Source: http://dr-thomas-weyrauch.de/kleinpublikationen/reden/ueber-den-tag-hinaus/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 01:31:05+00:00

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Since the foundation of the Communist Party of China (CCP) in 1921, human rights have been violated in an incredible dimension. According to reliable estimations, up to 25 million people had been killed through Mao Zedongs orders before he rose to power in 1949. After having settled the People´s Republic of China (PRC), Mao and his followers became responsonsible for further 35 million Chinese killed by demozides, for nearly the same number of famine victims and for 3.4 millions of war deaths. Thus the total estimated figure of victims reaches nearly 100 million.
The situation changed in 1976. Despite the fact that Deng Xiaoping was one of the radical henchmen during the fifties and sixties, the new leadership of the People´s Republic of China tried to terminate the lawless chaos. China got new institutions and the CCP-rulers re-established a legal system. So every citizen was enabled to know his rights and prohibitions.
This theoretical stipulation of granting the rule of law was doubtless a great progress in Post-Mao-China. Not only the Chinese themselves, but also foreign leaders, journalists, China-experts and even tourists were impressed by such a concept, which included the Open-Door-Policy and the transformation of economy.
The Charter of the United Nations (1945). In 1971 the Republic of China had to leave the UN and give it´s seat to the People´s Republic of China. The PRC became in this way one of the five members of the UN Security Council and as a member-state of the UN she accepted the civil rights noted in the preamble of the Charter, which means the personal dignity and worth, justice as well as the commitment to international law. In the same way China is fully bound to Article 1 of the Charter in which the member states promote and encourage the respect of human rights and the fundamental freedom for all, regardless of race, gender, language or religion.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) passed by the General Assembly of the UN on Dec. 10th 1948, had been accepted by the PRC after taking the seat of the Republic of China, but till today the PRC regards this legal norm as ‘soft law’. The Chinese position about the legal character of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been accepted by many states and experts of international law, because there is – as the term shows - just a declaratoric, but not a contractual character. That means, no subject of international law can take a legal action against a state for it´s act of having violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration protects religious (Art. 2) and political convictions (Art. 18). It prohibits torture (Art. 5) as well as arbitrary arrest (Art. 9) and demands for independend courts (Art. 10) and the presumption of innocence (Art. 11). Furthermore there is a demand for freedom of expression, the right of assembly, the freedom to form associations and the voting right (Art. 19, 20 and 21).
This convention is based on its preamble on article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966. The signatory states are obliged to take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under their jurisdiction and should not accept exceptional circumstances as a justification of torture.
Despite the fact that the PRC signed the Convention against Torture, it doesn´t recognize the competence of the Committee against Torture as provided in article 20 of the Convention. The Chinese government also doesn´t consider itself bound to the paragraph I of article 30 of the Convention, in which disputes between states must be referred to the International Court of Justice.
The Geneva Convention of 1951 was signed together with the New York Protocol relating to the Status of Refuge (1967) by the PRC in 1982, but has not been ratified yet. Chinese ministries are preparing for an implementation as national law and for the ratification. After World War II the 51-Convention and the New York Protocol became worldwide the most important legal bases of recognizing and receiving foreign refugees. So China´s ratification would be an important milestone in handling the refugee problem.
In 2000 China became a signatory state of the Covenant, accepting the right of self-determination of peoples as well as the guarantee of the state parties to protect the family, health and education. The Covenant fosters human rights and a democratic society. But the ratification of China excludes the duties of article 8, which allows the foundation of independent trade unions.
This Covenant prohibits unlawful deprivation of liberty, torture or compulsory labour, and emphasizes the right of self-determination of peoples.
The PRC signed this Covenant in 1998, but not yet ratfied it. The ratification should be prepared by a Chinese working commission. China claims, that in preparation of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights the whole Chinese legal system has to be revised. In order to reach this goal, China has sought for the cooperation and assistance of the European Union.
China ratified the Convention in 1992 and accepted a lot of regulations for the benefit of children. But the PRC made reservations that it would fulfil its obligations provided by article 6 of the Convention under the prerequisite that the Convention accords with the provisions of article 25 concerning family planning of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. So the Convention shouldn´t oppose the One-Child-Policy.
A reservation about the One-Child-Policy was made during China´s ratification in 1980, that the PRC does not consider itself bound to the paragraph 1 of article 29 of the Convention in referring a dispute to the International Court of Justice.
Ratified by the PRC in 1981.
Ratified by the PRC in 1983.
To review China´s principles on human rights in international legal documents it reveals that the country´s representatives do not accept any control or legal judgement from other states or international organizations.
The Chinese national law also stipulates to respect human rights in the constitution, in the Criminal Law, in the Criminal Procedure Law, the Administration Procedure Law, the Lawyer Law and other related regulations.
