"Search and Destroy" main index

NB: The footnotes of this document have not yet been added. These will be added shortly, along with a complete downloadable version in Microsoft Word.

I. Executive Summary

Nearly 8 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, China's authorities continue to detain an important number of free labour activists, sentenced to prison terms of up to 20 years for their involvement in independent workers' activities or organisations during the 1989 democracy movement. This report, which represents only the "tip of the iceberg", details the cases of 37 such prisoners, whose accumulated prison terms represent over 500 years of detention with forced labour. Requests for information about and/or the release of these prisoners, including countless appeals by the ILO, the ICFTU and its member-organisations across the world, are systematically ignored by the PRC.

New attempts to establish independent workers' organisations are treated with the same severity. This report documents several cases, from Beijing and the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. They have led to the detention of a further 29 activists, who jointly have already spent an accumulated 100 years in jail, mostly in secret, pre-trial detention. They are held under appalling conditions. In addition to and/or as a result of being submitted to beatings and torture, many have developed severe health problems, including tuberculosis, hepatitis and nephritis. Requests for proper medical care and/or conditional release in order to seek treatment, whether issued by the prisoners themselves, their relatives, or international organisations, such as the ILO and the international trade union movement, are consistently rejected by the PRC authorities.

Relatives are prevented from having contacts with the prisoners and are occasionally themselves secretly detained, beaten up, or sent into internal exile. In particular, the authorities place serious obstacles in their efforts to assist in the prisoners defence. Similar obstacles are faced by lawyers, often preventing from taking up such cases.

In labour terms, the report conclusively demonstrates the trade union nature of the independent activities and organisations which these prisoners had carried out and/or joined or promoted, respectively. A consistent pattern indicates that the threshold of official tolerance stands at any attempts to formally register independent workers' organisations: authors of such attempts invariably land in jail, then in forced labour camps.

By repressing labour activists in this way, the PRC government not only blatantly ignores key-ILO standards of trade union rights. It also flagrantly violates many fundamental human rights instruments, including the ICCPR, the ICESCR and CAT.

The ICFTU concludes that the systematic pattern of repression faced by independent free labour activists demonstrates conclusively that the PRC authorities are intent on annihilating any attempts by workers to organise freely and independently of government, employers, or China's official trade union, the ACFTU. The report contains a number of recommendations to the PRC authorities, the international community, the ICRC and the international trade union movement. Topping the list is the recommendation for all relevant governments and organisations to take up the issue of unjustly detained free labour activists in any official dealings with the PRC authorities and press for their immediate release and impress upon the PRC the need to ratify and implement a number of key-ILO and UN Conventions.

II. Introduction

Unionists in jail since 1989...

Large numbers of independent labour activists, sentenced to long prison terms in the wake of the repression of China's pro-democracy movement of May-June 1989, have remained in jail or forced labour camp, despite repeated ILO demands for their sentences to be re-examined and the prisoners to be released. To the best of the ICFTU's knowledge, these demands have not been so much as acknowledged by China's government, let alone favourably examined. In the first section of this report, the ICFTU highlights the cases of 37 such union activists and other individuals involved in independent labour activities, all detained and known to have been sentenced in the immediate aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4th June 1989. Their cumulated sentences represent over 500 years imprisonment with forced labour.

are joined by new ones...

This ICFTU report further demonstrates that, ever since the crushing of the pro-democracy movement and, more specifically, of independent workers' organisations, in June 1989, the authorities have continued to detain arbitrarily, arrest, and sentence numerous workers who attempted to establish and/or to join organisations of their own choosing, in flagrant violation of art.2 of Convention n ° 87 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Indeed, since 1989, all known attempts to organise, advise, or promote the establishment of independent workers' organisations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have resulted in the arrest, sentencing, or extended detention without trial of those involved or suspected thereof by the authorities. The second section identifies a further 29 such detainees, including 15 who have been sentenced to a total of at least 100 years in prison, and 14 who jointly total over 30 years already spent in secret detention without trial. Many have been condemned by administrative bodies to up to 3 years' "re-education through labour" sentences against which no appeal is allowed. All the cases discussed in this document are listed in summary form in Appendix 1, "China: free trade union activists and members detained or unaccounted-for, ICFTU, March 1997".

Attempts to register independent workers' organisations...

The mere expression of an intention to advise, let alone organise workers, leads to arrest upon discovery. Occasionally however, groups of workers succeed in carrying out limited activities for a time, as long as they remain informal. The threshold of official tolerance seems to be any attempt to obtain formal registration for independent workers' organisations. This is clearly the case of two groups discussed in detail in this report: the Beijing-based League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People, disbanded in 1994, once it applied for official registration, and the Shenzhen-based Workers' Forum, whose members attempted to advise and assist migrant workers in the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen, in Southern China, on the establishment of independent trade unions. The group, who succeeded in holding night-classes, publishing three issues of an independent journal, "Workers' Forum", and establishing themselves as a "Workers' Federation", then, possibly under some form of official pressure, a "Workers' Friendship Association", apparently benefited in the beginning from a limited, tacit tolerance by the authorities However. at least twelve members and activists are reported to have been detained in 1994 as the group was about to formally apply for registration.

lead to secret detentions...

In respect of the more recent detentions of independent labour activists, the ICFTU expresses its utmost concern at the increasing use by the authorities of prolonged, unacknowledged imprisonment and secret detention. In several cases, this "re-education through labour", imposed for nearly 3 years by a mere administrative decision, was followed by abrupt sentencing without warning to long terms of forced labour. In all cases known in any detail, elementary standards of fair judicial process, including access to counsel, were blatantly disregarded by the authorities.

and sick-ward...

Several cases described below confirm that independent labour activists, like political prisoners, are singled out for particular harsh treatment in detention. This includes direct physical violence inflicted by prison staff, some of whom this report identifies personally, as well as organised victimisation, such as collective beatings by fellow-inmates in exchange for favours awarded by the authorities. This physical repression is 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, respectively. This report covers several cases of detained unionists who have contracted these diseases as a direct result; it concludes that either these are generalised in China's prison system, or detained union activists are particularly prone to becoming infected.

An aggravating factor is that prisoners' requests for proper information about their own health, let alone proper medical care, are systematically turned down by prison or judicial authorities. Refusals take place whether in labour camps, as seen in the cases of Zhou Guoqiang and Liu Nianchun, or even during court proceedings, viz. Li Wenming's plea to obtain treatment for a kidney infection in his defence statement before a Shenzhen court in November 1996.

The ICFTU considers that these and related practices, detailed below, fall 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 has reported them as such to the appropriate UN bodies. Numerous ICFTU-affiliated organisations throughout the world, as well as International Trade Secretariats, have made similar representations about these practices to the PRC government, which has met them with utter silence.

Relatives are harassed...

This report further highlights systematic harassment of relatives of imprisoned labour activists. Initially, family members of union detainees are consistently denied any information about, let alone access to their jailed relatives. At a latter stage, when trial and sentencing is imminent, often after years of secret detention, every available method is used to minimise potential assistance to the prisoners from their relatives. This includes contradictory information about and last-minute changes in timing and location of trials and, even more significantly, the hearing of appeals.

detained, brutalised by medical and other prison staff...

More gravely, relatives acting on behalf of union prisoners are on occasion themselves detained without due process, often for long periods. They themselves are in turn unable to inform their close ones about their own whereabouts, which constitutes a further violation of their rights as "untried prisoners", under the above-mentioned Minimum Rules. Finally, some of them have been severely beaten while in jail. One of the cases listed below details how Wang Hui, wife of the prominent detained labour activist and lawyer, Zhou Guoqiang, was beaten by medical prison staff, then kicked by a drunken prison guard, in May 1996.

then sent into internal displacement...

Following their release, some family members of jailed unionists have been forcibly displaced from their usual area of residence in order to prevent further contacts with, assistance to or involvement on behalf of their relatives. In addition to the obvious infringement to the right to due judicial process of detained unionists, the ICFTU stresses such under art. 13, §1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.measures violate the basic right to freedom of movement within one's own state, guaranteed

III. Continued detention of leaders and members of Workers' Autonomous Federations (WAFs) established in 1989

In two separate complaints before the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, dating from 1989 and 1992, the ICFTU indicated the circumstances under which a number of independent trade union leaders and activists were detained and sentenced by the authorities, in the wake of Beijing's Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989, in retaliation for their role in the WAFs, which were established in several Chinese cities that year during the May-June democracy movement. The ICFTU notes that, in spite of repeated appeals by the international community, including the ILO, other UN bodies, the international trade union movement and numerous human rights' organisations, the majority either remain in detention or have not been satisfactorily accounted for by the PRC government at the time of writing. They include:

Changsha WAF: Hu Nianyou and Yao Guisheng

A leader in the Changsha WAF, Hu was arrested and, according to the ICFTU, sentenced to life imprisonment for trade union activities. According to the government, Hu has been sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment on charges of looting.. Yao Guisheng has similarly been charged, then sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Hunan

Chen Gang, Peng Shi, Liu Zhihua

A worker at the Hunan Xiangtan Machinery Factory, Chen was arrested after the June 4,1989 massacre and received a death sentence, reduced on appeal to life imprisonment. He was sent to the Hunan Longxi Prison. Peng and Liu, Chen's colleagues at the factory, were also arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment, and serve their punishment at the same place of detention.

Li Wangyang

A worker and activist of the Shaoyang Workers' Autonomous Federation, Li was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment for his involvement in this organisation. He is detained at Hunan Prison n°1.

Zhang Jingsheng and Wang Changhuai

Aged 40, a worker at Shaogung Electrical Plant, Zhang was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment for being the key organiser of the Hunan Workers' Autonomous Federation. 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.

