no legal restriction against non-Chinese standing for
electoral office or participating in the civil service, although
some positions require that the office holder have legal right of
abode only in Hong Kong. There were no ethnic minorities in the
LegCo, but there were a number of ethnic minorities in senior civil
service positions.
Government Corruption and Transparency
There were isolated reports of government corruption, and the
government sought to combat official corruption through the
Prevention of Bribery Ordinance and the ICAC.
By the end of September, the ICAC had received 2,549 reports of
corruption (a 5 percent decrease over the same period in 2007), of
which 743 were related to the government (an increase of 2 percent
from 2007). The ICAC completed 285 prosecutions involving 246
individuals (an increase of 6 percent over 2007).
The SAR requires government officials to declare their financial
investments--annually for the 27 most senior civil service positions
and biennially for approximately 3,100 senior working-level
officials. Policy bureaus may also impose additional reporting
requirements for positions seen as having a greater risk of conflict
of interest.
The law provides for access to government information with
exceptions that are narrowly defined and could be appealed; in
practice such information was provided to both citizens and
noncitizens.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
A wide variety of domestic and international human rights groups
generally operated without government restriction, investigating and
publishing their findings on human rights cases. Government
officials were generally cooperative and responsive to their views.
Prominent human rights activists critical of the mainland government
also operated freely and maintained permanent resident status in
Hong Kong.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking
in Persons
The law provides that all residents are equal, and the government
enforced these rights in practice.
Women
Violence against women continued to be a problem, although the
government took measures against it. The Statute Law (Miscellaneous
Provisions) Bill criminalizes marital rape, and the Crimes Ordinance
expressly states that "unlawful sexual intercourse" could
be applied both outside and inside the bounds of marriage. From
January to June, 47 rape cases and 683 indecent assault cases were
reported to the police.
The government regarded domestic violence against women a serious
concern and took effective measures to prevent and prosecute
offenses. Between January and June, there were 3,103 cases of
spousal battery and 408 cases of child abuse reported to the Social
Welfare Department, which receives reports from the police, social
workers, the Health Department, and volunteer organizations. The
Domestic Violence Ordinance allows victims to seek a three-month
injunction, extendable to six months, against an abuser. The
ordinance does not criminalize domestic violence directly, although
abusers may be liable for criminal charges under other ordinances,
including the Crime Ordinance and the Offences Against the Person
Ordinance. The government enforced the law and prosecuted violators,
but sentences typically consisted only of injunctions or restraining
orders.
On August 1, Hong Kong's Domestic Violence (Amendment) Ordinance
took effect. It expands the scope of previous law to cover
molestation between married couples and heterosexual cohabitants,
former spouses or cohabitants, and immediate and extended family
members. The revised law provides better protection for victims
under age 18, allowing them to apply for an injunction in their own
right, with the assistance of an adult guardian, against molestation
by their parents, siblings, and specified immediate and extended
family members. The new law also empowers the court to require the
abuser to attend an antiviolence program. In cases where the abuser
caused bodily harm, the court may attach an authorization of arrest
to an existing injunction, and both injunctions and authorizations
for arrest can be extended to two years under the new law.
The government maintained programs that provide intervention and
counseling to batterers. There were eight Integrated Family Service
Centres and Family and Child Protective Services Units, which
offered services to domestic violence victims and batterers. The
government also continued its publicity campaign to strengthen
families and combat violence and increased public education on the
prevention of domestic violence.
Prostitution is legal, but there are laws against activities such
as public solicitation, causing or procuring another to be a
prostitute, living on the prostitution of others, or keeping a vice
establishment.
The Sex Discrimination Ordinance prohibits sexual harassment of
women seeking employment or already working in an organization. As
of July 31, 51 complaints of sexual harassment had been reported to
the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC).
The law prohibits discrimination based on gender. According to
the results of the General Household Survey conducted by the Census
and Statistics Department, there were 1,659 men for every 1,000
women employed as professionals in the July-September period.
Approximately 22 percent of judicial officers and judges were women.
While the law treats men and women equally in terms of property
rights in divorce settlements and inheritance matters, in practice
women faced discrimination in employment, salary, welfare,
inheritance, and promotion. Women reportedly formed the majority of
the working poor and those who fall outside the protection of labor
laws.
The government established a Women's Commission as an advisory
body for policy making, while the EOC oversaw enforcement of the Sex
Discrimination Ordinance. A number of nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) were also active in raising problems of societal attitudes
and discrimination against women.
Children
The government supported children's rights and welfare through
well-funded systems of public education, medical care, and
protective services.
From January to June, there were 427 child abuse cases reported
to the Social Welfare Department: 238 involved physical abuse
(referring to victims younger than 14 years of age), and 125
involved sexual abuse (referring to victims younger than 17 years of
age). The Domestic Violence Ordinance mandates substantial legal
penalties for acts of child abuse such as battery, assault, neglect,
abandonment, sexual exploitation, and child sex tourism, and the
government enforced the law.
