INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU)
155, Bld. E.Jacqmain, B - 1210 Brussels, BelgiumDepartment of Trade Union Rights: phone: ++.32.2.224.02.01.
Hotline fax: 32.2.224.02.97
E-mail: internetpo@icftu.org
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA:
TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT OF DETAINED TRADE UNION RIGHTS’ AND LABOUR ACTIVISTS AND PERSECUTION OF THEIR RELATIVES
An ICFTU contribution in the framework of the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue
October 1998
Table of Contents
Introduction
The ICFTU’s 1997 complaint to the ILO
Summary of ICFTU concerns about torture and ill-treatment
Torture: the case of Liu Nianchun
Summary description
Recent ill-treatment of Mr. Liu’s wife, Mrs. Chu Hailan
Background
Liu Nianchun’s case in the ICFTU complaint to ILO
Government’s reply
ILO CFA’s Conclusions and Recommendations
Case of Tang Yuanjuan
Summary of ICFTU concerns
Description of torture
Tang and colleagues’ release from detention
Tang’s renewed arrest: September 1998
ICFTU representations on behalf of Tang Yuanjuan
Tang Yuanjuan and the ICFTU 1997 complaint to the ILO
Ill-treatment and denial of medical care
Case of Zhou Guoqiang
Zhou’s ill-health, denial of medical care and other restrictions
Torture, ill-treatment, detention or persecution of prisoners’ relatives
Absence of reply from the Government and ILO conclusion
Case of Li Wenming (Shenzhen)
Background to the case
Refusal of medical care and attention
Government’s response
ILO conclusion on Li Wenming
Confinement to a psychiatric institution and ill-treatment in detention: case of
Wang Miaogen, Chairman of Shanghai WAFCase description
Absence of reply from the Government and ILO conclusions
Ill-treatment in detention: case of Zhang Jingsheng
CONCLUSIONS and RECOMMENDATIONS
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) remains strongly concerned that, 10 years after China signed the Convention against Torture, 1984 (CAT), torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment remain deeply rooted in China’s judicial system and repressive apparatus.
While allegations of torture of persons detained and/or sentenced are regularly presented by many sources dealing with China’s human rights record, including many official PRC organs, the ICFTU focuses on occurrences of torture reported in the case of detained trade union activists. Though limited in number, known cases are consistent with patterns widely documented by other non-governmental organisations, as well as with observations and conclusions reached by the Committee against Torture itself.
This document describes certain cases where, according to the ICFTU, independent trade union and workers’ rights’ activists and/or some of their relatives have been either submitted to torture per se (i.e.: "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental"), or subjected to severe beatings while in detention, by or at the instigation or with the consent of prison authorities, or consistently denied adequate medical attention or treatment while in detention or, finally, intentionally held in detention under conditions which led to a severe and deliberate deterioration of their state of health.
The cases below are drawn from a formal, 34-pages ICFTU complaint against the Government of China, lodged on 4th June 1997 before the Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), for multiple violations of the Convention on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, 1948 (ILO Convention n°87) and the Convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (ILO Convention n° 98). Although neither has been ratified by the People’s Republic of China, both are binding on all ILO Member States, by virtue of the ILO Constitution. The ICFTU complaint is appended as Annex 1.
In January 1998, the Government of the People’s Republic of China responded to the ICFTU’s allegations in a letter to the ILO. The Government’s response is summarised in the ILO report (see next section).
In June 1998, the ILO’s Governing Body, meeting at its 272nd Session, adopted the 310th Report of the CFA. This included the CFA’s Interim Report on the ICFTU complaint (case n° 1930 of the Committee on Freedom of Association). The Committee drew conclusions and issued recommendations on a number of allegations of torture and other forms of ill-treatment meted out to detained labour activists. The ILO CFA report is appended as Annex 2.
Specifically, the ICFTU complaint had stated that independent labour activists, like political prisoners, were singled out for particular harsh treatment in detention. This included direct physical violence inflicted by prison staff, some identified personally in the complaint, as well as organised victimisation, such as collective beatings by fellow-inmates in exchange for favours awarded by the authorities. This physical repression was combined with a consistent pattern of confinement of labour activists to prison sections reserved for inmates carrying infectious and viral diseases, primarily tuberculosis and hepatitis. The complaint covered several cases of detained unionists who had contracted these diseases as a direct result.