The Criminal Law prohibits torture (art. 247, 248) and maltreatment as well as arbitrary arrests, but provides the death penalty for many offenses (art. 48 pp.). Besides other laws the death penalty is subjected to 68 criminal acts.
According to Chinese Government sources the rest of the prisoners given incarcerative sentences are held in the Reform Through Labour or Re-education Through Labour Teams.
The Re-education Through Labour system is nearly as old as the PRC and is divided into the Laodong gaizhao dui, abbreviated Laogai, for prisoners formally given a sentence by a criminal court, and the Laodong jiaoyang suo, abbreviated Laojiao, after the sentence of an administrative body called Committee for Re-education Through Labour for committing minor offenses such as petty theft, prostitution, and drug use for periods up to four years.
According to art. 46 § 2 prisoners have to work to accept education and reform through labour.
At first sight the judiciary system seems to be similar to that of other countries with lower, intermediate and higher courts.
The Lower Courts are responsible for civil disputes and misdemeanors that do not need trials in counties, cities without administrative districts, or administrative districts of cities. They also guide and supervise the work of the People's Arbitration Committees.
In prefectures, in cities directly under provinces and in districts of the municipalities directly under the central government Intermediate Courts are responsible for cases of national security, criminal cases that may involve life imprisonment or the death penalty, criminal cases committed by foreigners or cases involving Chinese citizens violating the lawful rights and interests of foreigners. They handle matters transferred or appealed from lower courts.
Higher Courts are set up in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government and are responsible for criminal, civil and administrative cases that intermediate courts deem to be of a serious nature, after the Intermediate Court requested that the cases be transferred. They try criminal, civil and administrative cases of major proportions and complications under their jurisdiction, as provided by law, the first-hearing cases transferred by lower courts, cases appealing or protesting the verdicts and decisions made by Lower Courts. They also review first-hearing cases involving the death penalty ruled by Intermediate Courts where the accused renounces the right to appeal.
The Supreme Court located in the national capital as the main trial organ of the state is responsible for appeals, cases of national security, criminal cases that may involve life imprisonment or the death penalty, criminal cases committed by foreigners or cases involving Chinese citizens violating the lawful rights and interests of foreigners.
In reality there is not only a hierarchy of public prosecutors analogous to the hierarchy of courts, but also an influence of different levels of the Communist Party of China to the trials and decisions of the parallel court level. So the CCP-cadres of a city may manipulate cases of an intermediate court in the same matter-of-course as the Polit Bureau does in the cases of the Supreme Court.
Mo Shaoping, a notable defense attorney, critizised the situation of lawyers as extremely difficult during his speech when he visited the Yale Law School in October 2005. According to his informations 500 lawyers had been arrested for working on criminal cases. Only 30 percent of all Chinese criminal cases had a defense lawyer at court. Mo summarized the difficulties for lawyers as difficulties in meeting the litigant, in obtaining documents, in investigating and obtaining evidence, in bringing witnesses to court, to complete the case in time, of balancing the power of certain organizations and the lack of a privilege to refuse to give evidence.
Hence, even the human rights stipulations of the Chinese leadership in this context seem to be tools to control the society and to deprive it from personal and human rights.
While the former capitalist class, persons with foreign contacts and non-opposition bound intellectuals are not the target of the CCP anymore, there are special groups in today´s China living in a situation of uncertainty, of discrimination and of persecution.
punishment, even without any intimidation. Especially Tibet, Eastern Turkestan and Inner Mongolia are so-called Autonomous Regions without autonomy and stand under dominance of Han-Chinese in the matters of political force and of economic strength. On the other hand a persecution of such ethnic minorities in the meaning of a social group can´t be supposed, as long as there are members of those minorities living an accordance with the CCP and being members of the party or of state organs.
'cults' by the authorities, watched by the police, secret services and the 'Anti-Cult-Association' and threatened to have severe punishment on their followers. Also the medias have to publish reports and comments about the dangerous character of the so-called 'cults', as it happened after a self-immolation of alleged Falun Gong-practicing persons in front of Beijing´s Tian´anmen-square. Despite Western journalists had research about those people, who burned to death, and found out that they had nothing to do with Falun Gong, the Chinese media still argue that the society had to be protected against such an evel cults, which immolate own followers. While the TV-cameras could view for a longer time the alleged Falun Gong-followers burning to death, it took only one minute to arrest foreign Falun Gong practicing adherents at the same place.
Followers of such groups defined as cults in the PRC as well as in foreign country remain the target of persecution such as kidnapping, arrest and violence. Because of the intensity and the duration of persecution they could be regarded as 'social group', as defined in the Geneva Convention.