The government provided parent education programs, including
instruction on child abuse prevention, in all 50 of the Department
of Health's maternal and child health centers. It also provided
public education programs to raise awareness of child abuse and
alert children about how to protect themselves. The Social Welfare
Department provided child psychologists for its clinical psychology
units and social workers for its family and child protective
services units. The police maintained a child abuse investigation
unit and a child witness support program. A law on child care
centers helped prevent unsuitable persons from providing child care
services.
Social service providers and the media tracked a rise in the
incidence of "compensated dating" among minor girls. The
majority of cases appeared to involve teenage girls, both above and
below the age of consent, who advertised escort services that might
include sex, either to support themselves or for extra pocket money.
However, in September police raided the operations of a syndicate
employing both minors and women of legal age involved essentially in
prostitution services. Some women involved in the trade reported
being beaten or abused by clients. In response to this trend, police
began monitoring Internet chat rooms and Web sites used by both
individuals and syndicates to advertise services, with officers
assigned to gather evidence against the operations and determine the
techniques used by syndicates to recruit the girls.
Trafficking in Persons
There is no consolidated antitrafficking law; however, various
laws and ordinances allow law enforcement authorities to take action
against traffickers. Despite robust efforts by the SAR government to
stop such activities, Hong Kong was a point of transit and
destination for a small number of persons trafficked for sexual
exploitation from the Mainland and Southeast Asia. The SAR
government stated that it was difficult to identify trafficking
victims from among the larger group of illegal immigrants.
Nearly all trafficking victims initially came to Hong Kong
willingly to engage in prostitution. Most came from rural areas of
the Mainland, Thailand, or the Philippines on 14-day tourist visas,
although a very small number entered using forged documents. The
overwhelming majority were women, although an increasing number of
young men came to work as homosexual prostitutes. While many came on
their own, some were lured by criminal syndicates and promises of
financial rewards but faced circumstances of debt bondage.
Syndicates sometimes held passports and travel documents until debts
were paid.
Provisions in the Immigration Ordinance, the Crimes Ordinance,
the Employment Ordinance, and other relevant laws enable law
enforcement authorities to take action against trafficking in
persons. The Security Bureau, which also combats migrant trafficking
and oversees the police, customs, and immigration departments,
enforces antitrafficking laws. The courts can impose heavy fines and
prison sentences of up to 14 years for activities such as arranging
passage of unauthorized entrants, arranging entrance or exit of a
person for the purpose of prostitution, and aiding and abetting any
person to use forged, false, or unlawfully obtained travel
documents. Law enforcement officials received special training on
handling and protecting victims and vulnerable witnesses, including
victims of trafficking.
There were no reports that government officials participated in,
facilitated, or condoned trafficking, and no officials were
prosecuted, convicted, or sentenced to time in prison or were
removed from their duties for trafficking during the year.
The government provided legal aid to those taking legal action
against an employer and immunity from prosecution for those
assisting in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers. The
Social Welfare Department and local NGOs provided an array of social
services to victims of trafficking. The government also tried to
prevent trafficking by distributing pamphlets and other public
messaging campaigns, in a wide range of languages, on workers'
rights.
The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report can
be found at www.state.gov/g/tip.
Persons with Disabilities
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical
and mental disabilities in employment, access to health care, or the
provision of other state services, and the government effectively
enforced these provisions. In the first seven months, the Labour
Department's Selective Placement Division found jobs for 1,512 job
seekers with disabilities out of 2,091 on the register. As of March
the government employed 3,225 civil servants with disabilities, out
of a total workforce estimated at 155,000.
Nevertheless, instances of discrimination against persons with
disabilities persisted in employment, education, and the provision
of some public services. The Disability Discrimination Ordinance
calls for improved building access and sanctions against those who
discriminate. Despite inspections and the occasional closure of
noncompliant businesses under the Buildings Ordinance, access to
public buildings (including public schools) and transportation
remained a serious problem for persons with disabilities.
The EOC sponsored a variety of activities to address
discrimination against persons with disabilities, including offering
youth education programs, distributing guidelines and resources for
employers, carrying out media campaigns, and cosponsoring seminars
and research.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Although 95 percent ethnic Chinese, Hong Kong is a multiethnic
society with persons from a number of ethnic groups recognized as
citizens or legal permanent residents of the SAR. Discrimination
based on race is prohibited by law, and the EOC oversees
implementation and enforcement of the Race Discrimination Ordinance
passed during the year. The Race Relations Unit, which is
subordinate to the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau,
served as secretariat to the Committee on the Promotion of Racial
Harmony and implemented the committee's programs. The unit also
maintained a hotline for enquiries and complaints concerning racial
discrimination.
Opponents of the new Race Discrimination Ordinance believed that
it lacked the clear statements of applicability to government
agencies found in the Sex Discrimination Ordinance and similar
legislation. The government argued in turn that the law, if
broadened in some areas, could affect the government's ability to
function, including in areas meant to correct societal inequities,
and might open the government up to litigation. The government
further argued that, in areas not covered by the Race Discrimination
Ordinance, the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance provided
sufficient guarantees.