The ICFTU held as an aggravating factor that prisoners’ requests for proper information about their own health, let alone proper medical care, were systematically turned down by prison or judicial authorities. Refusals took place whether in labour camps or during court proceedings: one defendant had pleaded in vain to obtain badly needed treatment for a kidney infection, during his defence statement before a Shenzhen court in November 1996.
The complaint also documented cases in which relatives acting on behalf of trade union prisoners had been severely beaten after having been detained themselves, without due process and often for long periods. One of these cases concerned Wang Hui, wife of the prominent detained labour activist and lawyer, Zhou Guoqiang: she had been beaten by medical prison staff, then kicked by a drunken prison guard, in May 1996.
While the mere detention of independent workers’ and trade union rights’ activists was a characterised breach of the ILO’s principles of freedom of association, the ICFTU considered that the brutal treatment of some detained unionists fell squarely within the purview of the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by China and that of the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. It had earlier reported some of these cases to the appropriate UN bodies. Numerous ICFTU-affiliated organisations throughout the world, as well as International Trade Secretariats, had made similar representations about these practices to the PRC government, which had met them with utter silence.
Torture: the case of Liu Nianchun
The gravest reports of ill-treatment, denial of medical assistance and torture of a trade union rights’ activist currently in detention are those concerning Liu Nianchun, born in 1949, a former factory worker and teacher, veteran human and labour rights’ campaigner and political prisoner. He was lastly arrested in May 1995. According to detailed reports from his closest relatives, submitted, inter alia to the ILO, Liu was tortured by security officials at the Shuang He forced labour farm, in the remote north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, in late May or early June 1997. He received shocks from electric batons across his body, was deprived of water and put in a 2 meters punishment cell after going on hunger strike in protest at the arbitrary extension, by six months, of his administrative sentence to three years of re-education through labour.
Already seriously beaten up by guards and inmates in 1996 at an earlier detention centre (Tuanhe Labour Farm, near Beijing), Liu has consistently been denied medical attention by prison authorities and refused a medical transfer. Although healthy when first detained, Liu now suffers from high blood pressure, obstructive intestinal tumours, rectal bleeding, mouth sores and chronic stomach pain.
According to latest reports, Liu Nianchun is detained in the Tuanhe Labour Farm, near Beijing, and continues being denied medical assistance and treatment, as well as a conditional parole on medical grounds, which is available under Chinese law.
As indicated elsewhere in this report, severe ill-treatment of relatives of detained trade union activists is a frequent occurrence. A case in point is the treatment meted out recently to Liu’s wife, Chu Hailan, when she attempted to meet the UN High Commissioner on for Human Rights during her visist to Beijing in September 1998. According to the non-governmental organisation Human Rights in China (HRIC), on 9 September, while waiting outside the Hilton Hotel, where Mrs. Robinson was preparing to give a press conference, Chu Hailain was taken away by three plainclothes policemen. At the hotel's security office, these three policemen pulled Ms. Chu's hair and dragged her to the floor. They then gave Ms. Chu a violent beating-stomping on her stomach, vigorously kicking her kidney region. Furthermore, the officers grabbed the letter that Ms. Chu had written and planned to deliver to the UN High Commissioner. They also said that they had already spoken to Mrs. Robinson by phone and that she had said she did not wish to meet with Ms. Chu. From 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. approximately, the plainclothes police illegally detained Chu Hailan for over ten hours. Ms. Chu later experienced aches and sores all over her body and required hospital examination and treatment for what she feared might be internal damage and fractures.
Liu Nianchun has a long record of political imprisonment. In the late 1970’s, he spent three years in prison for his participation in the Democracy Wall movement. In 1994, he spent five months in prison without charge for attempting to establish the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People (LPRWP), which announced its formation in March 1994, simultaneously petitioning the National People’s Congress to improve labour rights. The organisers tried to register the League with the government, but the request was rejected. Liu and a number of his colleagues were arrested in May 1994. Liu was held in secret for five months, then released.