The political system of the PRC is based on the leading role of the CCP. Other tolerated smaller political organizations do not oppose the leading party. So there is no legal opposition in the state. As consequence of this matter of fact the party rejects every attempt to build up democratic structures or to found new parties, craft unions or farmers associations in opposition to the CCP and persecutes their members. Furthermore, the authorities try to destroy opposition movements by force, by infiltration and by controlling information channels. A meaningful danger to the PRC and the leading CCP is the existence of the internet, which can hardly be controlled by an army of censors. If the works of cyber-dissidents are uncovered, most of their authors are given incarcerative sentences. But the communication via phone, pager or internet can´t be interrupted easily, which is proved by many events reported to foreign countries and inside China.
Most of the results of grassroot elections on the countryside are settled by the local CCP-cadres, but meanwhile they became the reasons of violent unrests.
Inside the CCP is just a little space for dissent as well, as long as the members are not regarded as organized faction.
The freedom of property is limited since the communist state has been founded. Nowadays citizens of the PRC are able and allowed to become billioneers, but thousands of owners of tiny houses were expropriated or dispossessed by authorities order and club beating mobsters to dislodge the dwellers, only because there was announcement of phantastic investment by a real estates company earlier. In big cities as well as on the countryside forced dislocations are not unusual. Well known examples are dislocations for the Olympic Games in the capital city and in the region of the Three-Gorges-Dam.
Couples have to apply for a permission to have children. Only in some wealthy cities, such as in the Guandong Province, or on the countryside couples are exceptionally allowed to have two children. In case of a contravention the One-Child-Policy discriminates parents and their children.
by fines of local authorities or even loose their job, house or futher property. The provinces Anhui, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jilin, and Ningxia require the termination of pregnancy if the pregnancy violates the family-planning law. The regulations of Fujian, Guizhou, Guangdong, Gansu, Jiangxi, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Yunnan have other punishments for the contraventions. It is very common not only to terminate out-of-plan pregnancies, but also to sterilize one of the parents.
The freedom of movement increased after the old hukou-system, that means the system of registration of all familiy members, has been relaxed after having a more mobile labour force. It is a fact that about 150 Million people are migrants within the boarders of the country, nevertheless any people are still obliged to have the permission of their working unit or the local authorities to change the residence.
As some decades ago police, militia and secret services violate the constitutional freedom of assembly and association by using force against demonstraters and critical groups. While protests numbered a few thousands per year in the Ninethieth, the number increased to 58,000 in the year 2003. The protests rose to 74,000 in 2004 with a death-toll of 1,740 people. This figure shows that the situation seems to be much worse than on the eve of the year 1989. Therefore the country cannot regarded as a stable one.
As long as speakers in private discussions did not show opinions of the opposition in public, the freedom of expression continued to expand. But such controversial discussions remain under surveillance by authorities. On the one hand critizing the political system can be tolerated, on the other hand the reason for harsh persecution.
The methods of human rights violations are various. China has got an interesting legislation on human rights with a lot of prohibitions, but the reality is very often the opposite. In many cases of human rights violations it could be proved that the state and it´s political system was the cause of human rights violations, such as the persecution of Falun Gong or the disappearance of dissidents.
Several times a year, regularly at spring festival and in autumn around the first of October, campaigns against crime are also targeted against opponents. Arrested persons have difficulties to convince the authorities of their innocence and to get in contact to lawyers. This problem carries on in the denial of fair public trial, that often occurs. Despite legal prohibitions of the penal code and the criminal procedure law many arrested people are victims of torture and maltreatment. Alone in one campaign against crime like "
Yanda" or "Strike hard" 4,000 people were executed after summary trials. The total number of executions is estimated of 15,000 per year. Extrajudicial killings in custody due to the practice of torture by the police have been reported, but no statistics are available. Arbitrary deprivation of freedom is still very common and only very seldom a matter of investigation.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at the King´s College in London there were 1,548,498 sentenced prisoners in December 2003 in the PRC. In comparison to the Chinese population 118 per 100,000 citizens were incarcerated. China argues that this number was far lower than the US-incercerated of 701 per 100,000 population. But human rights observers doubt the truth of this figure. They believe that the actual number of Chinese being incarcerated was much higher, because of persons, who are not in prisons but in Re-education Through Labour Centers.
The Re-education Through Labour has been critized since a long time as a violation against article 9 (4.) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides that "Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention..." But please remember: China did not ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights!
Furthermore critics say, the re-education process was arbitrary. It removes the presumption of innocence, involves no judicial officer, provides for no public trial, and makes no provision for defense against the charges.
According to governmental sources China has a total of 746 compulsory rehabilitation centers, 168 treatment and re-education-through-labor centers. Those centers officially care about criminals being mentally ill or drug addicted. Additionally there were 20 centers for the psychiatric treatment of prisoners. One famous inmate of such a psychiatric treatment center was the dissident Wang Wanxin, who has been released a few weeks ago and lives in Germany. Without insanity he was given psychopharma for the time between 1989 until 2005. Others belong to Falun Gong, which is labeled by the Chinese propaganda as a reason of mental illness.