While English and Cantonese are the two official languages,
persons not fluent and literate in Cantonese faced tremendous
challenges in seeking employment and in choice of education. The
Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau sponsored a
"Cross-Cultural Learning Programme for Non-Chinese Speaking
Youth" through grants to NGO service providers.
Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were no reports of societal violence or discrimination
based on sexual orientation. Human rights activists expressed
concern that while the new Domestic Violence (Amendment) Ordinance
covers unmarried heterosexual partnerships, it does not extend the
same protection to homosexual partnerships.
There were no reports of societal violence or discrimination
against persons with HIV/AIDS.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The law provides for the right of association and the right of
workers to establish and join organizations of their own choosing.
Trade unions must register under the Trade Unions Ordinance and must
have a minimum membership of seven persons for registration. At the
end of June, there were 782 registered trade unions, comprising 739
employee unions, 19 employers' associations, and 24 mixed
organizations of employees and employers. In the first half of the
year, 13 new unions were registered and six unions were deregistered
upon request.
According to a 2008 International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC) survey, almost 25 percent of Hong Kong's labor force was
unionized.
The 1997 Employment and Labor Relations (Miscellaneous
Amendments) Ordinance bans the use of union funds for political
purposes, requires the chief executive's approval before unions can
contribute funds to any trade union outside of the SAR, and
restricts the appointment of persons from outside the enterprise or
sector to union executive committees.
Work stoppages and strikes are legal. There are some restrictions
on this right for civil servants. Although there is no legislative
prohibition of strikes, in practice most workers had to sign
employment contracts that typically stated that walking off the job
is a breach of contract, which could lead to summary dismissal. In
addition there is no legal entitlement to reinstatement in the case
of unfair dismissal.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The law provides for the right to organize, and this right was
implemented in practice; however, it does not guarantee the right to
collective bargaining. The 1997 Employment and Labor Relations
(Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance does not provide a legal
framework for trade unions to engage employers in collective
bargaining. In all but a few specific trades, unions were not
powerful enough to force management to engage in collective
bargaining. The government did not engage in collective bargaining
with civil servants' unions. According to the ITUC report, only 1
percent of the workforce was covered by collective agreements, and
these were not legally binding.
The Workplace Consultation Promotion Unit in the Labour
Department facilitated communication, consultation, and voluntary
negotiation between employers and employees. Tripartite committees
for each of the nine sectors of the economy included representatives
from some trade unions, employers, and the Labour Department.
There is no provision guaranteeing reinstatement of workers
dismissed because of their trade union membership.
There are no export processing zones in the SAR.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, and there were no
reports that such practices occurred. Although the law does not
specifically prohibit forced or compulsory labor by children, there
were no reports that such practices occurred.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The Employment of Children Regulations prohibits employment of
children under the age of 15 in any industrial establishment.
Children 13 and 14 years of age may work in certain nonindustrial
establishments, subject to conditions aimed at ensuring a minimum of
nine years of education and protection of their safety, health, and
welfare. The Labour Department conducted regular workplace
inspections to enforce compliance with the regulations. During the
first half of the year, the Labour Department conducted 74,451
inspections and discovered five suspected violations of the
Employment of Children Regulations. The regulations limit work hours
in the manufacturing sector for persons 15 to 17 years of age to
eight hours per day and 48 hours per week between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
They also prohibit overtime in industrial establishments with
employment in dangerous trades for persons less than 18 years of
age.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
There is no statutory minimum wage except for domestic workers of
foreign origin. Aside from a small number of trades where a uniform
wage structure exists, wage levels customarily are fixed by
individual agreement between employer and employee and are
determined by supply and demand. Some employers provided workers
with various kinds of allowances, medical treatment, and subsidized
transport. The average wage provided a decent standard of living for
a worker and family. Two-income households were the norm. There are
no regulations concerning working hours, paid weekly rest, rest
breaks, or compulsory overtime. Workweeks of up to 60 hours and more
were not uncommon.
The Occupational Safety and Health Branch of the Labour
Department is responsible for safety and health promotion,
enforcement of safety management legislation, and policy formulation
and implementation. The Factories and Industrial Undertakings
Ordinance, the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance, the Boilers
and Pressure Vessels Ordinance, and their 35 sets of subsidiary
regulations regulate safety and health conditions. During the first
half of the year, the Labour Department's Occupational Safety and
Health Branch conducted 58,872 workplace inspections. There were 889
convicted summonses, resulting in fines totaling HK$6,596,450 (more
than $850,000). Although worker safety and health continued to
improve, serious problems remained, particularly in the construction
industry. In the first quarter of the year, the Labour Department
reported 9,438 occupational injuries, including 3,359 classified as
industrial accidents. In the same period, there were eight fatal
industrial accidents. Employers are required under the Employee's
Compensation Ordinance to report any injuries sustained by their
employees in work-related accidents. There is no specific legal
provision allowing workers to remove themselves from dangerous work
situations without jeopardy to continued employment.