Liu continued his activities after his release. In late 1994 - early 1995, he started a petition letter campaign and called for an official re-appraisal of the decision to impose martial law in May 1989 and the Tiananmen Square events on June 4th. In May 1995, Liu was picked up by police during a crackdown on dissidents in the run-up to the annual June Fourth anniversary. Earlier, the Beijing police had ordered him to take his family to Hainan Island, in the southernmost part of China. Liu refused, and on 21 May, the police came and took him away without any arrest warrant. He then disappeared for over a year, until the announcement, on 4 July 1996, that he had been sentenced administratively to three years' re-education through labour on charges of harming state security.
Liu’s case has been described in full detail, inter alia, in the ICFTU complaint to the ILO of June 1997 (pp.12-16). The relevant extract of the complaint is appended separately as Annex 3. It contains several specific reports of Liu’s ill-treatment, beating, torture, denial of medical care and refusal of medical transfer, as well as a precise description of his exceptionally harsh judicial treatment and detention conditions. It also lists a number of remedial steps attempted, in vain, by Mr. Liu’s wife and mother, including hunger strikes and denunciations at the international level. ((The ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) Report of June 1998 summarises the ICFTU’s allegations at §34-39; extract enclosed separately as Annex 4°)
In its communication to the ILO dated 15th January 1998, the Government replied to the ICFTU’s detailed allegations concerning Liu Nianchun exactly as follows: "As concerns the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People (LPRWP), the Beijing Commission for re-education through labour has indicated that Liu Nianchun has been given three years’ re-education for the misdemeanour of disturbing the social order and accepting financing from a hostile organization outside China." (ILO CFA, §66).
In its conclusions (ILO CFA, §§89-91), the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association stated that Liu and his colleagues "were actually sentenced for their trade union activity" and recalled its long-standing position that "national organisations of workers (…) should have the right to receive financial assistance from international organisations of workers (…)". Concerning the ICFTU’s other allegations, the Committee
"note(d) with great concern the allegations concerning the state of Liu Nianchun’s health, the refusal of medical treatment, the arbitrary extension of his sentence and the very grave allegations of torture with electric shocks and water deprivation. The Committee must recall in this respect that, where allegations of torture and ill-treatment exist, governments should give precise instructions and apply effective sanctions where such cases are found, so as to ensure that no detainee is subjected to such treatment. It has also emphasized the importance that should be attached to the principle laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights according to which all persons deprived of their liberty must be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. The Committee therefore insists that the Government take the necessary measures to ensure Liu’s immediate release and to provide him with the necessary medical treatment. It further calls upon the Government to establish an independent investigation into these serious allegations in order to determine and punish those responsible. The Committee also insists upon the immediate release of Yuan Hongbin, Xiao Biguang and Gao Feng. The Government is requested to indicate the measures taken to ensure the release of these individuals and to keep the Committee informed on the outcome of the investigation into the serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention of Liu Nianchun." (ILO CFA, §91)
The relevant Recommendation of the Committee, as adopted by the ILO Governing Body at its June 1998 meeting, is similarly phrased (ILO CFA, at §97i.)
The longest prison sentence known to have been given to any workers’ rights’ activist in China after the June 4, 1989 events was the twenty-year sentence imposed on Tang Yuanjuan, a young assistant engineer at the Changchun no.1 (or, according to some sources, n° 2) Motorcars Manufacturing Factory, by the Changchun Intermediate Court in November 1990. Tang and several other employees at the factory, notably Leng Wanbao and Lin Wei, who received prison terms of thirteen and eight years respectively at the same trial, had organised a workers' discussion club there during 1987-88. During May 1989 and after the June 4 crackdown they led a series of peaceful protest marches involving several thousand workers and city residents through the streets of Changchun.
The three men were sent to serve their sentences in the Lingyuan Prison complex in Liaoning Province, and are reported to have been severely beaten and abused by prison guards on many occasions. In 1995 Tang was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and hepatitis, which he had contracted in detention. Despite repeated appeals, his family was refused any information about the results of his medical tests or what treatment he was receiving.
The torture of Tang Yuanjuan and fellow inmates while in detention in 1991 has been described in some detail by Amnesty International. According to the human rights’ organisation,
"…In April 1991 Tang Yuanjuan was transferred to the Lingyuan No.2 Labour-Reform Detachment of Liaoning province. He was assigned to a special squadron of political prisoners jailed during the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. At least 13 of these prisoners were reportedly subjected to torture and ill-treatment during 1991 and 1992.