Other WAF prisoners in Hunan (Yueyang)

As the ICFTU was completing this report, a number of cases from Hunan Province were reported to it by the international human rights' organisation, Amnesty International. These 8 prisoners have all been detained in 1989 for taking part in or organising workers' demonstrations and strikes, in protest at the Tiananmen Square events. They are listed, with background elements where possible, in Appendix 1 (n° 59 to 67). Their names are: Guo Yunqiao (death sentence, 2-years' stay of execution), Mao Yuejin and Hu Min (15 years each), and Wang Zhaobo, Hunag Lixin, Huang Fan, Wan Yuewang, Pan Qiubao and Yuan Shuzhu (all sentenced to prison terms of 7 to 15 years).

Jilin: Tang Yuanjuan, Leng Wanbao, Li Wei and others

The longest prison sentence known to have been given to any worker activist in China after June 4, 1989 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 are still serving their sentences at the Lingyuan Prison complex in Liaoning Province, and are reported to have been severely beaten and abused by prison guards on many occasions.

ICFTU sources reported in 1995 that Tang had been diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and hepatitis, which he had contracted in detention. Despite repeated appeals, his family had not been informed by the end of 1995 of the results of his medical tests or what treatment he was receiving. ICFTU representations made to China's government in December 1995 on Tang's behalf have remained unanswered by the end of 1996.

ILO representations in the case of Tang Yuanjan and his two companions have, to the best of the ICFTU's information, 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".

Shanghai: Wang Miaogen, Chairman of WAF

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 ICFTU complaint, 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. In April 1993, Wang 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.

"Phantom Prisoners"

Information from the government: mistaken or misleading ?

Serious discrepancies exist between PRC government and independent sources as to the status of many labour activists included in the ICFTU list. According to ICFTU research, based primarily on a PRC response to earlier formal complaints before the ILO CFA, a considerable number of workers had been detained and/or sentenced after June 1989, to terms ranging from 2 to 13 years imprisonment with forced labour, for independent trade union activities. The government had responded, in 1993, that they have either "Never been questioned, interrogated or detained", or "Released, acquitted of criminal responsibility". Requested in turn by the ILO to explain the discrepancies, the PRC did not reply again.

The following individuals, according to the government, belong to the first category (in brackets is the status of ICFTU information): Chen Bing, Li Xin, (sentenced to 3 years), Liu Jianwei, (idem), and Wu Tongfan, from the Changsha WAF, as well as Wu Changgui, (three years), from the Xiangtan WAF.

The following were reported by the authorities to have been "released, acquitted of criminal responsibility", contrary to ICFTU information (in brackets, where relevant): Liu Yi, (sentenced, exact term unknown), Lu Zhaixing, (3 years), Pan Mingdong, (2 years), Peng Yuzhang, (committed to a psychiatric institution), Tang Yixin, Wang Hong, and Yang Hong, all from the Changsha WAF.

In view of the striking discrepancies between data provided by the government and those reported by its own sources, the ICFTU is reluctant to consider as closed even those cases in which detainees should normally have been released by now, providing their terms did not exceed seven years. However, several examples indicated above lead the ICFTU to believe that the government, either through inefficiency or deliberately, has been providing incomplete or outright false information to the ILO, in response to earlier ICFTU complaints. A case in point is that of Li Xiaodong and Li Xiaoping, both from the Shaoyang WAF. According to the human rights' organisation, Amnesty International, there is "well documented evidence to suggest that Li Xiaodong was charged and sentenced in October 1989". As for Li Xiaoping, other reports indicate he was sentenced to 6 years. According to the March 1993 ILO CFA Report, the government claimed that neither was "ever questioned, interrogated or detained".

Similarly conflicting evidence exists in the case of Ding Longhua and Zhu Fangming, from the Hengyang WAF, reportedly sentenced to 6 years and life, respectively.In both cases, the government indicated they had been "acquitted of criminal responsibility and released".

Still other discrepancies affect the cases of several other labour members or leaders detained after the 1989 events, but whose detention the government has refused to acknowledge. From the Changsha WAF alone, they include: Tang Yixin, Wang Hong, Yang Hong, and Sheng Yujua.

In these circumstances, the ICFTU once more calls on the PRC government to provide complete and verifiable information about all the individuals mentioned above and listed in Appendix 1. Where prisoners have been released, the PRC should further be in a position to provide information as to the absence of any discrimination in employment subsequent to their release.

IV Repression of further independent trade union activities

Liu Jingsheng and the "Beijing Sixteen" ("Free Labour Union of China")

A chemical plant worker, aged 42 at the time of writing, Liu Jingsheng was detained in 1992 for organising the Free Labour Union of China (FLUC), as well as for his involvement in other organisations, dedicated to promoting the social, economic and political rights of Chinese workers and people. He was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in 1994, and deprived of his political rights for 4 years. Fifteen others, including workers' rights activists Hu Shigen, Kang Yuchun, Wang Guoqi, Lu Zhigang, Wang Tiancheng, Chen Wei, Zhang Chunzhu, Rui Chaohuai and Li Quanli, were sentenced in the same case as Liu to terms of between 2 and 20 years' imprisonment: in particular, Hu Shigen and Kang Yuchun received sentences of 20 and 17 years' imprisonment, respectively.

The following year, the ten detainees appealed against their sentences. Their appeals were rejected in July 1995 by the Beijing High People's Court. Upon hearing their verdicts, the appellants chanted "Long Live Free Trade Unions in China" and "Long Live Democracy" in the court. Although the names of the remaining 5 defendants are unavailable, the case has become known collectively as that of "The Beijing Sixteen" (in French: "Les Seize de Pékin"). The ICFTU Survey of Trade Union Rights Violations carried a more detailed description of this case in its 1994, 1995 and 1996 editions (relevant sections enclosed as Appendix 2).

Zhou Guoqiang

Aged 40 at the time of writing, Zhou Guoqiang was a legal advisor to the Beijing Acoustical Equipment Company. Arrested by the Beijing Public Security Bureau (hereinafter: PSB) even before the June 1989 crackdown, he spent eight months in jail for his involvement with the Beijing WAF that year. He later served as a legal advisor and counsel for the Beijing WAF leader, Han Dongfang, while Han himself was detained in 1989-1992.

Zhou was re-arrested and sentenced to 3 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. An ICFTU examination of these shirts demonstrated conclusively that they exclusively carry calls for the respect of internationally-recognised trade union rights. On that basis, the ICFTU considers that Zhou has been imprisoned for the legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of association

Further, Zhou was accused of "owning an unregistered fax machine", which he allegedly used to correspond with Han Dongfang. As is publicly known, Han had in the meantime continued his activities in favour Chinese workers' right to form independent trade unions from Hong Kong. He had settled there temporarily after the authorities had refused to grant him re-entry into China, following medical treatment in the United States for a case of tuberculosis which he had contracted during the 2 1/2 years spent in jail without trial for his own role in the WAF. The ICFTU firmly believes that Zhou's alleged contacts and co-operation with Han, who is recognised internationally as a leading figure in the struggle for trade union rights in China, were and continue to be an important additional motive for the particularly harsh treatment to which he is subjected by the authorities, described below.

Denial of appeal and increase of prison sentence

In November 1994, Zhou filed a litigation suit against the PSB for unlawful detention. The case was heard in March 1995 in the Heilongjiang Province labour camp where he was undergoing forced labour. The camp is 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, a charge which the ICFTU considers as utterly ludicrous, in view, not only of the remote location where he is detained, but also of his grave state of health. As in several other cases, mentioned above, Zhou was reported in late 1995 to suffer from tuberculosis contracted in detention.

Also similarly to other cases, appeals by the ICFTU, many of its affiliated organisations and International Trade Secretariats, to release Zhou on medical grounds have remained without any reply whatsoever from the PRC government at the time of writing.

Persecution and imprisonment of relatives

While it is informed of a number of cases where relatives of detained trade union activists have been subjected to harsh repression, the ICFTU is outraged 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, and was beaten up at least twice by public security officials while protesting her husband's imprisonment. According to our sources, she was detained for 27 days in May and June 1996, then detained again on 20 September and held for several days before being released.

As for the earlier detention, the ICFTU is informed that 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 apparently under the influence of alcohol. The ICFTU understands 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.

International standards on torture and the treatment of prisoners

The treatment reported above is not only outrageous. It also vividly illustrates the dangers faced, not only by those attempting to organise independent workers' unions or activities, but also by their relatives. In that sense, ill-treatment or outright torture of relatives appears to be the highest form of dissuasion meted out to trade unionists. As has been repeatedly underlined by the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, the free exercise of trade union rights is severely restricted, if not impossible, in a climate where human rights' are systematically violated. On the other hand, the ICFTU recalls that China has repeatedly expressed its support for the notion of inter-dependence of all human rights, reaffirmed, inter alia, in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the Second World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in June 1993 with China's participation. This has led ICFTU, at the time of learning the grave mistreatment of Wang Hui, in October 1996, to call the attention of the government of the People's Republic to the fact that such treatment of prisoners constituted a blatant violation of a number of key provisions of international human rights law, including the Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by China and the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, more specifically of Art. 31 concerning corporal punishment.

The ICFTU on that occasion also reminded the government that the fact that Wang Hui was forcibly sent back, after her release in mid-June 1996, to her home province of Hunan, despite the fact that she held a valid residency permit for Beijing, constituted yet one more violation of her rights, under Art. 13, §1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concerning freedom of movement and residence within the borders of one's own state. As regarded Mrs. Wang Hui's most recent detention, the fact that she had been unable, after several weeks in jail, to inform her relatives and friends of her whereabouts constituted an additional violation of her rights as an "untried prisoner", under Part II, Section C, Art. 92, of the above-mentioned Minimum Rules.

In addition, whereas all its previous appeals in similar cases made to the Government by the ICFTU and its various member-unions throughout the world had remained unanswered, the organisation simultaneously conveyed the contents of its communication to the UN Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Finally, in view of frequent and consistent reports of mistreatment and/or torture of detained trade union activists, the ICFTU urged the government to initiate appropriate measures aimed at ensuring that the People's Republic of China formally declares, pursuant to Art. 22 of the Convention against Torture, its recognition of the competence of the Committee against Torture to receive communications from or on behalf of individuals subject to its jurisdiction. Owing to the persistence of ill-treatment of detained independent trade union activists, the ICFTU considers that such a measure is of the utmost importance, and will continue to press in all available fora to ensure that this is achieved.

