(New York) - The European Union should set benchmarks for human rights improvements with the Chinese government during this week's EU-China human rights dialogue, Human Rights Watch said today.
The EU should use the June 29 round of talks in Madrid as an occasion to press the Chinese government to repeal dangerously ambiguous "state secrets" and "subversion" laws, release dissidents, and set a timetable for China's ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in order to address serious and ongoing violations of human rights in China.
"For too long, the EU-China human rights dialogue has been a toothless talk shop which has failed to meaningfully address the Chinese government's poor record on human rights," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "The EU should use the upcoming Madrid meeting to express serious concern about the Chinese government's violations of human rights, and to establish verifiable steps which will put an end to those abuses and provide redress for the victims."
The EU-China human rights dialogues are usually held twice a year, with one session in Europe and one in Beijing. The dialogues began in 1995, but in part because they are not linked at the political or policy level to other key issues in the EU-China bilateral relationship such as trade, investment, and the environment, they have consistently failed to deliver any substantive improvements on specific human rights abuses in China.
The Madrid meeting will occur in the wake of a series of unusually blunt and high-profile official European criticisms of China's human rights environment, which has worsened since the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
- On June 11, 2010, the Office of the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Catherine Ashton criticized a Chengdu court's decision to uphold a five-year prison sentence for civil society activist Tan Zuoren on charges of "subversion of state power." Tan was arrested while attempting to compile a list of names of child victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Ashton's statement described the court's move as "entirely incompatible with [Tan's] right to freedom of expression and does not meet international standards of fairness."
- On May 17, 2010, European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes called for the World Trade Organization to investigate the Chinese government's extensive internet censorship regime as a trade barrier which prevents the free flow of information.
- Two days after a February 2010 Beijing High Court decision to uphold an 11-year prison term for writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo on spurious charges of "inciting subversion of state power," Ashton's office expressed the EU's "deep regrets" about that decision and called for Liu Xiaobo's unconditional release.
"In the Madrid meeting, the EU can build on this momentum to address the wider range of serious, ongoing human rights abuses in China which affect many thousands of people," Richardson said. "And it should underscore those concerns by articulating specific expectations - such as the repeal of laws, the release of prisoners, or a commitment to ratify the ICCPR - to be met prior to the next round."
Human Rights Watch urged the EU to take up the following issues with the Chinese government:
- Freedom of expression, including internet censorship and the imprisonment and/or persecution of peaceful government critics including Liu Xiaobo and Tan Zuoren, human rights activist Hu Jia, activist lawyer Gao Zhisheng, and civil society activist Huang Qi. The Chinese government devotes massive financial and human resources to tightly monitor and control media and internet content and expression. The EU should call for the immediate and unconditional release of Liu Xiaobo, Tan Zuoren, and Huang Qi; the immediate release on medical parole of Hu Jia, who suffers from liver cirrhosis; and an end to the ongoing enforced disappearance of Gao Zhisheng.
- Rule of law, particularly the disbarment of China's fledgling "rights protection" lawyers and obstacles to the operations of China's civil society organizations. More than 20 of China's leading human rights lawyers were effectively disbarred in May 2008 after Beijing judicial authorities pressured their firms not to renew their annual licenses to practice law. In July 2009, Beijing municipal authorities closed down the offices of the pioneering legal assistance nongovernmental organization, Open Constitution Initiative, on allegations of tax irregularities and detained the group's founder, Xu Zhiyong, and its financial manager, Zhuang Lu, for several weeks before releasing them. On March 25, 2010, China's leading independent women's rights organization - the Women's Legal Research and Services Center - was abruptly notified that its affiliation with Beijing University had been terminated. Because China's restrictive laws governing the registration of nonprofit organizations mandate that applicants be affiliated and sponsored by a governmental unit, the decision effectively ends the existence of the center as a registered nongovernmental organization (NGO). In early April 2010, the Chinese government tightened foreign-exchange rules for domestic NGOs in an apparent bid to obstruct foreign funding for such groups.
- Tibet and Xinjiang, particularly the executions of Tibetans alleged to have been involved in the March 2008 protests there, and of Uighurs for involvement in the July 2009 ethnic violence in that region. In the aftermath of protests and rioting in Lhasa and other cities in Tibetan regions in March 2008, thousands of Tibetans had been subject to arbitrary arrest and more than 100 trials have pushed through the judicial system. Little reliable information has emerged since that time to indicate releases, acquittals, or even the whereabouts of those detained. In the aftermath of ethnic violence in the city of Urumqi in Xinjiang region on July 5, 2009, Human Rights Watch has documented that the trials of 21 suspects alleged to have engaged in that violence failed to meet minimum international standards of due process and fair trials.
- Arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances, particularly those that have occurred in Xinjiang in the aftermath of the July 2009 ethnic violence in Urumqi and those related to "black jails," a system of secret, unlawful detention centers that illegally imprisons thousands of Chinese citizens annually.
- Conditions for lifting the EU arms embargo on China. The Chinese government subjects EU member states to unrelenting pressure for a lifting of the arms embargo, which the EU imposed after the Chinese army killed unarmed civilians in Beijing and other cities on and around June 3-4, 1989. The EU should address that pressure squarely in Madrid by articulating clear benchmarks necessary for a resumption of arms sales to the Chinese government, and then ensure that those standards are met. Those benchmarks should include a transparent and impartial investigation into the June 1989 massacre; accountability for those who ordered soldiers to open fire on demonstrators; compensation to victims and family members; release of those still in prison; and accounting for those who are victims of enforced disappearance.
"The EU has an opportunity this week to transform this dialogue into an instrument of meaningful human rights protection in China," said Richardson. "A failure to do so will raise serious questions about the utility of the exercise."