In May 1991 Tang Yuanjuan was among 11 political prisoners who were severely beaten for refusing to acknowledge that they were "criminals". After the beating, Tang Yuanjuan and others were taken to the "correction" unit.
There, these prisoners were stripped naked and repeatedly given shocks with high voltage electric batons on the head, neck, shoulders, armpits, stomach and the inside of the legs. When the electric baton used against Tang Yuanjuan ran out of power, a guard wearing leather boots kicked him. Two of his ribs were broken as a result.
Similar incidents of torture occurred during the following months. The Chinese authorities subsequently denied that the prisoners had been tortured and claimed that the allegations had been investigated, but provided no evidence of this.
Tang Yuanjuan was diagnosed in 1990 as suffering from tuberculosis and hepatitis. His family has repeatedly appealed to the authorities to release him on bail for medical treatment - - permitted under Chinese law. The authorities have refused. They claim the illnesses he suffers from have "stabilized". However, in early 1995 Tang Yuanjuan was reportedly complaining of persistent upper abdominal pain. (…)"
Leng Wanbao was released on medical grounds in 1994. He later appealed to the Chairman of the National People’s Congress in order to obtain the release of his two detained colleagues. In April 1997 Tang lodged an appeal himself against his sentence before the Changchun Supreme People’s Court, requesting that his sentence be overturned. At the same time, Tang’s father urged authorities to grant his son medical parole on account of his disastrous state of health. On 29 May 1997, the court reduced Tang’s sentence from 20 to eight years, Leng Wanbao’s sentence from 13 to five years and Li Wei’s from 13 to eight years. Detained for over two years without trial in the same case, Li Zhongmin was formally declared innocent. Tang and Li Wei were released in June 1997.
Finally, it should be noted that Tang was re-arrested on 18 September 1998, for attempting to register a new political movement, the China Democracy Party. Authorities declared the party illegal and arrested Tang, who had visited several cities trying to help organise it. He was sent to a detention centre in Changchun on charges of having contacts with an illegal organization. Police took Tang away from the Beijing home of long-time democracy activist Xu Wenli, transported him to his home city of Changchun in northeastern China and confined him to a detention centre there. The next day, authorities notified his family about the detention and the charges against Tang.
ICFTU representations made to China’s government between 1993 and 1997 on Tang’s behalf remained unanswered. ILO representations in the case of Tang Yuanjan and his two companions remained similarly ignored. In March 1993, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association had requested the Government "to state precisely what concrete acts were committed by Messrs. Tang Yuanjuan, Lin Wei and Leng Wambao that they should have been convicted of subversion by the police authorities of Changchun".
The case of Tang Yunjuan and his colleagues was again raised by the ICFTU in its 1997 complaint to the ILO (see Annex 1, at pp.6-7).
The Government did not include any information on Tang and his colleagues in its reply to the ILO dated 15th January 1998.
The ILO’s CFA adopted the following conclusions and recommendations on Tang’s case:
(The Committee) note(d) with regret that the Government has not replied to the allegations made in respect of Tang Yuanjuan, Leng Wanbao and Li Wei, who were specifically the subject of Case No. 1652. At that time, the Committee had expressed the view that the observations made by the Government did not establish in a sufficiently exact and detailed manner that the heavy sentences against these individuals were not due to activities of a trade union kind. [See 286th Report, para. 399.] The Committee requested the Government to take the necessary measures for a re-examination of all the cases mentioned by the complainant organization with a view to their release [286th Report, para. 400]. The complainant now alleges that Tang, Leng and Li were subjected to ill-treatment and abuse by prison guards and that Tang has been refused medical parole, despite the disastrous state of his health. While the complainant states that the prison sentences of all three were reduced on appeal and that Leng has since been released, Tang and Li are apparently still serving eight year prison sentences." (ILO CFA, §81).
In its Recommendations, the CFA …
(…) request(ed) the Government to take the necessary measures immediately to ensure the release of all those trade unionists who were the subject of earlier complaints before the Committee and who, according to the present complaint, have not yet been released (Appendix I), including the immediate release of Tang Yuanjuan (…). It further requests the Government to set up an independent investigation into the alleged acts of ill-treatment carried out in detention against Tang Yuanjuan, Leng Wanbao and Li Wei and to keep the Committee informed of the outcome of the investigation and the measures taken for the release of the detainees." (ILO CFA, §97(e)).