Liu Nianchun, Yuan Hongbin, Zhang Lin, Xiao Biguang and Wang Zhongqiu: the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People (LPRWP) and subsequent repression

A schoolteacher, aged 48 at the time of writing, Liu Nianchun was a spokesperson for the 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. He was re-arrested in May 1995 and sentenced, as explained in the next section. The situation of his colleagues in the LPRWP, Yuan Hongbin, Zhang Lin and Xiao Biguang, detained in the 1994 case under various charges amounting to "aiding and abetting a crime", is as follows: Yuan Hongbing was last heard of confined to a library in Guizhou province. He was arrested with Liu and at some latter stage sent to an academic institution in Guiyang city, capital of Guizhou. According to relatives, he was not being allowed to walk out of the library, as of end July 1996. Zhang Lin was reportedly sentenced to three years' reform through labour at a coal-mine in Anhui. Xiao Biguang was reported to have received the same sentence.

A veteran campaigner for labour and other human rights, Liu continued his activities after his release. In late 1994 - early 1995, he started a petition letter campaign calling for " a spirit of tolerance in China's political life". Liu also called for an official re-appraisal of the decision to impose martial law in May 1989 and the subsequent violent crushing, on 4 June, of the pro-democracy sit-in on Tiananmen Square. The nascent independent trade union movement, first and foremost the Workers' Autonomous Federations, had played a prominent role in the opposition protests, which earned it particularly harsh repression, as the ICFTU has consistently maintained since 1989. 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.

Liu is now serving a three year 're-education through labour' administrative sentence in the remote north-eastern province of Heilongjiang. An appeal, filed with the courts in July 1996 in the face of formidable obstacles set by the authorities before the defendant, his relatives and counsel, was turned down in circumstances detailed below.

Secret detention, ill-treatment, refusal of medical assistance and the issue of ICRC access

After his second arrest, in May, 1995, the authorities refused for over a year to give Liu's family and friends any reason for his detention or say where he was being held. On July 5 1996, his wife, Chu Hailan was informed that he was being held at Tuanhe prison on the outskirts of Beijing and that he had been sentenced to three years 're-education through labour'. She was told she could visit him, but on arriving at the prison was informed he had been moved to the notorious Shuanghe labour camp in the north-east of China. On July 16, Chu finally saw her husband, who was being made to share a 150-square-foot cell with 15 other people. Furthermore, the ICFTU has learned with great concern that Liu was in grave medical condition. While at Tuanhe, prison guards had encouraged other inmates to beat Liu and he had gone on hunger strike in protest. By the time Chu saw him in Shuanghe, his weight had dropped from 176 pounds to 132 pounds and he was suffering from high blood pressure. While at Tuanhe he had been refused medical treatment despite the fact that medical personnel at the prison had said he should be moved to a hospital. His wife Chu has conducted a letter campaign in Beijing demanding that the authorities allow her husband medical treatment. On 8 March 1997, Chu Hailan wrote to the Chairman of the National People's Assembly and to Beijing's Mayor, demanding that her husband be allowed to see a doctor before the end of the month, failing which she would "take all legitimate means, including litigation, demonstration, sit-down protests … to protect the rights of (her) husband". According to his wife, Liu suffered from intestinal problems, an enlarged lymph node and ulcers in the mouth. The government seized the opportunity to virulently denounce foreign "so-called human rights' groups" that "treat some criminal elements as a pretext to infringe on the independence of China's judiciary and interfere in China's internal affairs", as stated by Cui Tiankai, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman.

Judging on this and other examples, including that of Zhou Guoqiang (cfr. supra), the ICFTU considers that the denial of medical treatment is part and parcel of the punishment inflicted by China's authorities on detained trade union activists, alongside other political prisoners. In this respect, the organisation once more calls upon the PRC authorities to live up to their words, by allowing forthwith and without any further conditions the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to freely access all detained independent labour activists in order to appraise itself of the medical condition. Further, the ICRC should be authorised to, in accordance with its mandate, organise or provide any medical care or assistance that these prisoners' state of health might require. The ICFTU notes that, for the last two years, the PRC government has pretended to be "willing to re-examine" the issue of ICRC access. The PRC offer for the time being consists of nothing more than a promise to resume "discussions about discussions concerning access". We suggest that if nothing is done by the international community to solve this issue quickly, any medical care might come to late for some of the prisoners identified in the present report.

Violations of due process, including the right to appeal and to legal representation

On 9 July 1996, Liu filed a lawsuit with the Beijing Chaoyang District Court against the Beijing Re-education Through Labour Management Committee and the Beijing Municipality's Public Security Bureau. He demanded that his sentence be rescinded and that his wife be allowed to act as his legal representative. The ICFTU is informed that the authorities reacted by putting a significant number of obstacles in Liu's way. First the labour camp administration delayed sending the appeal to Beijing for more than a month. Subsequently, court officials at the Administrative Trial Division of Beijing's Chaoyang district said that they could not hear the appeal as it was written in ball-point pen - even though the relevant Chinese regulations state that hand-written or even oral complaints may be submitted. They also challenged Chu's status as Liu's legal representative and threatened to deny her further visiting rights if she discussed the case with her husband. Chu finally found a lawyer, Mo Shaoping, who agreed to represent her husband. The ICFTU understands other lawyers approached by Chu had turned the case down in the face of pressure from the authorities. Further, it expresses doubts about the impartiality of Ni Jianxin, the chief judge of Chaoyang District Court. When Chu visited the judge's office on 2 September 1996, Judge Ni was reportedly discussing the case with police officials named in Liu's suit. According to our sources, the judge "could not hide her unpleasantness toward Liu Nianchun and Chu Hailan".

On September 13, 1996 the court suddenly telephoned Chu Hailan and informed her that the appeal would be heard on 17 September. However, in what the ICFTU sees as a desperate effort to avoid publicity, the appeal was to be heard in Shuanghe rather than Beijing. This gave Mo and Chu only four days to prepare the case, while the train journey to Shuanghe alone takes two days. The ICFTU however understands that the appeal hearing was after all held in Beijing. In his appeal, Liu argued that he had not violated Chinese law and that the constitution guaranteed his right to freedom of speech. However the court rejected Liu's argument and said that freedom of speech "must not endanger the security, honour and interests of the state". The appeal was dismissed.

V. Case of the "Workers' Forum" in Shenzen

A much delayed trial

In early November 1996, the ICFTU was informed that two independent labour activists, Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng, were to go on trial in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen under the charge of alleged "conspiracy to subvert the government". Their trial represented the first major criminal proceedings known to have been taken by the Chinese government against independent union activists since the imposition, in December 1994, of prison terms of up to 20 years in the case of the "Free Labour Union of China", described above.

Li and others began their activities after discovering the total lack of protection and rights for migrant workers in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in 1993. Their group established a workers' night-school which drew hundreds of participants before being suppressed by the authorities. After the closure, acting entirely in accordance with Chinese law, they founded the "Workers Federation" and the "Workers Friendship Association" and also published a journal called "Workers Forum". As detailed below, this publication was entirely devoted to trade union and other workers' rights issues. There is strong evidence to suggest that the entire group was arrested as it was about to apply for official registration as an independent workers' organisation.

Li was picked up by the police in May 1994, then kept for 30 months in secret, illegal detention. At the same time, twelve other members and activists of the group, including Kuang Lezhuang and Liao Hetang were also detained. As explained further, 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. Their trial began at the Shenzhen Intermediate Court on November 8 and reconvened on the morning of November 11 after a weekend recess but was immediately postponed. As of end March 1997, no sentences had been announced, but if convicted, Li and Guo, who had been held by the Shenzhen authorities since May 1994, faced a minimum of ten years' imprisonment. The ICFTU acknowledges the gracious assistance of the human rights' organisation, Human Rights' Watch/Asia and of the Hong-Kong based China Labour Bulletin, in reporting most of the facts described and analysed in the next section of this report.

Trade union nature of the group's activities

Evidence available to the ICFTU in this case indicates beyond the shadow of a doubt the trade union character of the activities of the "Workers' Forum". The true nature of the group is best confirmed by the prosecution's official letter of indictement against Li Wenming, the founder of the group, which is commented in detail below, and the full text of which is enclosed as Appendix 3. According to this document, the main charges against him are:

1) Li Wenming discussed and corresponded with other people holding reactionary ideas revealing his anti-Communist Party, anti-socialist counter-revolutionary ambitions.

2) Using the pretext of publicising the "Regulations on Hiring Labour in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone", Li organised a literary competition called Workers Wave (referring to the huge numbers of migrant workers entering Shenzhen). Also, by falsely claiming to be upholding workers legal rights and interests, he illegally established organisations such as the "Workers Friendship Association" and the "Workers' Federation". Li duped other misguided and ill-informed workers into joining these illegal organisations and by illegally publishing the journal "Workers Forum" he wrote counter-revolutionary articles, convened meetings and gave speeches.

3) Li Wenming gave speeches in which he endorsed the views of Guo Baosheng

4) Li Wenming convened and chaired a meeting at which speeches were made on the topic of `the three withouts' Li presented a class-based analysis of China's peasants, workers, intellectuals and middle-classes in which he argued that China's democracy movement must rely on workers, unite the working class and direct its efforts towards workers.

5) While in detention, Li Wenming referred to himself as a "political prisoner" and said he was involved in the democracy movement. He shouted counter-revolutionary slogans such as "down with the Communist party" and "overthrow the present government".

The ICFTU considers that the `crimes`' detailed in Li's charges are in fact nothing more than an attempt to freely exercise internationally-recognised and guaranteed trade union and other human rights. That this should have earned Li and his colleagues any repression at all is a flagrant violation of their right to establish organisations of their own choosing, as guaranteed by ILO Conventions 87 and 98. Moreover, it also blatantly contravenes the constitutional rights entrusted to Chinese citizens which include the right to freedom of expression, form associations and the freedom to publish written materials. This list of charges conclusively demonstrates that the Chinese government, by turning the right to form independent workers' organisations and express an opinion into a crime and using it as a means of suppression, regards the idea of workers rights as a scourge to be annihilated.