The minimum wage for foreign domestic workers was HK$3,580 per
month (approximately $460). The standard workweek was 48 hours, but
many domestic workers worked much longer hours. The standard
contract law requires employers to provide foreign domestic workers
with housing, worker's compensation insurance, travel allowances,
and food or a food allowance in addition to the minimum wage, which
together provide a decent standard of living. Foreign domestic
workers can be deported if dismissed. Labor groups reported that the
200,000 foreign domestic workers were still vulnerable to extensive
rights and contract violations. During the first six months of the
year, four employers were convicted for labor law maltreatment
violations under the Employment Ordinance relating to the employment
of foreign domestic workers. During the first seven months of the
year, 101 foreign domestic workers filed criminal suits, 47 of which
were against employers, for other types of maltreatment, including
rape, indecent assault, and injuring and serious assault.
The Dalai Lama and other observers expressed concern that
development projects and other central government policies
disproportionately benefited non-Tibetans and continued to promote a
considerable influx of Han, Hui, and other ethnic groups into the
TAR. The opening of the Qinghai-TAR railroad in 2006 increased
migration of non-Tibetans into the TAR. The government reported the
railroad carried 1.5 million passengers in 2007, approximately half
of whom were non-tourists.
Residents lacked the right to play a role in protecting their
cultural heritage, including their environment. In 2007 the TAR
government revised the TAR Cultural Relics Protection Regulations,
asserting ownership over religious relics and monasteries. In recent
years the government attempted to restore some temples and other
physical vestiges of Tibetan Buddhism and culture that were damaged
or destroyed before and during the Cultural Revolution.
Tibetan and Mandarin are official languages in the TAR, and both
languages appear on public and commercial signs. Mandarin was widely
spoken and was used for most official communications. The illiteracy
rate among Tibetans was more than five times higher (47.6 percent)
than the national average (9.1 percent), according to 2000 census
data. In many rural and nomadic areas, children received only one to
three years of Tibetan-language education before continuing their
education in a Mandarin-language school. According to official
figures, the illiteracy rate was 15 percent at the end of 2005.
However, the illiteracy rate for this group was much higher in some
areas. According to a 2006 report by the Xinhua News Agency, a
looser definition of literacy was used for Tibetan speakers than for
Mandarin speakers in rural Tibet. Tibetan-speaking peasants and
nomads were considered literate if they could read and write the 30
letters of the Tibetan syllabary and read and write simple notes.
Mandarin-speaking nomads and herders were considered literate if
they could recognize 1,500 Chinese characters.
The government established a comprehensive national
Tibetan-language curriculum, and many elementary schools in Tibetan
areas used Tibetan as the primary language of instruction. Tibetan
students also were required to study Chinese, and Chinese generally
was used to teach certain subjects, such as arithmetic and science.
In middle and high schools--even some officially designated as
Tibetan schools--teachers often used Tibetan only to teach classes
in Tibetan language, literature, and culture and taught all other
classes in Chinese.
As a practical matter, proficiency in Mandarin was essential to
qualify for higher education. China's most prestigious universities
provided instruction only in Mandarin, while the lower-ranked
universities established to serve ethnic minority students only
offered Tibetan-language instruction in courses focused on the study
of the Tibetan language or culture. At the minority universities,
Tibetans and other ethnic minority students typically achieved high
proficiency in Mandarin, since much of the curriculum, such as
computer and business courses, was in Mandarin.
Leading universities generally required English language
proficiency for matriculation. Most graduates of Tibetan schools,
however, learned only Mandarin and Tibetan and were thus unable to
attend the better universities. This resulted in a shortage of
Tibetans trained in science and engineering and, consequently, a
near total reliance on imported technical specialists from outside
the TAR to work on development projects inside the TAR.
Macau, with a population of approximately 543,000, is a Special
Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC)
and enjoys a high degree of autonomy, except in defense and foreign
affairs, under the SAR's constitution the Basic Law. In the most
recent election for SAR leadership, held in 2004, Chief Executive
Edmund Ho was reelected to a second five-year term. In 2005, in
elections considered generally free and fair, voters elected 12 of
the legislature's 29 members in direct elections based on
geographical constituencies. Civilian authorities generally
maintained effective control of the security forces.
The government generally respected the human rights of its
citizens; however, some problems remained, most notably limits on
citizens' ability to change their government, trafficking in
persons, and reports of official corruption.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports that the government or its agents committed
arbitrary or unlawful killings.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment
The law prohibits such practices, and the government generally
respected these rights. In the first half of the year, there were
six reports of police brutality, none involving serious acts of
abuse.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison and detention center conditions generally met
international standards.
Although the government permitted visits by independent human
rights observers, there were no requests during the year.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, and the
government generally observed these prohibitions.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
Civilian authorities maintained effective control over the Public
Security Police (general law enforcement) and Judiciary Police
(criminal investigations), and the government has effective
mechanisms to investigate and punish abuse and corruption. There
were no reports of impunity involving the security forces during the
year.
