The Guardian-China continues to unlawfully persecute family of dissidents finds report
April 15, 2024 4 min 822 words
西方媒体的报道常常带有偏见，缺乏客观公正。这篇报道的主要内容是：中国人权捍卫者（CHRD）组织发布报告称，中国当局继续非法迫害异议人士及其家人，包括对家人进行恐吓骚扰强制搬迁旅行禁令刑事诉讼，以及阻止子女上学等。报道举了几个例子，如人权律师王全璋及其妻子李文足的儿子在三月被警方带走询问，以及活动人士何芳美（He Fangmei）的子女在被迫住进精神病院后失踪。报道还提到，中国曾承诺取消对罪犯家属的连坐处罚，但CHRD表示没有看到立法行动，并认为这是一种国家支持的政策。 评论：这篇报道有其片面性与选择性，它忽略了中国司法体系的独立性，以及中国在人权与法治方面取得的进步。报道中提到的个案需要进一步核实，但的确触及到了一些敏感议题。中国在人权方面仍有改进空间，但西方媒体应秉持客观公正的原则，避免以偏概全。同时，中国政府也应加强信息透明度，以消除外界疑虑。报道中的连坐处罚在中国法律中本就不应存在，中国最高权力机关全国人大也对此做出了回应，这是一个积极的信号。中国政府应继续推进法治建设，保护公民合法权益，同时也欢迎外界提出建设性批评。
China continues to unlawfully target the families of activists and dissidents, despite a pledge to end the practice of collective punishment, a Chinese human rights group has said in a new report.
The persecution, which includes intimidation and harassment, forced evictions, travel bans, criminal proceedings against family members and preventing children from attending school, have affected people across China and the diaspora community for decades, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said in a report on Monday. Acts of collective punishment are prohibited in international human rights law.
As recently as 28 December, Chinese authorities vowed to abolish the practice of collective punishment of the family members of convicted criminals. Dissidents and activists are commonly convicted of criminal offences by Chinese courts. The pledge came after Chinese residents lobbied the country’s top lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), over notices issued by local authorities imposing education, employment, and social security restrictions on family members of people in jail.
“Following a review, we deemed the notices not consistent with the Constitution, nor with laws on education, employment and social insurance, so we urge relevant departments to abolish the documents,” the NPC responded, according to China Daily Hong Kong.
“Criminals should be liable and punished for their own misconduct, meaning that others shouldn’t be implicated in the penalties. It is a basic principle of rule of law in modern society,” the spokesperson said.
But CHRD told the Guardian there was no evidence of legislative activity to end collective punishment, and no officials had been held accountable since the announcement. Renee Xia, director of CHRD, said it appeared to be a state-backed policy. “A new law would hardly help eradicate its selective law enforcement in targeting these defenders,” she said.
The report released on Monday focused on acts of alleged collective punishment committed in 2023 and early 2024, with “dozens” of new or ongoing cases which they said showed the practice was continuing.
Among the cases the CHRD noted was that of jailed activist He Fangmei, whose young children, her lawyers say, disappeared in April after being forcibly held in a psychiatric facility.
He Fangmei and her husband were detained in October 2020, following He’s activism over defective vaccines. He, who was five months pregnant, and her two children then aged five and seven, were put in the Henan Xinxiang Gongji psychiatric hospital. Two months after giving birth He was arrested and sent to a detention centre.
The three children were kept at the hospital, despite efforts by other family members to have them released into their care. Requests by He’s sister to visit them were refused, the report said. The son was later sent to foster care allegedly without family consent, and in January this year an activist group claimed authorities had tricked He’s mother into formally relinquishing a custody claim.
A lawyer for He said the two girls had since disappeared after the hospital decided to stop housing them, and dropped them off with local county officials.
The Guardian was unable to reach the Hui county government, and the psychiatric hospital said it was unable to provide any information on the case.
In a call with journalists last week, Wang Liqin, the wife of jailed lawyer Wang Zhang, said authorities had threatened earlier this year to detain her again or to take away her children if she posted about her husband online.
“In the eight years we lived in Beijing, we were subject 11 times to forced relocation,” said. She was also detained and jailed for two and a half years.
“During my absence, my four children, under the care of my mother-in-law, were constantly harassed and under surveillance.”
The CHRD report also included testimony that in March police had searched the new school of the son of human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang who was released from jail in 2020. Wang’s son had been at the school just 10 days after police pressure had allegedly seen him dismissed from his previous ones.
In another case, the father of jailed IT worker Niu Tengyu was taken away by state security police in Shanxi in January. He was later released. Niu was detained in 2019 and sentenced to 14 years in jail over websites publishing information about Xi Jinping’s daughter and other high ranking officials in 2019. He has allegedly been tortured in jail, according to rights groups.
Separately, Rayhan Asat, a high-profile Uyghur activist, says family calls with her brother, who is detained in Xinjiang, were shortened from the allowed two-minute length if anyone on the call cried.
CHRD called for China to end the practice, introduce new legislation banning collective punishment, and to lift all exit bans on affected family members. It also called for the international community and UN to increase pressure on Beijing.