Isolating workers' rights activists from the pro-democracy movement

The ICFTU notes that this case came before the courts only days after the sentencing to 11 years of imprisonment, under the same "subversion" charges, of a leading democracy activists, former Tiananmen Square student leader, Wang Dan, who had already spent several years in jail for his involvement in the 1989 pro-democracy movement. The ICFTU believes the case of Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng suggests that the Chinese authorities may now be proceeding, in the aftermath of their harsh sentencing of Wang Dan, to bring to trial in the provinces lesser-known individuals, especially independent trade union and labour rights' activists, who are linked in one way or another to the Beijing-based democracy movement and, especially, the free labour wing thereof.

Indeed, the ICFTU observes that serious indications exist of contacts and exchanges between different workers' rights' groups and activists. Conversely, the authorities are clearly intent on preventing or destroying such links. Hence, it should be noted that Wang Zhongqiu, one of the defendants in the "League for the Protection of Workers Rights" case mentioned earlier (LPRWP), is cited in the prosecution indictment against Li and Guo as having played a key role as well in the latter's alleged Shenzhen-based "conspiracy to subvert the government." As is indicated further, Li Wenming had already been involved for at least one year in worker-related activities when he came across LPRWP organisers in Beijing, in the spring of 1994. Wang was one of those with whom he had contacts. Their joint appearance in the Shenzhen case gives a serious indication of the authorities' determination to prevent at all costs workers from different part of China from joining forces in order to create independent organisations

Personal background of Li Wenming and other "Workers' Forum" members

Li Wenming, born in 1968 and a native of Hengshan County in Hunan Province, attended a "special-middle" technical training school. Upon graduation, he was assigned to work in a factory but quit his job in 1991 and moved to Shenzhen, where he found work as a trainee journalist on the newspaper Shenzhen Youth (Shenzhen Qingnian). In late 1992, Li went to Beijing, enrolled as a student in a six-month extramural course run by the Chinese language and literature department of Beijing University, and found lodgings in a student dormitory there.

One of the first student acquaintances he made at Beijing University was Wang Zhongqiu, a graduate student from Hubei Province who was studying in the department of law. Wang had already made a name for himself as a prominent activist in the campus movement to demand reparations from the Japanese government for losses suffered by China during the 1937-45 war. As noted above, at the time of meeting Li, Wang was himself involved with the group drafting the Charter and appeals of the Beijing-based League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People.

Another close friend made by Li Wenming at this time was Li Minqi, formerly a student of economics at Beijing University, who had been detained in June 1990 and imprisoned for the next two years for "counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement" after making a speech critical of the government at a midnight rally, in June 1990, commemorating the first anniversary of the June 4 crackdown. During that speech, Li Minqi had called for China's land and factories to be given back to the workers and peasants.

A third important colleague of Li Wenming was Guo Baosheng, a student of philosophy at People's University to whom Li had been introduced, soon after his arrival in Beijing, by Wang Zhongqiu, and who was Li's co-defendant at the November 1996 trial in Shenzhen. Guo was closely associated with another dissident member of the People's University philosophy department, Liao Jia'an, a graduate student who had been arrested in June 1992 and subsequently sentenced to three year's imprisonment for attempting to distribute on campus some 4,000 leaflets urging colleagues to wear white shirts and black armbands in commemoration of the June 1989 massacre.

Finally, the prosecution indictment in this case also indicates that Li at this time also made the acquaintance of, and subsequently corresponded with, a person named Zhang Jianjing; little is known about Zhang other than that he was detained after June 4, 1989 and held until July 26, 1991 in Qincheng Prison on charges of having helped to organise the alleged "counterrevolutionary rebellion."

Focusing on workers' rights

After completing his course at Beijing University, Li returned to Shenzhen in March 1993, where he set to putting into practice ideas and plans shared with like-minded independent workers' rights activists in Beijing. He concentrated on the widespread abuse of workers' rights in the rapidly-growing Shenzhen region, particularly the huge numbers of migrant workers drawn from China's poorer inland provinces to Shenzhen by the prospect of finding employment in the mushrooming foreign-invested enterprise sector.

Soon after his return to Shenzhen, Li secured the management contract to run the Shenzhen Youth newspaper's public relations department in Bao'an County, a job which mainly entailed finding companies to advertise in publication; he proceeded to hire a number of like-minded activists to serve as his staff. Among these was Kuang Lezhuang, from Hunan Province, who had been expelled from Shanghai Communications University in the winter of 1986-87 for having criticised the lack of democracy and human rights in China in a meeting with the then mayor of Shanghai, Jiang Zhemin, currently China's State President. After the January 1987 crackdown Kuang was sent back to his rural hometown in Hunan Province, where he remained until being summoned to Shenzhen by Li Wenming to work on the Shenzhen Youth venture.

Others apparently hired by Li in early 1993 to staff his public relations office include persons named Fang Yiping, He Fei, Zeng Jiecheng, Lan Chunquan, Wu Chun, Liu Hutang (aka Liao Hetang, aka Liao Hetung) , Zheng Wuyan and Wan Xiaoying: all of whom, together with Kuang Lezhuang, are cited by the Shenzhen Prosecutor's Office in its indictment against Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng, and believed by the ICFTU to have been administratively sentenced to "re-education through labour" (see infra).

Promoting the right of migrant workers to organise

After having assembled his team and rented an apartment for himself and colleagues in a Shenzhen suburb, Li Wenming continued to discuss workers' rights topics by mail with Wang Zhongqiu, Zhang Jianjing, Song Xianke and others. This correspondence was apparently intercepted by the PSB. According to the prosecution indictment, the group helped organise a prize-winning essay-writing contest among the readers of Shenzhen Youth on the topic of the "hired-hand workers' vogue" (dagong chao), in an effort to focus greater public attention on the plight of the city's migrant and temporary-contract workforce. The context for this initiative was the city government's recent passage of a set of "Regulations on Hiring of Labour in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone". Yet, the Shenzhen prosecutor's office cites it as proving his "anti-Communist Party, anti-Socialist counterrevolutionary careerism."

Li and his colleagues then began preparing to establish an organisational framework through which to conduct labour rights education and advocacy among the city's workers. According to those familiar with the project, they drafted a charter of aims and a set of rules of conduct for the establishment of two groups, the "Federation of Hired-Hand Workers" (Dagongzhe Lianhehui) and the "Joint Association of Hired-Hand Workers" (Dagongzhe Lianyi Xiehui), and intended to try to register both bodies with the local civil affairs bureau.

In June 1993, Li, Kuang and the others began enlisting local temporary workers to take part in informal discussion. Subjects discussed included the benefits of collective bargaining, the notion of free trade unions and international trade union rights, as described by the relevant ILO Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Dozens of workers joined these sessions, which were mostly held in public parks in Shenzhen and usually took the form of short cultural events followed by talks and discussions on the above general themes. In August, the group set up an informal "workers' night school," and from then on, the number of recruits reportedly climbed into the hundreds, although the numbers attending individual meetings remained, for security reasons, quite small. The group also provided free legal and other advice to individual migrant workers suffering persecution or unfair treatment at the hands of their employers.

Initial security problems

At this point, Li Wenming mailed a copy of the group's draft charter and rules of conduct to like-minded activists in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Among these were his friend Li Minqi, recently released from a second brief period of detention in Beijing for publishing an underground magazine called Other Side of the River (Bi An), and two veterans of the 1989 protest movement, Ma Shaohua and Zheng Xuguang, who had served a two-year prison sentence after attempting to escape to China in July 1989. Ma, Zheng, and Li Minqi were becoming involved at the time in a public protest campaign in Xi'an in support of city residents who had been evicted from their homes without adequate compensation by the local government as part an urban redevelopment program, and when police raided their homes, copies of the Shenzehen group's documents were reportedly found and confiscated.

This apparently gave the authorities' their first intimation of the "subversive conspiracy" being plotted by Li Wenming and his colleagues, and, duly notified, the Shenzhen police began drawing a tight security net around the activities of all those living at No.704 Binjiang New Village. By late September 1993, the fledgling workers' discussion groups could no longer meet in safety and had to be temporarily abandoned. At the same time, Li was dismissed from the staff of Shenzhen Youth, his management contract in Bao'an was revoked, and all the fellow-activists he had hired were left jobless. The ICFTU notes in this respect that Li's dismissal and the ensuing employment loss suffered by his colleagues could both be regarded as an additional violation of the right to organise under ILO Convention n° 98 .

In October, Li and Kuang Lezhuang temporarily left their Shenzhen base, returned to Beijing and set up a trading company there called the "Beijing Yi Ma Company." ("Strange Horse"). Li renewed his association with Wang Zhongqiu and acquainted himself with the "Peace Charter", a movement that that was supported inter alia by Zhou Guoqiang, Liu Nianchun (see supra) and other Beijing-based union rights activists in the winter of 1993. There, Li and Kuang heard vague intimations that Wang Zhongqiu and others were preparing to launch a larger and much bolder forum for the discussion of worker rights issues. But preparations for launching the "League for the Protection of Workers Rights" (see supra) were proceeding in the utmost secrecy at this time: Li was apparently never admitted to the inner circle of those drafting the new organisation's charter in March 1994.

By late January 1994, Li and Kuang returned once again to Shenzhen. Shortly thereafter, they were joined by Guo Baosheng, whom Li had met during his earlier stay in Beijing and who, together with several others, had been detained in June 1993 for several weeks by the security authorities for printing and wearing "culture T-shirts" (wenhua shan) featuring an image of three footprints linked by a chain.

