Amnesty International Report 2017/18

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

journalists of 64tianwang.com were in prison: 

Wang Jing, Zhang Jixin, Li Min, Sun Enwei, Li 

Chunhua, Wei Wenyuan, Xiao Jianfang, Li 

Zhaoxiu, Chen Mingyan and Wang Shurong.

Liu Feiyue, founder of human rights website 

Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, was 

detained in late 2016 and charged with 

“inciting subversion of state power”. His 

lawyer said that the charge was mostly 

related to opinions he had expressed publicly 

and posted on the website.

In August, Lu Yuyu, who documented 

protests in China on Twitter and in a blog, 

was convicted of “picking quarrels and 

provoking trouble” and sentenced to four 

years’ imprisonment.

In September, Zhen Jianghua, executive 

director of online platform Human Rights 

Campaign in China, was criminally detained 

on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state 

power” and later placed under residential 

surveillance at a designated location. Police 

confiscated numerous documents related to 

his website which contained reports from 

grassroots rights activists.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF

In June, the State Council passed the revised 

Regulations on Religious Affairs, to come into 

effect on 1 February 2018. It codified far-

reaching state control over every aspect of 

religious practice, and extended power to 

authorities at all levels of the government to 

monitor, control and potentially punish 

religious practice. The revised law, which 

emphasized national security with a goal of 

curbing “infiltration and extremism”, could 

be used to further suppress the right to 

freedom of religion and belief, especially for 

Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and 

unrecognized churches.

6

Falun Gong practitioners continued to be 

subjected to persecution, arbitrary detention, 

unfair trials and torture and other ill-

treatment. Chen Huixia remained detained 

since 2016 for suspicion of “using an evil cult 

to undermine law enforcement”. In May, her 

trial was adjourned after her lawyer requested 

the court exclude evidence extracted through 

torture.

DEATH PENALTY

In March, the President of the Supreme 

People’s Court announced that over the last 

10 years, since the Court regained the 

authority to review and approve all death 

sentences, capital punishment “had been 

strictly controlled and applied prudently” and 

only applied “to an extremely small number 

of criminals for extremely severe offences”. 

However, the government continued to 

conceal the true extent of the use of the 

death penalty, despite more than four 

decades of requests from UN bodies and the 

international community for more 

information, and despite the Chinese 

authorities’ own pledges to bring about 

greater openness in the criminal justice 

system.

7

TIBET AUTONOMOUS REGION AND 

TIBETAN-POPULATED AREAS IN OTHER 

PROVINCES

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS

In June, in his report of a 2016 visit to China, 

the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme 

poverty and human rights stated that while 

achievements towards alleviating poverty 

were generally “impressive”, the situation of 

Tibetans and Uighurs was deeply 

problematic, and “that most ethnic minorities 

in China are exposed to serious human rights 

challenges, including significantly higher 

poverty rates, ethnic discrimination and 

forced relocation”.

Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan education 

advocate, remained in detention awaiting trial 

at the end of the year, without access to his 

family. He was taken away in early 2016 for 

giving an interview to the New York Times in 

which he expressed fears about the gradual 

extinction of the Tibetan language and 

culture.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Ethnic Tibetans continued to face 

discrimination and restrictions on their rights 

to freedom of religion and belief, of opinion 

and expression, of peaceful assembly and of 

association.

At least six people set themselves on fire in 

Tibetan-populated areas during the year 

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

129

in protest against repressive policies, bringing 

the known number of self-immolations since 

February 2009 to 152. On 18 March, Pema 

Gyaltsen set himself on fire in Ganzi (Tibetan: 

Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in 

Sichuan Province. Tibetan sources said that 

he was believed to be alive when he was 

taken away by the police. His relatives were 

detained and beaten when they approached 

the authorities asking for his whereabouts. 

Tibetan NGOs abroad said that Lobsang 

Kunchok, a Tibetan monk detained after 

surviving a self-immolation attempt in 2011, 

was released from prison in March.

8

 On 26 

December, Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup 

Wangchen was reunited with his family in the 

USA, almost 10 years after he was first 

detained in China for making an independent 

documentary about the views of ordinary 

Tibetans ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

XINJIANG UIGHUR AUTONOMOUS 

REGION

Under the leadership of new regional 

Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, 

the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region 

(XUAR) authorities put new emphasis on 

“social stability” and increased security. 

Media reports indicated that numerous 

detention facilities were set up within the 

XUAR, variously called “counter extremism 

centres”, “political study centres”, or 

“education and transformation centres”, in 

which people were arbitrarily detained for 

unspecified periods and forced to study 

Chinese laws and policies.

In March, the XUAR enacted the “De-

extremification Regulation” that prohibits a 

wide range of behaviours labelled 

“extremist”, such as spreading “extremist 

thought”, denigrating or refusing to watch 

public radio and TV programmes, wearing 

burkas, having an “abnormal” beard, 

resisting national policies, and publishing, 

downloading, storing or reading articles, 

publications or audio-visual materials 

containing “extremist content”.

In April, the government published a list of 

prohibited names, most of which were 

Islamic in origin, and required all children 

under 16 with these names to change them.

In May, there were media reports that the 

Chinese authorities in the XUAR had initiated 

a policy to compel all Uighurs studying 

abroad to return to China. Six Uighurs who 

had studied in Turkey but had returned to 

the XUAR were given prison sentences 

ranging from 5 to 12 years on undefined 

charges. In April, Chinese authorities 

detained relatives of several students in Egypt 

to coerce them to return home by May. 

Reports were received that some who 

returned were tortured and imprisoned. In 

July, the Egyptian authorities began a 

massive round-up of hundreds of Chinese 

nationals in Egypt, mainly Uighurs. Of these, 

at least 22 Uighurs were forcibly returned to 

China.

Buzainafu Abudourexiti, a Uighur woman 

who returned to China in 2015 after studying 

for two years in Egypt, was detained in March 

and sentenced in June to seven years’ 

imprisonment after a secret trial.

9

In August, international media reported that 

education authorities had issued an order in 

June in the largely Uighur-populated Hotan 

Prefecture to ban the use of the Uighur 

language in schools, including for “collective 

activities, public activities and management 

work of the education system”. Media reports 

stated that families across the region were 

required to hand copies of the Qur’an and 

any other religious items to the authorities or 

risk punishment.

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE 

REGION

A series of actions taken throughout the year 

by the Hong Kong authorities increased 

concerns about whether freedom of 

expression and freedom of peaceful 

assembly were at risk.

In March, the founders of the Occupy 

Central campaign – Benny Tai, Chan Kin-

man and Rev Chu Yiu-Ming – were charged 

with “public nuisance”-related offences, 

carrying a maximum penalty of seven years’ 

imprisonment, for their involvement in the 

Umbrella Movement.

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