Arrest and Detention
Persons were apprehended openly with warrants based on sufficient
evidence and issued by a duly authorized official. Detainees were
allowed access to a lawyer of their choice or, if indigent, to one
provided by the SAR government. Detainees also were allowed prompt
access to family members. Police must present persons remanded in
custody to an examining judge within 48 hours of detention. The
examining judge, who conducts a pretrial inquiry in criminal cases,
has a wide range of powers to collect evidence, order or dismiss
indictments, and determine whether to release detained persons. The
law provides that cases must come to trial within six months of an
indictment. The criminal procedure code mandates that pretrial
detention is limited to between six months to three years, depending
on the criminal charges and progress of the judicial system. Judges
often refused bail in cases where sentences could exceed three
years.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government
generally respected judicial independence in practice.
Both Portuguese and Chinese (Cantonese) are official languages.
The need to translate laws and judgments from Chinese into
Portuguese and a shortage of local bilingual lawyers and magistrates
hampered the development of the legal system. There also was a
severe shortage of judges.
Trial Procedures
The law provides for the right to a fair trial, and an
independent judiciary generally enforced this right. The courts may
rule on matters that are "the responsibility of the Central
People's Government or concern the relationship between the central
authorities and the SAR." However, before making their final
judgment, which is not subject to appeal, the courts must seek an
interpretation of relevant provisions from the National People's
Congress (NPC) Standing Committee. When the Standing Committee makes
an interpretation of the provisions concerned, the courts, in
applying those provisions, "shall follow the interpretation of
the Standing Committee." The Standing Committee must consult
the NPC's Committee for the Basic Law of the SAR before giving an
interpretation of the law. This committee is composed of 10
members--five from the SAR and five from the mainland. The chief
executive, the president of the SAR Legislative Assembly, and the
president of the Court of Final Appeal nominate the SAR members.
Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence and have access to
government-held evidence relevant to their cases and a right to
appeal. Defendants have the right to be present at their trials and
to confront witnesses. They also have the right to consult with an
attorney in a timely manner; public attorneys are provided for those
who are financially incapable of engaging lawyers or paying expenses
of proceedings. Trials are public and are by jury except at the
magistrate-court level. The law extends these rights to all
citizens.
The judiciary provides citizens with a fair and efficient
judicial process; however, due to an overloaded court system, a
period of up to a year often passed between filing a civil case and
its scheduled hearing.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures
There is an independent and impartial judiciary for civil
matters, and citizens have access to a court to bring lawsuits
seeking damages for, or cessation of, a human rights violation.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The law prohibits such actions, and the government generally
respected these prohibitions in practice.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The law provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the
government generally respected these rights in practice.
The independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of
views without restriction, and international media operated freely.
Major newspapers were heavily subsidized by the government and
tended to follow closely the PRC central government line on
sensitive political issues, such as Taiwan; however, they reported
freely on the SAR government, including reports critical of the
government.
In April Andrew To, a member of the Wong Tai Sin District Council
and vice chairman of League of Social Democrats in Hong Kong, was
refused entry into the SAR. To declared that authorities cited
internal security laws for the denial of his entry.
On April 28, members of the Hong Kong political party League of
Social Democrats members Chan Cheong and Michael Mak were denied
entry to the SAR ahead of the Olympic torch relay in Hong Kong and
Macau. Mak stated that authorities cited internal security laws for
their refusal to allow them to enter.
On June 12, authorities declined the entry of Hong Kong
university student Christina Chan, who waved the Tibetan Snow Lion
Flag during the Olympic torch relay in Hong Kong. A spokesman for
the Government Information Bureau declared that authorities declined
her entry in accordance with the security law that allows the
authorities to refuse the entry of a person who poses a threat to
stability or internal security.
In November Hong Kong democratic legislators, including members
of the League of Social Democrats, were able to participate in
seminars and public protests regarding Article 23 of the Basic Law,
otherwise known as the "The Defense of National Security Act,"
which prohibits acts such as treason, secession, sedition, and
subversion against the PRC government and theft of state secrets.
One legislator was held by immigration for 10 minutes on arrival but
was admitted. However, in December a group of 24 Hong Kong
activists, including nine legislators, was denied admission to
attend Article 23-related activities.
Internet Freedom
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet
or reports that the government monitored e-mail or Internet chat
rooms. Individuals and groups could engage in the peaceful
expression of views via the Internet, including by e-mail. Internet
access was widely available; studies showed that approximately 64
percent of the population had regular access to the Internet.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
There were no government restrictions on academic freedom or
cultural events.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The law provides for freedom of assembly and association, and the
government generally respected these rights in practice.
c. Freedom of Religion
The law provides for freedom of religion, and the government
generally respected this right in practice.
There were no reports that Falun Gong practitioners were denied
entry into the SAR.
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
Societal relations among various religious groups were generally
amicable. The size of the Jewish population remained extremely
small, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.