Independent labour publications

Although the pursuit of any open organisational activities among the Shenzhen workforce had by now become highly dangerous, Li's group reformed and began to publish and distribute a short unofficial bulletin called Dagong Guangchang, which translates into "Hired-Hands Plaza," or less literally; "Workers Forum". At this point in the case, as told in the prosecution indictment, the Shenzhen Prosecutor's Office began to really focus its attention on the group. The indictment contains, however, not a single quotation from the bulletin itself.

From an examination of three separate issues of the "Workers Forum", it is clear that the bulletin in fact consisted overwhelmingly of reprints or explanatory accounts of major international trade union rights standards, including those mentioned in the relevant ILO Conventions; reprints of articles on labour rights problems and abuses in Chinese factories that had already been published in the official Chinese press; brief interviews with, or descriptive reports on, the daily lives of Chinese migrant workers who had come to Shenzhen in search of employment; and poems commemorating, among other things, the deaths of migrant workers in factory disasters.

The publication described several investigations carried out by the Shenzhen activists themselves into labour rights abuses in local factories. One "Workers' Forum" article, included as Appendix 4, gives an account of the group's efforts to assist abused and ill-treated workers at the Shenglong Clothing Factory who were being denied the right even to resign from their jobs in protest. Another issue covered prominently in "Workers' Forum" was the November 1993 fire at the Hong Kong-owned Zhili Toy Factory, in Shenzhen's Kuiyong Town, in which over 80 migrant women workers were killed. The disaster provoked international outrage, especially within the international trade union movement, as it turned out that the workers had been locked in the factory and were so prevented from escaping the fire. According to Human Rights' Watch/Asia, the publication's strong editorial focus on the Zhili fire may have ultimately caused Li, Guo and their colleagues' arrests: Shenzhen city authorities had gone to considerable length to hide from the outside world the management's and administration's appalling neglect of elementary safety requirements. The ICFTU considers that the publication of such materials vividly conveys the trade union nature of the group's activities. Conversely, the fact that publishing such materials could earn their authors any judicial problems at all, clearly demonstrates the extent to which PRC authorities are determined to prevent any free labour activities whatsoever from taking place in the country.

Criminalisation of independent workers' activities

A major part of the indictment document concentrates on several meetings of the Shenzhen group, all of which took place in the privacy of Li's home, during March 1994, at which group members expressed their views on strategy and tactics for promoting the trade union rights movement. One of the few quotations of any length or substance provided in the indictment is of a statement allegedly made by Li Wenming at one of the March 1994 meetings. According to the prosecutors' office, "[The defendant] presented a four-way class analysis of China's peasants, workers, middle-class and intelligentsia, in which he raised the counterrevolutionary proposition that, in order for the democratic movement to erupt in the cities, it should make use of the workers, unite the workers and be active among the workers, and should follow the successful path of the East European four-part experience, thereby bringing to an end the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party".

China law experts indicate that the above translation conceals the fact that the original quotation as cited in the indictment is seriously flawed and in all likelihood constitutes a crude fabrication by the Prosecutor's Office, as part of its' efforts to firm up and substantiate the core allegation that he was involved in a "conspiracy to subvert the government."

The indictment against Li and Guo includes the prosecution's observation that, in March 1994, the latter brought back from Beijing copies of numerous "reactionary" articles by China's most notorious detained dissident, Wei Jingsheng (who at that time had just been rearrested) and shared them with his fellow activists in Shenzhen, "thereby creating an extremely bad influence." The Prosecutor's Office also notes that Guo showed the articles in question to a Hong Kong journalist and a Hong Kong social worker. In fact, however, Li Wenming met during the first half of 1994 with a number of visitors from Hong Kong, including trade unionists, local non-governmental activists and members of the international press corps. The general impression gleaned by these outside observers of the Shenzhen group's activities hardly conforms to the picture conveyed by the Shenzhen prosecutor's office in the indictment. To the contrary, according to reporters from the Far Eastern Economic Review who met with Guo and others just days before they were arrested in May 1994, Guo, (using the pseudonym of "Eastern Dragon") and a comrade took a reporter on their rounds of Shenzhen factories. Their efforts had so far been frustrated both by police repression and workers' passivity and indifference. At one factory, the labour activists were well into their standard pitch to the young migrant workers, explaining the benefits a labour union might bring, when they realised the workers had no idea what the term "labour union" meant" (cf. Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 June 1994).

Li Wenming's arrest

The prosecutor's office concludes the indictment by indicating that "On May 12, 1994 [i.e. the day of his arrest], Li Wenming...announced to the other criminals in his prison cell that he was "a political prisoner" and that he was involved in the democratic movement, and he cried out the reactionary slogans "Down with the Communist Party" and "Overthrow the Present Government." The two announcements by Li were evidently no more than a statement of fact, although the prosecutor's office still took strong exception to them. As to the slogans, which the prosecution presents as definite proof of the "counter-revolutionary" or "subversive" character of the defendant, we believe that, if they were indeed made, he most likely uttered them in defiance during a standard pre-interrogation beating by the police.

First stage of repression: administrative sentencing to "re-education through labour"

According to the prosecution indictment, Li's and Guo' fellow-activists from the Shenzhen labour rights group Kuang Lezhuang, Fang Yiping, He Fei, Zeng Jiecheng, Lan Chunquan, Wu Chun and Liu Hutang have already "all been dealt with separately" (jun ling zuo chuli) by the authorities. The ICFTU is convinced, both on legal grounds and in view of factual evidence, this means that they were sentenced without trial to various terms of re-education through labour of up to 3 years, as follows.

Firstly, experts in Chinese legislation indicate that such a conclusion is warranted by the nature of the specific language used in the indictment. In other known "counterrevolutionary" cases where additional defendants have been tried and sentenced in separate court hearings, the term used by the authorities is invariably "dealt with in a separate case" (ling an chuli). The prosecutor's office avoidance of the word "case" in the present instance clearly suggests that those concerned were "dealt with" by the extrajudicial means of re-education through labour.

Secondly, according to reports received in October 1994 by Human Rights Watch/Asia, a total of twelve independent union rights activists were detained by the police in May of that year along a route stretching from Shenzhen to Wuhan, and all were subsequently administratively sentenced to up to three years of labour re-education.

The ICFTU is appalled that the exercise of independent labour activities, the right to which is internationally-guaranteed, should once more be punished at all. That it should be done by ways of an administrative measure, not subject to even the most basic elements of due judicial process, such as right to counsel and to appeal, is unacceptable to the international free trade union movement.

Among those reportedly detained were:

Kuang Lezhuang, mentioned above, sentenced to 18 months re-education through labour in 1994, and detained for the duration of his sentence at the Yueyang Labour Re-education Centre.

Song Xianke and Huang Zhong, two other activists from Kuang's home region of Hunan: Song is cited in the prosecution indictment as being one of those with whom Li Wenming "secretly liaised" in March 1993; Huang's mother died soon after his detention, reportedly from the stress and anxiety caused by her son's plight. Song and Huang both received two-year terms, which they served at Changsha's Xinkaipu Labour Re-education Centre (known outwardly as the Hunan Electrical Switch Factory), and were released in the course of 1996 after completing their sentences.

"Double jeopardy": re-trial on aggravated charges after completion of administrative "re-education through labour" sentence

According to the same sources, Guo Baosheng and Li Wenming were also sentenced to a term of labour re-education in the summer of 1994. The unusually long period that elapsed between the defendants' initial detention in May 1994 and their appearance for trial only two-and-a-half years later suggest that in November 1996, Li, and probably also Guo, were taken by the authorities out of the labour re-education centres where each had served the greater part of a maximum three-year sentence of administrative detention. The ICFTU believes an official decision was subsequently made to subject them to a court trial on the most serious charge available under the current criminal code, i.e. "subversive activities".

According to the human rights' organisation, Human Rights Watch/Asia, for the authorities to proceed in this way, when more than two years ago the defendants' offending thoughts and actions were deemed to be sufficiently minor as to warrant only administrative punishment, seems to indicate that the authorities' purpose in so doing was to establish, at the provincial or municipal level, a "local judicial model" for the future handling of cases of independent trade union activity that conformed to the political cases' precedents set in the course of 1996 at national level by the trials of democracy activists Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan. The ICFTU fully shares this analysis. What appears quite clear is that Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng have been charged with a much more serious criminal charge than any they could have anticipated under the system of judicial practice and precedence which prevailed in China until late 1995.

According to Human Rights Watch/Asia, the case of Li, Guo and their colleagues demonstrates that the government is intent, not only on crushing any independent labour rights' group, but on henceforth punishing any such activity under new provisions of China's Criminal Law dealing with acts which allegedly "endanger state security". Such acts were previously referred-to as "counter-revolutionary". The ICFTU considers that the effects of this current reform of China's criminal justice system are highly relevant to the issue of freedom of association or rather, to violations thereof, as follows.

Reform of China's Criminal Law and ratification of international standards

China's Xinhua press agency recently published elements of a draft revision to the country's 17-year old Criminal Law, submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC) on 8th March 1997 and adopted during the same session. They will enter into force on 1 October 1997. Presented as "permeating the whole … legislation with the concept of safeguarding people's rights", the 258 articles added to the criminal code are designed to "protect people and punish criminals", according to Gao Mingxuan, vice-president of the China Law Society. Protection of citizens' rights to safety, health, personal freedom, work, election, religious freedom, marriage and rights of family is to be notably improved.

Freedom of association is conspicuously absent from this list. Little else is to be learned in the press despatch about the issue of work, beyond the fact that forced labour, which had "emerged of late", would be punished with a jail sentence of up to three years. As nothing in the Xinhua text suggests any connection between this measure and the institutionalised system of "re-education through labour" quoted repeatedly in the present report, it can be safely assumed that the revised law shall do nothing to protect would-be union organisers from prosecution. It may however be noted that the Xinhua announcement reported "the establishment … of a major principle of criminal justice, (namely, ed.) that crimes and punishment must be judged and meted out in accordance with specific provisions of the law" (sic!), which would "ensure that criminals be punished while the innocent be free from prosecution", as stated by Mr. Gao, according to whom "behaviours that are not crimes must not be punished".