A Falun Gong practicing lady, Ms. Xiong Wei, who lives now in Germany after she was held in different Chinese detention centers told me about her custody conditions. Having been beaten and threatened in the imprisonment on remand she was transferred to a women detention center, where she had to work under pressure from early morning till late after midnight and got only two meals per day and corporal punishments. She was also maltreated in so-called re-education sessions outside the prison. She wasn´t allowed to drink and to go to the toilet for longer times. During her menses she couldn´t get sanitary pads, so her trousers were blood-stained. In the night she had to sleep on a wooden board together with other female prisoners and did not have space to move or to turn over. A special corporal punishment was to stay on a painful position for several hours or to practice a large number of knees bending.
Instead of punishing such officers responsible for torture and maltreatment, they got the priviliges of impunity and rewards.
1 For an extensive explanation see e.g. chapter “Menschenrechte in der chinesischen Philosophie” (Human rights in Chinese philosophy) in my book “Gepeinigter Drache – Chinas Menschenrechte im Spätstadium der KP-Herrschaft” (Anguished Dragon – China´s Human Rights in the Late Stage of CCP-Rule). 2nd Edition Heuchelheim/Germany (Longtai) 2006, pp. 10.
2 Embassy of the People´s Republic of China in the United States of America, http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zjxy/t36496.htm.
3 Article 2 and 18. General Assembly resolution of Dec. 10th, 1948.
4 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/english/countries/ratification/3.htm.
5 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/english/countries/ratification/4.htm. China has established a working commission to revise the constitution and other laws for conformity with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The PRC has asked the European Union for support and cooperation, see Xinhua Nov. 20th, 2000; http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/wsis-euc/2006-January/000686.html; www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/11/21/rights.china; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: 4. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/english/countries/ratification/4_1.htm.
6 That legal position is disputed.
7 Constitution, art. 36; Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law, art. 11; Education Law, art. 9; Criminal Law, art. 251 (infringement to the freedom of religious belief).
8 Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Annual Report 2006, Washington 2006, pp. 79, 80.
10 Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Annual Report 2006, Washington 2006, pp. 79, 80.
11 Kupfer, Kristin: „Geheimgesellschaften“ in der VR China: Spirituell-religiöse Bewegungen seit 1978 – Entstehung, Entwicklung und Interaktion mit dem Staat, www.chinafokus.de/wissenschaft/bruehlertagung/3kupfer/fussnoten.php; Website of the Anti-Cult Association, www.anticult.org.
12 China aktuell, July 2002, p. 734.
13 World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, Investigation Report, p. 47 ff.
14 Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Annual Report 2006, Washington 2006, pp. 79, 80.
15 Malek, Roman: Marxismus und Atheismus versus Religionsfreiheit, In: China heute XXIII (China-Zentrum: St. Augustin/Germany 2004), No. 6 (136), pp. 195.
16 Malek, Marxismus und Atheismus versus Religionsfreiheit, p. 197.
17 One example is the persecution of members of the Church of Southern China, see China aktuell, October 2002, p. 1120. Their priest Gong Shengliang has been tortured in his prison in Jingzhou City in Hubei Province. His death sentence has been revised. Amnesty International, Urgent Action June 11th, 2003; Spiegel Online August 16th, 2005, http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,369287,00.html.
18 Regulation on Religious Affairs, Art. 51 Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Annual Report 2006, Washington 2006, p. 82.
19 Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group: The Falun Gong Report 2003, pp. 91; Falun Dafa: A Witness to History.p. 31 f.
20 Matas, David/Kilgour, David: Investigation Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China, July 6th, 2006, http://www.david-kilgour.com/2006/Kilgour-Matas-organ-harvesting-rpt-July6-eng.pdf.
21 Tibetfocus, http://www.tibetfocus.com/zerstoerung/verhaftung&folter.htm, The Falun Gong Report 2003; Blume, Georg: Endstation Bambus-Gulag, In: Die Zeit Nr. 16/2001, http://www.zeit.de/2001/16/politik/200116_falun.html; www.faluninfo.de/144.0html; www.de.clearharmony.net/articles/200403/15811.html; http://www.chinaintern.de/article/-Menschenrechte/1092590040.html.
22 United Nations Press Release, Dec. 2nd, 2005, http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/677C1943FAA14D67C12570CB0034966D; BBC News, Dec. 2nd, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4491026.stm.
Thomas Weyrauch: China - Who Rules the Rule of Law?

References: art. 46
 § 2
 art. 36
 art. 11
 art. 9
 art. 251
 Art. 51