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, and the government
generally respected them in practice. Persons denied entry into the
SAR have the right to contact their consulate or other
representative of their country, to have assistance with language
interpretation, and to consult a lawyer. The Immigration Department
cooperated with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in handling
refugees.
The law prohibits forced exile, and the government generally
respected the law in practice.
Protection of Refugees
The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status in
accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees and its 1967 protocol, and the government has established a
system for providing protection to refugees. In practice the
government provided protection against the expulsion or return of
refugees to countries where their lives or freedom would be
threatened. During the year there were two applications (covering
five persons) for refugee status, both of which were pending at
year's end.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of
Citizens to Change Their Government
The law limits citizens' ability to change their government. The
government was led by a chief executive, chosen by a 300-member
election committee, which in turn was chosen by a 100-member
preparatory committee, composed of 60 SAR and 40 mainland
representatives appointed by the NPC. Voters directly elected 12 of
the 29 members of the Legislative Assembly, and local community
interest groups indirectly elected 10 members. The remaining seven
members were selected by the chief executive.
Elections and Political Participation
In 2004 Chief Executive Edmund Ho was reelected to a second
five-year term. In 2005 the SAR held elections for the Legislative
Assembly, with 58 percent of registered voters participating. The
elections of directly elected seats were considered generally free
and fair.
There are limits on the types of legislation that legislators may
introduce. The law stipulates that legislators may not initiate
legislation related to public expenditure, the SAR's political
structure, or the operation of the government. Proposed legislation
related to government policies must receive the chief executive's
written approval before it is submitted.
A 10-member Executive Council functions as an unofficial cabinet,
approving draft legislation before it is presented in the
Legislative Assembly. The Basic Law stipulates that the chief
executive appoints members of the SAR Executive Council from among
the principal officials of the executive authorities, members of the
legislature, and public figures.
There are no registered political parties; politically active
groups register as societies or companies. These groups are active
in promoting their political agendas, and those critical of the
government do not face restrictions. Such groups participated in
protests over government policies or proposed legislation without
restriction.
There were six women in the Legislative Assembly, including the
president. Women also held a number of senior positions throughout
the government, including the secretary for justice and
administration, the second-highest official in the SAR government.
Eleven of the SAR's 29 judges were women. There were three members
of ethnic minorities in the Legislative Assembly. One member of the
Executive Council was also from an ethnic minority, as was the
police commissioner.
Government Corruption and Transparency
The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption;
however, officials sometimes engaged in corruption.
The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) investigates the public
sector and has the power to arrest and detain suspects. The most
recent figures showed that in 2007 the CCAC received 736 complaints
against public officials in a variety of agencies. The CCAC pursued
369 of these complaints, 500 of which were criminal cases and 236
were administrative cases. The CCAC transferred 11 cases to the
Public Prosecutions Office. The Ombudsman Bureau, within the CCAC,
reviews complaints of maladministration or abuse by the CCAC, but
there were no reports of such complaints in 2007. There also is an
independent committee outside CCAC called the Monitoring Committee
on Discipline of the CCAC Personnel, which accepts and reviews
complaints on CCAC personnel.
In January the Court of Final Appeal convicted former public
works secretary Ao Man Long on 57 counts of taking bribes, money
laundering, abuse of power, and other charges and sentenced him to
27 years' imprisonment.
By law the chief executive, his cabinet, judges, members of the
Legislative Assembly and the Executive Council, and executive agency
directors are required to disclose their financial interests.
The law does not provide for public access to government
information. However, the executive branch published online, in both
Portuguese and Chinese, an extensive amount of information on laws,
regulations, ordinances, government policies and procedures, and
biographies of government officials. The government also issued a
daily press release on topics of public concern. The information
provided by the legislature was less extensive. For example, it did
not publish a legislative agenda or a list of pending bills.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
A number of domestic and international groups monitoring human
rights generally operated without government restriction,
investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases.
Government officials often were cooperative and responsive to their
views.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking
in Persons
The law stipulates that residents shall be free from
discrimination, and the government effectively enforced the law. In
addition, many local laws carry specific prohibitions against
discrimination, although there is no specific law for combating
discrimination.
Women
The law criminalizes rape, including spousal rape, and the
government effectively enforced the law. In the first half of the
year, there were six reported rapes. Rape was not a pervasive
problem, and the police and courts promptly acted on rape cases.
The government effectively enforced criminal statutes prohibiting
domestic violence against women and prosecuted violators; however,
various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government
officials considered domestic violence against women to be a growing
problem. In the first half of the year, 35 cases of domestic
violence, including 15 cases of spousal abuse, were reported to the
police.
Domestic violence is punishable by one to 15 years in prison. In
the case of both spousal abuse and violence against minors, the
penalty is two to eight years' imprisonment; if the abuse leads to
the death of the victim, the penalty is five to 15 years. There was
no data on reported cases of spousal abuse and violence against
minors.