The ICFTU demonstrates throughout this report that free labour activists are consistently subjected to long terms of forced labour imposed without trial, for acts which cannot possibly be qualified as crimes. The detailed account of Li Wenming and colleagues' ordeal, above, is a case in point. The announced changes in China's Criminal Law, if implemented, should logically open the way for a revision of their sentences. At the very least, a genuine implementation of the principles outlined by Mr. Gao should entail that these and other prisoners' appeals should be heard in full fairness.

Additionally, however, the official recognition of the existence of forced labour in the country and commitment to deal with it severely, both mentioned in the Xinhua despatch, have clear implications with respect to China's record on the ratification of international legal instruments. The PRC has ratified neither the ILO Convention on Forced Labour, n° 29, nor ILO Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labour, n° 105. Both of these enjoy a superior ratification rate by the international community. One of their key principles is that no-one shall be subjected to forced labour without a conviction in a court of law.

The ICFTU considers the elements above should prompt PRC authorities to reflect on the urgent need to ratify these and other key ILO Conventions relating to human rights at work, as discussed in more detail in Section VII of this report. As to the immediate present, the PRC government could certainly demonstrate further "considerable progress" on the path towards ratification and implementation of ILO Convention 29, by releasing dozens of independent labour activists, performing forced labour imposed administratively, i.e. in violation of international standards.

Attempts to register independent workers' organisations

Whenever questioned by the international community, first and foremost by the ILO, about the arrest, detention and sentencing of independent trade union activists, the PRC government invariably presents the victims as dangerous criminals, guilty of the gravest of crimes, including "counter-revolution" and now, as seen above, "subversion endangering state security". Li Wenming's character and personality, as reported by a number of sources, could not be further from this picture. Available evidence makes a sham of the prosecution's attempts to prove his criminal, "subversive" posture. The ICFTU encloses (as Appendices 5 and 6) two documents in this connection: the first one is Li Wenming's own defence statement; the second was read at the trial by his brother, Li Dongming. It contains several further indications of the trade union character of the group as well as of its' organisers' attempts to obtain registration. One particularly relevant extract reads:

"The aims of the 'Federation of Hired Workers' were to protect the legal rights of workers and to enrich the cultural life of workers outside working hours. (....) the federation first of all applied to the civil government department and the official trade union office for registration. In keeping with official procedures for all such federations, which require the approval of both the local government administration and the official trade union, the federation, during its preparatory stages, publicly issued a statement outlining conditions of membership and also completed the relevant forms. (....) thus the 'Federation of Hired Workers' can (...) certainly not be called (...) a counter-revolutionary organisation."

Further evidence of the group's intention to apply for and obtain legal registration is available from a two-page pamphlet they issued in June 1993, entitled "A letter to one million workers on the preparations for establishing a Hired-Hand Workers' Federation". Readers were invited to contact one of the group's members, Kuang Lezhuang (mentioned earlier), as well as one Qi Su (possibly a pseudonym) at the "Special Reporters' Post Box n° 51806, Hunaggang Post Office, Shenzhen".

Li Wenming's state of health

In January 1997, the China Labour Bulletin (CLB) reported that Li's health had seriously deteriorated in detention. According to CLB sources, he suffered from nephritis and dropsy. It should also be noted that, 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 to be 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. Sources however indicated that, even if permission was granted, the family might be unable to face the tremendous expenses involved. Finally, in March, the CLB informed the ICFTU that Li hade been allowed to see a doctor and moved to a somewhat less cramped prison cell. The ICFTU however remains very concerned about his state of health.

ICFTU Conclusions on the "Workers' Forum"

The ICFTU considers the case described above perfectly illustrates the comprehensive pattern of repression exerted by the authorities of the PRC against any independent trade union activists, as soon as they are uncovered by the public security system. The ICFTU notes that this pattern includes:

an extended period of arbitrary detention, ranging from a few months to over two years;
subjection to up to two years "re-education through labour", imposed by minor security or administration officials and against which there is no appeal;
mistreatment of and refusal of medical care to detainees performing forced labour;
near to or upon completion of administratively imposed forced labour terms, the upgrading of charges from "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement" to "conspiracy to subvert the government", the most serious offence in the Chinese criminal, which carries sentences of up to life imprisonment with forced labour.

On the basis of the elements described in this section, the ICFTU concludes that:

In the course of 1993 and 1994, Li Wenming, Guo Baosheng and several other members and activists of the Workers' Forum were engaged in genuine, legitimate and independent worker' activities and organisations;
the trade union nature of their concerns, activities, organisations and publications is beyond question;
the group intended and may have attempted to obtain official registration before its members were arrested;
their detention and administrative sentencing to terms of "re-education through labour" of up to 3 years is a flagrant violation of ILO Conventions on freedom of association, protection of the right to organise and collective bargaining;
their detention and sentences further violate a number of key international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration and the two International Covenants on human rights (ICCPR and ESCR);
the re-qualification of charges against Li and Guo, after 30 months of forced labour; as "subversion" and "endangering state security" is a clear indication of the PRC's authorities' determination to destroy any attempt at independent workers' organising with the severest possible elements of the country's judicial arsenal.

VI. Zheng Shaoqing and Chen Rongyan: case of the Zhuhai Taxi Drivers

According to confirmed but fragmentary reports two taxi drivers, Zheng and Chen, each received administrative sentences of two years' "re-education through labour": in January 1996, they had organised a half-day taxi strike in Zhuhai, a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) neighbouring Macao, in the Pearl River Delta. Their strike was in protest at severe penalties, including high fines and the impoundment of their vehicles against drivers accused of minor traffic violations. Zheng's and Chen's place of detention unknown at the time of writing.

VII. China and international standards on trade union and other human rights

As has been noted above, China has a poor record on ratification of key-international legal instruments on trade union and other human rights. The ICFTU is thus particularly concerned at the position adopted by the PRC in response to a formal request by the ILO Director General for the country to ratify 7 key-ILO Conventions which are widely considered as representing the core minimum international human rights standards in the area of labour. These conventions are:

ILO Conventions n° 87 and 98 on Freedom of Association, the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively,
ILO Conventions n° 29 and 105 on Forced Labour and the Abolition of Forced Labour,
ILO Convention n° 138 on Minimum Age for Employment and
ILO Convention n° 100 on Equal Remuneration (the only one ratified by China);
ILO Convention n° 111 on Discrimination in Employment

In its response to the ILO, China recalled its position, which is that "ratification and application of international labour Conventions must be looked upon as a gradual process determined by the specific circumstances of each member State." According to the PRC government, the ILO's "role … is to take into account the particular characteristics of each State and bring it progressively to ratification and full application of the ILO Conventions". The government, claiming to have achieved "considerable progress towards the application" of Conventions 29,87,98, 105, 111 and 138, would "at the appropriate time, and in the light of the country's interests ,… ratify the fundamental ILO Conventions".

The need to take into account, when assessing the issue of ratifying any international human rights standards, the level of development of individual countries has long been the cornerstone of the PRC's defence against international condemnation of its human rights practices. Labour rights are no exception, as demonstrated again by the above quotes. This is a position which has consistently been rejected by the international community, including the ILO itself. The ICFTU and its member-organisations throughout the world, including all its affiliates in the Asia-Pacific region have steadily rejected the argument, notably in the context of the growing international labour campaign for the adoption of a social clause in international trade relations. Independent Chinese labour activists themselves have actively been supporting this stand. The ICFTU therefore considers the above PRC theory, often paralleled in human rights' debate with the so-called "cultural" argument, to be null and void and representing nothing but the confirmation that the authorities of the PRC are intent on continuing to refuse abiding by international labour standards for the foreseeable future.

The same considerations apply to the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights (ESCR and ICCPR, respectively). In early 1996 the PRC government, with the obvious intent of defusing the risk of a critical Resolution on its human rights record being adopted by the UNCHR, committed itself, in dialogue with the US and several EU governments, to ratify these two key-international standards. Similar assurances were offered ahead of the 1997 UNCHR session. They have remained unfulfilled to-date. However "critical" or "constructive" diplomatic dialogue may become, the ICFTU predicts the situation will remain unchanged, for as long as the international community, especially the United States, EU Member States and Asia-Pacific countries are prepared to tolerate and condone the deceitful, cheating tactics of a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, moreover holding a seat in the UN Commission on Human Rights itself.

Meanwhile, the ICFTU once more calls resolutely, firstly on China to honour its commitments by ratifying all above-mentioned ILO and UN instruments and, secondly, on all governments engaging in any dialogue over human rights' issues with China to impress upon the PRC authorities the need to respect its word with regard thereto. It also repeats its call on the PRC to recognise the competence of the Committee against Torture to receive individual communications under art. 22 of the CAT.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS

Continuous detention of WAF members

Over six years after the events of Tiananmen Square, the government of the People's Republic of China keeps in jail a number of prisoners whom the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has found to have been detained and sentenced in retribution for their exercise of internationally-guaranteed trade union rights and whose release it has repeatedly requested. Detainees Chen Gang (pardoned from the death sentence), Peng Shi, Liu Zhihua, Li Wangyang* , Zhang Jingsheng* and Wang Changhui* , from Hunan, as well as Wang Miaogen, from Shanghai, Tang Yuanjuan, Leng Wanbao and Li Wei from Jilin, belong to this category. Most of them were leaders of the Workers' Autonomous Federations in their respective regions, for which they serve terms of 3 to 13 years or life imprisonment. To the best of our knowledge, the government has not kept the ILO informed of the situation of these trade union detainees.