Ill-treatment and denial of medical care
To 1997 ICFTU complaint to the ILO described the case of Zhou Guoqiang, legal adviser to the Beijing Acoustical Equipment Company, who was arrested by the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB) even before June 1989 and spent eight months in jail for his involvement with the Beijing WAF. He later served as a legal adviser and counsel for the Beijing WAF leader, Han Dongfang, while Han himself was detained in 1989-92. Zhou was rearrested and sentenced to three years of "re-education through labour" by the Beijing Municipal Government Labour Re-education Administrative Committee in September 1994, for alleged offences that included printing and attempting to distribute T-shirts carrying "inciteful" slogans. Moreover, Zhou was also accused of "owning an unregistered fax machine", which he allegedly used to correspond with Han Dongfang. The ICFTU firmly believes that Zhou’s alleged contacts and cooperation with Han, who is recognized internationally as a leading figure in the struggle for trade union rights in China, were an important additional motive for the particularly harsh treatment to which he was being subjected by the authorities.
In November 1994, Zhou filed a litigation suit against the PSB for unlawful detention. The case was heard in March 1995 in the forced labour Shuang He farm, in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, where he was detained. The camp was located in a remote place, highly inaccessible to Zhou’s wife and lawyer. The original verdict was upheld. In July 1995, Zhou was sentenced to one more year in the labour camp for allegedly attempting to escape. The ICFTU however claimed that his "attempted escape" was merely a set-up. Furthermore, in March 1997 the Shuang He authorities again arbitrarily extended Zhou’s sentence by deducting points from Zhou’s "ideological training record". (A similar measure was imposed on fellow independent labour activists Liu Nianchun and Gao Feng, detained like Zhou in the Shuang He forced labour farm).
Zhou’s ill-health, denial of medical care and other restrictions
Zhou’s rights as a prisoner were systematically violated by the prison farm authorities. Hence, in spite of the tuberculosis which he has contracted while in prison, the authorities consistently denied him access to doctors and medicines. Although there were no adequate medical facilities at Shuang He, the authorities refuses to even consider the possibility of authorising medical treatment outside. According to his wife, "the resulting illnesses (were) an extra punishment, which indeed is the aim of this policy". As in similar cases detailed in its ILO complaint, the ICFTU considered that the denial of medical treatment in Zhou’s case amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and, as such, fell squarely within the purview of the relevant UN Convention against Torture.
Furthermore, Zhou’s rights to correspondence, religious faith, home leave and co-habitation facilities with family members were systematically denied. Conversations with relatives during family visits were attended and noted in writing by two prison officials, who limited the time and content of the conversations. Zhou was not allowed the statutory marital privacy periods with his spouse. Letters exchanged with his wife were confiscated, as were his Bible, other reading books and the notebook in which he wrote poems.
Torture, ill-treatment, detention or persecution of prisoners’ relatives
In its 1997 ILO complaint, the ICFTU expressed outrage at the appallingly cruel, unnecessary and illegal punishment imposed by the authorities on Zhou’s wife, Wang Hui, who has been the object of repeated detentions (27 days in May and June 1996, then detained again on 20 September and held for several days before being released).
During her first detention, on 18 May 1996, Mrs. Wang was kicked and beaten by a prison doctor, while lying on the ground. Later on the same day, Wang and two other female prisoners were kicked and beaten up by a prison guard Section Head (police identification n° 1105419), who was reportedly under the influence of alcohol. The ICFTU understood that one of the two other prisoners was already badly ill and in need of surgical treatment, while Wang Hui herself sustained severe injuries to her shoulder and other parts of her body, and carried scars from that beating for months after the incident.