The government provided hospital treatment for victims of abuse,
and medical social workers counseled victims and informed them of
social welfare services. The government may provide victims of
domestic violence with public housing until their complaints are
resolved, but it did not reserve facilities expressly for this
purpose.
Private and religious groups sponsored programs for victims of
domestic violence, and the government supported and helped to fund
these organizations and programs. The Bureau for Family Action, a
government organization subordinate to the Department of Family and
Community of the Social Welfare Institute, helped female victims of
domestic violence by providing a safe place for them and their
children and furnishing advice regarding legal actions against
perpetrators. A family counseling service was available to persons
who requested such services at social centers. Two
government-supported religious programs also offered rehabilitation
programs for female victims of violence.
Prostitution is legal and common; however, procurement and the
operation of a brothel are illegal. Nevertheless, the SAR had a
large sex trade, including brothels, most of which were believed to
be controlled by Chinese organized crime groups, and many of those
exploited by the trade were women.
There is no law specifically addressing sexual harassment,
although harassment in general is prohibited and was not widespread.
Between January 2007 and August 2008, the Labor Affairs Bureau
received one sexual harassment complaint, which on investigation was
found to be unsubstantiated.
Equal opportunity legislation mandates that women receive equal
pay for equal work; however, observers estimated that there was a
significant difference in salary between men and women, particularly
in unskilled jobs. The law allows for civil suits, but few women
took their cases to the Labor Affairs Bureau or other entities.
Discrimination in hiring practices based on gender or physical
ability is prohibited by law, and penalties exist for employers who
violate these guidelines. There were no reports on alleging sexual
discrimination during the first half of the year.
Children
The government protected the rights and welfare of children
through the general framework of civil and political rights
legislation that protects all citizens.
Education is compulsory and free for most children between ages
five and 15 through general secondary education. However, the
children of illegal immigrants were excluded from the educational
system. Experts believed this exclusion affected only a few
children.
The law specifically provides for criminal punishment for sexual
abuse of children and students, statutory rape, and procurement
involving minors.
Trafficking in Persons
The SAR is a transit and destination point for women trafficked
for the purposes of sexual servitude. While the majority of mainland
or foreign women who entered the SAR to become prostitutes were
believed to have done so voluntarily, there was evidence that some
had been deceived or coerced into participating in the commercial
sex trade. Some foreign victims were misinformed about their
destination and diverted to the SAR, where they were trafficked into
prostitution.
On June 12, the Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a
comprehensive antihuman trafficking law that broadens the definition
of trafficking crimes, increases punishments for convicted
traffickers, and expands protections for victims. The new law took
effect on June 24. The law criminalizes all forms of human
trafficking into, from, or through the SAR and provides for
imprisonment of three to 12 years for sex and labor trafficking, as
well as trafficking organs or tissue, and five to 15 years'
imprisonment for trafficking minors (under age 18). Penalties
increase by one-third for trafficking victims under 14 years old.
Retaining, hiding, spoiling, or destroying the identification or
travel documents of a trafficking victim also incurs a penalty of
one to five years' imprisonment, if no harsher punishment is
available in other laws.
Although prostitution is legal, a "procurement" law
makes it a crime to instigate, favor, or facilitate the practice of
prostitution by another person for the purposes of profit or as a
way of life, although the penalties for this lighter crime are less
severe and the "procurement" crime does not recognize a
victim.
Between January and August there were seven reported cases of
human trafficking. On July 20, the Judiciary Police reportedly
arrested two women from the PRC and referred the case–-the
first under the new law--to the Public Prosecutions Office. The two
victims reported being offered work in a casino by the
Shenzhen-based employer, only to be coerced into working as
prostitutes in Cotai District. The victims were reportedly beaten
and told they would have to pay 50,000 patacas (approximately
$6,250) for their freedom. The victims escaped and sought help from
the police on July 18. Both offenders were illegally in the SAR, and
because one victim was a minor, the alleged offenders faced the
maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment. In accordance with the
new law, authorities reportedly offered the victims protection and
welfare, including psychological assistance. On August 6, a local
newspaper reported separately that one of the traffickers was
implicated in two additional reports of sex trafficking, both
involving adult victims, and at year's end police were investigating
the reported crimes.
Authorities believed that Chinese, Russian, and Thai criminal
syndicates were involved in trafficking women to the SAR for
prostitution, after which victims were passed on to local crime
syndicates. There were no confirmed reports of official involvement
in human trafficking. Victims were primarily from mainland China,
Mongolia, Russia, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and Thailand.
As required by the new law, the SAR established a dedicated
government assistance program, including shelter, social welfare,
and healthcare assistance for victims of trafficking. The government
also published leaflets to educate citizens on human trafficking,
associated penalties, and the government's protection measures for
victims. The leaflets, printed in Chinese, Portuguese, and English,
were available at border and transit points, police and other
government offices, healthcare and social welfare facilities, and
educational institutions.
No NGOs focused specifically on trafficking-related problems;
however, there were charity organizations that provided assistance
and shelter to women and children who were victims of trafficking.
The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report can
be found at www.state.gov/g/tip.