Denial and dissimulation

Serious indications exist that China's authorities, whether through inefficiency or deliberately, have provided incomplete or misleading information on many independent trade union activists detained in the aftermath of the June 1989 events. A case in point is that of Li Xiadong, whom the government has reported to the ILO as "never questioned, interrogated or detained", while in fact ICFTU sources have well-documented evidence to the effect that he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment in October 1989. Similar doubts exist as regards Chen Bing, Li Xin, Liu Jianwei and Wu Tongfan, from the Changsha WAF, as well as Wu Changgui, from the Xiangtan WAF: according to the ICFTU, they have all been sentenced to prison terms of three years, on average. Likewise other activists were reported by the authorities to the ILO to have been "released, acquitted of criminal responsibility". According to ICFTU information, however, amongst detainees of the Changhsha WAF, Liu Yi was sentenced to an unknown term, Lu Zhaixing received 3 years, Pan Mingdong was sentenced to 2 years, Peng Yuzhang, was committed to a psychiatric institution, while Tang Yixin, Wang Hong, and Yang Hong were all detained. The government has persistently withheld any clarification.

Repression of new free labour initiatives

In addition to the immediate repression of the 1989 events, the government of China has continued, particularly since 1992, to detain numerous workers who were:

attempting to establish organisations of their own choosing for the protection of their interests;
promoting respect in China of internationally-guaranteed trade union rights and organising others to that effect;
informing workers, for instance by organising night-classes, about their trade union and other labour rights, notably in the area of union representation, wages, duration of work, occupational health and safety and labour law;
assisting other workers whose basic occupational rights were denied.

The following activists belong to one or more of the above-mentioned categories:

Liu Jingheng and the "Beijing Sixteen", including Hu Shigen, Kang Yuchun, Wang Guoqi, Lu Zhigang, Wang Tiancheng, Chen Wei, Zhang Chunzhu, Rui Chaohuai and Li Quanli, from Beijing;
Zhou Guoqiang, from Beijing
Liu Nianchun, Yuan Hongbin, Zhang Lin, Xiao Biguang and Wang Zhongqiu, from the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People (LPRWP)
Li Wenming, Bao Guodong, Kuang Lezhuang, Fang Yiping, He Fei, Zeng Jiecheng, Lan Chunquan, Wu Chun, Liu Hutang, Song Xianke, Huang Zhong and others, from Shenzhen's "Workers' Forum".

Repression against relatives

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.

Mistreatment and torture

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 by inmates in exchange for favours from prison authorities, are frequent. Zhang Jingsheng, Tang Yuanjuan, Leng Wenbao, Li Wei, Liu Nianchun, as well as Wang Miaogen, later committed to a psychiatric institution, were all beaten in jail. In the case of Wang Hui, 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 complaints brought against it before the competent UN bodies by the organisation.

Health concerns

A number of activists mentioned in the document are seriously ill. Several have contracted tuberculosis and/or hepatitis while in jail, reportedly after being isolated in medical sections of their place of detention. Cases include those of Tang Yuanjuan, Zhou Guoqiang, and before him of Han Dongfang. Liu Nianchun is reportedly gravely ill with high blood pressure. Li Wenming was refused treatment for nephritis, which could result in the removal of one kidney for several months before eventually being provided with medical care. With this exception and in spite of numerous appeals, both inside China and abroad, all other prisoners have, to the best of the ICFTU's knowledge, been refused proper medical treatment and conditional release on health grounds.

Secret detentions and denial of due process

Detention of trade union activists is frequently secret; prisoners are kept incommunicado, sometimes for several years, and requests for information by relatives are ignored; family members are typically informed of the prisoners' whereabouts for the first time shortly before trials take place, months or even years after the initial detention.

While administrative sentences to "re-education through labour" can apparently not be appealed against, numerous obstacles exist to the right of appeal against convictions in court. When they are heard, after long procedural delays, original verdicts are routinely upheld. The right to legal assistance is blatantly flouted in the process, and pressure exerted on lawyers to refuse handling the cases of labour activists. A case in point is that of Liu Nianchun. Many prisoners have seen their detention prolonged beyond the original terms, either through additional sentences in labour camp (as in the case of Zhou Guoqiang, who received one additional year on trumped-up "attempted escape" charges in addition to his original 3-years term), or through further prosecution after or near completion of administrative forced labour sentences. Such is the case of Li Wenming and Guo Baosheng, who after nearly three years f the former, risk a further 10 years or more in jail.

Hunting down free unions

The persistent criminalisation of legitimate union activity in the Shenzhen case, through requalification of charges from "counter-revolution" to "subversion endangering state security" confirms the authorities' long-standing policy of stamping out any independent trade union activity. Attempts to formally register independent workers' groups are the decisive factor leading to arrest and the beginning of judicial process, as seen in the case of the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People in Beijing and the Workers' Forum in Shenzhen.

China and international standards

China has an extremely poor record of ratification of key-ILO and UN Conventions, which it justifies by a need to take into account its level of development; it claims to have accomplished "considerable progress" towards ratifying and implementing the ILO's fundamental Conventions. The ICFTU believes nothing could demonstrate "considerable progress" better than an early release of detained labour activists and the immediate ratification of the core-ILO Conventions, ICCPR, ESCR and other major human rights' instruments.

IX. RECOMMENDATIONS

In view of the above, the ICFTU makes the following recommendations:

to the PRC Government:

China's authorities should release as a matter of urgency all remaining trade union and workers' rights' activists detained since 1989, in connection or in the aftermath of that year's June events;
the authorities should provide detailed and verifiable information on all cases of detainees about whom the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has requested information since 1991 and 1993, respectively, in particular those in which serious contradictions exist between data previously provided by the government appear to be incomplete or misleading;
the PRC authorities should provide verifiable indications as to the absence of any discrimination in employment that might be faced by independent labour activists after their release from detention;
the authorities should immediately release all activists, leaders and members arrested in connection with further attempts to establish and register independent workers' organisations;
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;
in the meantime, the authorities should respond in detail to the ILO, the Special Rapporteur on Torture of the UN Commission on Human Rights and any other relevant bodies concerning reports of beatings and torture suffered by detained union activists and/or their relatives;
the government should urgently recognise the competence of the UN Committee against Torture to receive personal communications, under art. 22 of the UN Convention against Torture, which it has ratified;
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;
the PRC should take immediate steps to ratify and implement ILO Conventions n° 87 and 98 on Freedom of Association, the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively, ILO Conventions n° 29 and 105 on Forced Labour and the Abolition of Forced Labour, respectively, as well as ILO Discrimination in Employment Convention, n° 111;
the authorities should initiate, at the earliest possible date, all legislative steps needed to amend China's labour code with a view to implementing recommendations of the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, particularly as regards the issues of mandatory trade union monopoly and the right to strike, and
the PRC should immediately implement promises made since 1996 in inter-governmental dialogue with the EU, the US and others to ratify the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights (ESCR and ICCPR);
in the meantime, the authorities should refrain from detaining or otherwise harassing any workers attempting to establish organisations of their own choosing for the protection of their interests and, when so requested, ensure that official registration is granted to such groups when and as soon as requested.

to the international community:

all Governments having regular diplomatic contacts with the PRC should raise with it the issue of detained labour activists, press forcefully for their unconditional and immediate release, and demand full guarantees of human treatment, including the absence of beatings and torture and the provision of adequate medical care wherever, whenever and as soon as needed;
all these Governments should continuously remind the PRC authorities of their promises to ratify the ESCR and the ICCPR and urge it to ratify all key-ILO Conventions listed in the previous section;
all Member Countries of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights should take the opportunity of the 53rd session of the Commission, meeting in Geneva while this report is published, to press for the adoption of a Resolution on the human rights' situation in China; such Resolution should include a specific reference to the plight of labour activists detained in violation of key international human rights' standards;
the European Union and the United States, in particular, should take the lead in genuinely promoting the adoption of such a Resolution by the UNCHR during its present session;
the EU should take all necessary measures to ensure that the issue of detained labour activists, as well as that of trade union rights, are taken up in its on-going dialogue with the PRC, with a view to obtaining the immediate and unconditional release of those detained and the ratification by China of core-ILO standards.

To the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC):

The ICRC should, as a measure of urgency, include detained labour activists in any lists of cases that it raises with the PRC government with a view to gaining access to these prisoners in their places of detention, and take any other available steps to ensure that all detainees identified in this report or the appended list of prisoners and reported as ill, or otherwise in need of medical attention, are allowed to seek and obtain such treatment without further delay, outside their place of detention if necessary.

To the international trade union community

National, regional and international trade unions organisations throughout the world, including ICFTU-affiliated organisations and International Trade Secretariats should:

take up the concerns detailed in this report in any way that might help secure the release of detained labour activists and the respect by the PRC of core labour and other human rights' standards and, to this effect:

raise the issues of detained labour activists, trade union and other human rights in China with all relevant national institutions in their own countries including government, legislative organs, human rights commissions, employers and media;
promote widespread support for these concerns among the general public;

endeavour to ensure that the names of detained labour activists featured in this report are included forthwith in any lists of political prisoners discussed by their governments with PRC authorities on a humanitarian or human rights' basis;

use any existing or future contacts with China's official labour centre, the ACFTU, to raise the case of the prisoners and make future co-operation with it conditional on their immediate and unconditional release;

also use any such contacts to impress upon the ACFTU the need for China to ratify and implement key-ILO and UN standards.