The Government did not reply to the ICFTU’s allegations. The CFA report states: "Noting with deep regret that the Government does not reply to the very specific allegations made in respect of Zhou Guoqiang and his wife, Wang Hui, the Committee requests the Government to provide detailed information in this respect." (ILO CFA, at §88)
Li Wenming and a number of individuals started to organise migrant workers in the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen in 1993. The group was placed under strong police surveillance. Li was picked up by the police in May 1994, then kept for 30 months in secret, illegal detention. At the same time, 12 other members and activists of the group, including Kuang Lezhuang and Liu Hutang, were also detained. All are believed to have been administratively sentenced to "re-education through labour" terms of up to three years. Near the end of their administrative sentences, Li and Guo were charged with "subversion endangering state security", a capital offence under which the defendants faced from a minimum of ten years’ imprisonment to the death penalty. Their trial began at the Shenzhen Intermediate Court on 8 November 1996 and on 29 May 1997, Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng had each been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. Follwing a strong international campaign on their behalf, Li was released on 11 November 1997 and Guo in the course of the following month.
In January 1997, Li’s health was reported to have seriously deteriorated in detention. He suffered from nephritis and dropsy. Moreover, during his trial in Shenzhen two months earlier, Li had informed judges that he suffered from a serious kidney disease and requested to be provided proper medical treatment, failing which he ran the risk of part of one kidney being removed. The court did not reply to his request nor to that of Li’s relatives, who had applied for a temporary release on bail in order to seek medical treatment. In March, the complainant was informed that Li had been allowed to see a doctor and moved to a somewhat less cramped prison cell. By June 1997, however, it had been informed that Li suffered from acute kidney damage and was in severe pain. According to medical sources who spoke to his family, he risked losing at least one kidney unless he obtained immediate specialized treatment. Such treatment, however, continued to be refused by the Shenzhen municipal prison authorities.
In its communication to the ILO of 15th January 1998, the Government wrote:
"As concerns the Workers’ Forum of Shenzhen, the Shenzhen Peoples’ Tribunal has indicated that Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng were sentenced in May 1997 to three years and six months’ imprisonment respectively for activities endangering state security. Kuang Lezhuang was sentenced in August 1994 to 18 months re-education and has already been released." (ILO CFA, at §68).
The government did not provide any indication on Li’s state of health.
In the section of its report dealing with the case, the ILO’s CFA stated:
"Recalling that the right of assembly, freedom of opinion and expression and, in particular, freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media constitute civil liberties which are essential for the normal exercise of trade union rights, the Committee urges the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure the immediate release of Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng and, especially, the provision of the necessary medical treatment to Li.(…)" (ILO CFA, §97 (k)).
A worker, aged 42, Wang had been sentenced to 3 years of "re-education through labour" in 1989, in retaliation for his role as Chairman of the Shanghai WAF. The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, acting on the basis of an earlier ICFTU complaint (1989), had at the time requested his release. After having been set free upon completion of sentence, Wang was beaten up on several occasions by the police, for what the ICFTU believes was his continuous advocacy of independent trade unions.
On 1 April 1993, Wang was re-arrested in order to prevent him for conducting a public protest during thr East Asian Games. He was forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution, a method of repression which the ICFTU recalls was routinely used by the authorities to silence democratic opposition activists, including independent trade unionists, in the former Soviet Union. Wang’s internment gave rise to local scale protests in Shanghai and a number of individuals were harassed by public security organs as a result.
Since 1993, the ICFTU has received consistent reports that Wang Miaogen had been repeatedly beaten up by security guards at his place of detention.
He is now detained at the Shanghai An Kang Hospital, a psychiatric institution run by the Public Security Bureau (PSB).
The Government did not reply to the ICFTU’s allegations. The ILO CFA strongly criticised Wang’s forcible psychiatric internment:
"The Committee (…) notes with concern that the Government has not replied to the allegations that Wang Miaogen, who was also the subject of a previous complaint (Case No. 1500), was beaten upon his release from prison and was forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution in 1993. The Committee would recall in this respect that it has already been called upon to examine allegations relating to the commitment of individuals attempting to establish independent trade unions to psychiatric hospitals [see Case No. 905, 207th Report, para. 129]. At that time, the Committee stressed that all necessary safeguards should be provided to prevent such measures from being taken as sanctions or as means of pressure against persons who wish to establish a new organization independent of the existing trade union structure (ibid.). (ILO CFA, §82).
In its Conclusions, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association
"request(ed) the Government to take the necessary measures immediately to ensure the release of all those trade unionists who were the subject of earlier complaints before the Committee and who, according to the present complaint, have not yet been released (…), including the immediate release (…) of Wang Miaogen from a psychiatric institution". (ILO CFA, Conclusion, §97 (e)).