Persons with Disabilities
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical
and mental disabilities in employment, access to health care, or the
provision of other state services, and the government generally
enforced these provisions in practice. The law mandates access to
buildings for persons with disabilities. The Social Welfare
Institute was primarily responsible for coordinating and funding
public assistance programs to persons with disabilities.
Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were no reports of societal violence or discrimination
based on sexual orientation or against persons with HIV/AIDS.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The law provides for the right of workers to form and join unions
or "labor associations" of their choice without previous
authorization or excessive requirement, and the government generally
respected this right in practice. However, guidelines adopted by the
CCAC require that civil servants obtain approval from their managers
before joining associations or becoming leaders in labor
associations. The law also specifically excludes public servants,
domestic workers, and migrant workers from labor law protections,
including the right of association. At the beginning of the year,
there were 214 registered labor associations and 227 employers'
associations. Data on the percentage of unionized workers was
unavailable.
According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC),
due to the mainland government's strong influence over local trade
union activities, including the direct selection of the leadership
of the Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), independence of trade
unions was undermined and the protection of the trade union members'
rights compromised. Mainland government policies emphasized
minimizing workplace disruption, and some unions were criticized for
tending to resemble local traditional neighborhood associations
promoting social and cultural activities. The Union for Democracy
Development Macau (UDDM) and some local journalists claimed that the
FTU was more interested in providing social and recreational
services than in addressing labor problems such as wages, benefits,
and working conditions.
Workers have the right to strike, but there is no specific
protection in the law from retribution if workers exercise this
right. The government argued that striking employees are protected
from retaliation by labor law provisions, which require an employer
to have "justified cause" to dismiss an employee; however,
there were reports that the government failed to enforce these
provisions. Strikes, rallies, and demonstrations were not permitted
in the vicinity of the chief executive's office, the Legislative
Assembly, and other key government buildings.
Workers who believed they were dismissed unlawfully may bring a
case to court or lodge a complaint with the Labor Department or the
Office of the High Commissioner Against Corruption and
Administrative Illegality, who also functions as an ombudsman.
However, migrant workers had no right to such legal recourse.
Illegal laborers are not protected by labor laws.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The law provides that agreements concluded between employers and
workers shall be valid, but there is no specific statutory
protection that provides for the right to collective bargaining;
however, the government did not impede or discourage collective
bargaining. Promainland unions traditionally have not attempted to
engage in collective bargaining. Migrant workers and public servants
did not have the right to bargain collectively.
The ITUC maintained that under the law, the high percentage of
foreign labor, which has no right to collective bargaining, was
eroding the bargaining power of local residents to improve working
conditions and increase wages.
The law prohibits antiunion discrimination and employer
interference in union functions; however, the UDDM expressed concern
that the local law contains no explicit provisions that bar
discrimination against unions.
There are no export processing zones.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by
children, and there were no reports that such practices occurred.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The law prohibits minors under the age of 16 from working,
although minors between the ages of 14 and 16 can be authorized to
work on an "exceptional basis." Some children reportedly
worked in family-operated or small businesses. Local laws do not
establish specific regulations governing the number of hours these
children can work, but International Labor Organization conventions
were applied. The Labor Department enforced the law through periodic
and targeted inspections, and violators were prosecuted.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
Local labor laws establish the general principle of fair wages
and mandate compliance with wage agreements. There was no mandatory
minimum wage except for government-outsourced security guards and
cleaners. Average wages provided a decent standard of living for a
worker and family.
In April representatives of employers, employees, and the
government discussed a minimum wage scheme for all sectors. They
concluded that a minimum wage imposed on all industries would be
complex and difficult and a mandatory minimum wage would be
implemented only after the community reaches a consensus.
In addition to the estimated 95,500 migrant workers in 2007, the
use of illegally imported workers increased. Local customs normally
favored employment without the benefit of written labor contracts,
except in the case of migrant workers, who were issued short-term
contracts. Labor groups reported that employers increasingly used
temporary contracts as a means to circumvent obligations to pay for
workers' benefits such as pensions, sick leave, and paid holidays.
The short-term nature of the contracts also makes it easier to
dismiss workers by means of nonrenewal.
Labor legislation provides for a 48-hour workweek, an eight-hour
workday, paid overtime, annual leave, and medical and maternity
care. Although the law provides for a 24-hour rest period each week,
workers frequently agreed to work overtime to compensate for low
wages. The Labor Department provided assistance and legal advice to
workers upon request.
The Labor Department enforced occupational safety and health
regulations, and failure to correct infractions could lead to
prosecution. During 2007 the Labor Department inspectorate conducted
8,591 inspections and uncovered 5,512 violations carrying fines
totaling approximately 1.6 million patacas (more than $200,000). In
2007 there were 4,535 occupational injuries and 14 occupational
deaths. Although the law includes a requirement that employers
provide a safe working environment, no explicit provisions protected
employees' right to continued employment if they refused to work
under dangerous conditions.
Came from:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119037.htm