X. List of Abbreviations

ACFTU: All-China Federation of Trade Unions (government-controlled)

AI: Amnesty International

CAT: UN Convention against Torture

CFA: (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association

EU: European Union

FLUC: Free Labour Union of China (independent)

HRW/A: Human Rights Watch/Asia

ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

ICESCR: International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ICFTU: International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross

ILO: International Labour Organisation / International Labour Office

LPRWP: League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People (independent)

NPC: National People's Congress

PRC: People's Republic of China

PSB: Public Security Bureau

SEZ: Special Economic Zone(s)

UN: United Nations

UNCHR: United Nations Commission on Human Rights

WAF: Workers' Autonomous Federation(s) (independent)

XI. List of Appendices

1: China: free trade union activists and members detained or unaccounted-for, ICFTU list, April 1997
2: "China" sections, ICFTU Survey on Violations of Trade Union Rights, 1994,1995,1996
3: Letter of Indictment against Li Wenming (case of the Shenzhen "Workers' Forum")
4: Article from the "Workers' Forum"
5: Defence statement read in court by Li Wenming
6: Defence statement presented in court by Li Wenming's brother

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Appendix 1

CHINA: FREE TRADE UNION ACTIVISTS AND MEMBERS DETAINED OR UNACCOUNTED-FOR,

INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU), April 1997

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
1	HU Nianyou	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	Life sentence	Hunan Longxi prison	n.a.	sentenced to 10 years for looting, according to official reports (ILO CFA, Case 1652)
2	YAO Guisheng	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	15 years for "looting"	Hunan Longxi prison	n.a.	ILO CFA, Case 1652
3	CHEN Gang	HUNAN	June 1989	n.a.	Life, commuted on appeal from death sentence	Hunan Longxi Prison	n.a.	Chen and n° 4 & 5 worked at Hunan Xiangtan Machine Factory

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
4	PENG Shi	HUNAN	June 1989	n.a.	Life sentence	Hunan Longxi Prison	n.a.	idem
5	LIU Zhihua	HUNAN	June 1989	n.a.	Life sentence	Hunan Longxi Prison	n.a.	idem
6	LI Wangyang	SHAOYANG WAF	1989	n.a.	13 years	Hunan Prison n° 1, later transferred to Yueyang Labour Reform Farm	n.a.
7	ZHANG Jingsheng	HUNAN WAF	1989	n.a.	13 years	Hunan Yuanjing Prison n°1	beaten up by prison guards for organising hunger strike, 1992
8	WANG Changhuai	HUNAN WAF	1989	n.a.	13 years for "subversion"	presumably Hunan Yuanjing Prison n°1	n.a.	Chairman of Hunan WAF Tried with Zhang J.
9	TANG Yuanjuan Worker at the Changchun N° 2 Car Manufactoring Factory	JILIN	1989	November 1990, Changchun Intermediate Court	20 years for "subversion" & "attempt to overthrow government"	Lingyuan Prison complex, Liaoning Province	Pulmonary Tubercu-losis, Hepatitis, 1995	see footnote ILO CFA, Case 1652, 286^{th ,}§ 723

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
10	LENG Wanbao idem	JILIN	1989	November 1990, Changchun Intermediate Court	13 years	Lingyuan Prison Complex	severe and repeated beatings by prison guards	ILO: idem
11	LI (or LIN) Wei idem	JILIN	1989	November 1990, Changchun Intermediate Court	8 years	Lingyuan Prison Complex	idem	ILO: idem
12	WANG Miaogen	SHANGHAI WAF	1989, later released then re-arrested in 1993	1989	3 years, later made indefinite (see remarks)	Shanghai An Kang PSB Hospital	Beaten repeatedly by police in 1993	Forcibly committed to psychiatric institution
13	CHEN Bing	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	3 years	n.a.	n.a.	Govern-ment claims no information available, ILO CFA n° 1652, 286th
14	LI Xin	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	3 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
15	LIU Jianwei	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	3 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
16	WU Tongfan	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	idem
17	WU Changgui	XIANGTAN WAF	1989	n.a.	3 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
18	LIU Yi	CHANGSHA WAF	1989, released 1 December same year, detained again 1Aug’90	n.a.	unknown term of prison	Hunan Changsha Prison n° 1	n.a.	According to authorities acquitted & released" (CFA 1652)

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
19	LU Zhaixing	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	3 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
20	PAN Mingdong	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	2 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
21	PEN Yuzhang	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	Locked up in psychiatric institution	n.a.	n.a.	idem
22	Tang Yixin	CHANGSHA WAF	1989, now released	n.a.	----	-------	-------	idem
23	WANG Hong	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	idem
24	YANG Hong	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	idem
25	LI Xiaodong	SHAOYANG WAF	1989	October 1989	13 years	n.a.	n.a.	Govern- ment says he was "never questioned/arrested or detained"
26	LI Xiaoping	SHAYOANG WAF	1989	October 1989	6 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
27	DING Longhua	HENGYANG WAF	1989	n.a.	6 years	n.a.	n.a.	idem
28	ZHU Fangming	HENGYANG WAF	1989	n.a.	Life sentence	n.a.	n.a.	idem
29	ZHENG Yujua	CHANGSHA WAF	1989	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	Govern-ment says he was "never arrested", ILO CFA n° 1652, 286th

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
30	LIU Jingsheng	Beijing, "Free Labour Union of China (FLUC)"	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	15 years prison, plus 4 years of deprivation of political rights	n.a.	n.a.	Case of the "Beijing Sixteeen"
31	HU Shigen	Beiking, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	20 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
32	KANG Yuchun	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	17 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
33	WANG Guoqi	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	11 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
34	LU Zhigang	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994	5 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16" Appeal rejected by People’s High Court

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
35	WANG Tiancheng	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994	5 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
36	CHEN Wei	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	5 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
37	ZHANG Chunzhu	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	5 years	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
38	RUI Chaohuai	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	3 years, now presumed released	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"
39	LI Qanli	Beijing, FLUC	1992	1994; Beijing High People's Court rejected appeal	2 years’ probation	n.a.	n.a.	"Beijing 16"

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
40	ZHOU Guoqiang	Beijing	1994	Beijing, September ‘94; appeal held in March 95, in Heilongjiang labour camp	3 years’ forced labour, plus 1 year for "attempt to escape"	Forced labour farm, Heilongjiang province	Tuberculo sis, end 1995; prison beatings	Zhou’s wife *Wang Hui*, was detained and beaten in jail in 1996
41	LIU Nianchun	Beijing, League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People (LPRWP)	1st arrest May 1994 / 2nd arrest May 1995	1995; appeal dismissed in September 1996	3 years' "re-education through labour"	Shuanghe Labour Camp, North-east China	High blood pressure; loss of weight after hunger strike,1996 intestinal problems, enlarged lymph node, mouth ulcers.	Beatings in jail; refused medical assistance; Wife Chu Hailan involved in pubic campaign to obtain treatment for him.
42	YUAN Hongbin	Beijing, LPRWP	1994	n.a.	unknown: administrati-ve detention or other deprivation of liberty	Guiyang city, Guizhou Province	n.a.	confined in a library building in Guiyang

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
43	ZHANG Lin	Beijing, LPRWP	1994	n.a.	3 years' forced labour	coalmine in Anhui	n.a.
44	XIAO Biguang	Beijing, LPRWP	1994	n.a.	3 years' forced labour	unknown	n.a.
45	WANG Zhongqiu	Beijing, LPRWP	1994	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.

46	LI Wenming	SHENZHEN, "Workers' Forum"	May 1994	November 1996	unknown; faced min. 10 years for "subversion"	Presumably prison of the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau (PSB)	nephritis limited treatment provided March 97	kept for over 30 months without trial
47	GUO Baosheng	SHENZHEN, "Workers' Forum"	May 1994	November 1996	unknown (idem)	idem	n.a.	kept for over 30 months without trial
48	KUANG Lezhuang	SHENZHEN, "Workers' Forum"	May 1994	n.a.	n.a.	released, but considered still at risk, owing to his continuous involvement and contacts with Workers’ Forum defendants	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
49	LIAO Hetang	SHENZHEN, "Workers' Forum"	May 1994	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
50	FANG Yipin	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	May 1994	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
51	HE Fei	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	May 1994	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
52	ZENG Jiecheng	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	May 1994	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
53	LAN Chunquan	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	n.a.	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
54	WU Chun	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	May 1994	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
55	ZHENG Wuyan	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	May 1994	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
56	WAN Xiaoying	SHENZHEN, "Workers" Forum	May 1994	n.a.	forced labour	n.a.	n.a.	presumed to have been sentenced administratively
57	ZHENG Shaoqing	ZHUHAI taxi-drivers	January 1996	n.a.	2 years	n.a.	n.a.	Organised a half-day taxi drivers' strike
58	CHEN Rongyan	ZHUHAI taxi-drivers	January 1996	n.a.	2 years	n.a.	n.a.	Organised a half-day taxi drivers' strike

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
59	GUO Yunqiao	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	Death, 2-year stay of execution	Hengyang Prison N° 2	n.a.	It is unknown whether the death sentence was carried out after the 2-years period
60	MAO Yuejin	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	15 years’ prison sentence	Hengyang Prison	n.a.	detained during the crackdown on 1989 pro-democracy protests
61	HU Min	YUEYANG WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court	15 years’ prison on charges of hooliganism	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	Founder of the Yueyang WAF with 9 other workers; they organised demonstra-tions and strikes

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
62	WANG Zhaobo	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court	7-15 years’ prison, for leading demonstra-tions and strikes; exact sentence unclear	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	One of the leaders of the Hunan WAF. Belongs to a group of people sentenced to various terms
63	HUANG Lixin	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	7-15 years’ prison, exact sentence unclear	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	detained during crackdown after June ‘89 events
64	HUANG Fan	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	7-15 years’ prison, exact sentence unclear	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	detained during crackdown after June ‘89 events

Number	Name	Region/Organisation	Date of Arrest	Date of Trial	Sentence	Place of Detention	Health Status	Remarks
65	WAN Yuewang	YUEYANG WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	7-15 years’ prison, exact sentence unclear	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	One of the leaders of the Yueyang WAF, he helped to organise a march in protest at Beijing massacre.
66	PAN Qiubao	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	7-15 years’ prison, exact sentence unclear	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	detained during crackdown after June ‘89 events
67	Yuan Shuzhu	HUNAN WAF	9 June 89	1 Sept. 89 Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, on charges of hooliganism	7-15 years’ prison, exact sentence unclear	Hengyang Provincial Prison n° 2	n.a.	detained during crackdown after June ‘89 events

For contacts: INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU), 155, Bld. E.Jacqmain, B - 1210 Brussels, Belgium / Department of Trade Union Rights: phone: (++) (32.2) 224.02.03.

Hotline fax: 32.2.224.02.97 E-mail: ICFTU@geo2.poptel.org.uk