Aged 40, a worker at Shaogung Electrical Plant, Zhang Jingsheng was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment for being the key organiser of the Hunan Workers’ Autonomous Federation in April-May 1989. Sent to Hunan Yuanjiang Prison n°1, Zhang was badly beaten up by prison guards when he organised a hunger strike among the jail’s political prisoners. (The Chairman of the Hunan WAF, Wang Changhuai, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment in the same case and, like Zhang, also remains in detention.). (Source: China Labour Bulletin, Imprisoned Labour Activists and Unionists, Hong Kong SAR, 6th July 1998).
Occurrences of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment applied to trade unionists and labour rights’ activists in the PRC remain an issue of utmost concern to the ICFTU. Considering the issues summarised above (and fully described in the ICFTU’s 1997 complaint against China to the ILO), the ICFTU stresses the following main points of preoccupation:
Independent trade union and workers’ rights’ activists are singled out for particularly harsh treatment in prison and in forced labour camps. Severe beatings in jail, occasionally carried out by inmates in exchange for favours from prison authorities, are frequent. Zhang Jingsheng, Tang Yuanjuan, Leng Wenbao, Li Wei as well as Wang Miaogen, later committed to a psychiatric institution, were all beaten in jail. After going on hunger strike in protest at the extension of his sentence, Liu Nianchun was tortured with electric shocks and water deprivation, then confined to a 2 square metres punishment cell.
In the case of Wang Hui, a relative of prisoner, detained herself in retaliation for interventions on behalf of her husband, an aggravating circumstance was the participation of medical prison staff and a drunken jail warden in the beating. This treatment is in flagrant breach of several international legal instruments, including the Convention against Torture, ratified by China, and UN Standard Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners. To the ICFTU’s knowledge, China has not replied to any of the representations brought against it before the competent UN bodies by the organisation. The ICFTU would thus welcome, as a sign of goodwill, if the government could reply in detail to these allegations in the framework of the present ILO complaint.
A number of activists mentioned in this document are or have been seriously ill in detention. Several have contracted tuberculosis and/or hepatitis while in jail, reportedly after being isolated in medical sections of their place of detention; this fact has been quoted as evidence that the authorities may deliberately have put them at risk of contracting these diseases. Cases include those of Tang Yuanjuan, Zhou Guoqiang, and before him of Han Dongfang. Liu Nianchun is reportedly gravely ill with high blood pressure and colitis. Li Wenming was refused treatment for nephritis, which could result in the removal of one kidney. In spite of numerous appeals, both inside China and abroad, all these prisoners have, to the best of the ICFTU’s knowledge, been refused proper medical treatment and conditional release on health grounds.
Relatives of detained activists are harassed, prevented from visiting the prisoners, occasionally arrested themselves and kept in secret detention, and sometimes beaten, as in the case of Wang Hui, wife of Zhou Guoqiang. Contacts are rendered particularly difficult during the judicial appeal process, as seen in the case of Chu Hailan, wife of Liu Nianchun.
On the basis of the elements above, the ICFTU recommends, on the particular issues of torture and ill-treatment, that:
the authorities should take decisive steps to ensure that detained workers’ rights’ activists and their relatives are no longer subjected to beatings and other ill-treatment amounting to torture;
the authorities should provide detailed responses to the international community about reports of beatings and torture suffered by detained union activists and/or their relatives;
as a humanitarian gesture, the authorities should release immediately, at least on a conditional basis, all activists whose health situation urgently so requires;
in the meantime, or failing the above, the authorities should guarantee that the persons mentioned above are urgently provided with adequate medical care in their place of detention or transferred to one where such is available and should invite the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit these detainees and appraise itself of their medical condition and enable it to provide them with any necessary assistance or care;
finally, the authorities should immediately release all activists, leaders and members arrested in connection with attempts to establish and register independent workers’ organisations.
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
Boulevard du Roi Albert II, 5, Bte 1, B - 1210 Bruxelles, Belgique.
For more information please contact: ICFTU Department of Trade Union Rights
Tel. 32.2.224.02.03 Fax: 32.2.224.02.97 E-mail: turights@icftu.org