President Xi Jinping
General Secretary Office
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Zhongnanhai Ximen
Fuyou Street
Xicheng District
Beijing 100017
People’s Republic of China
Re: Detention of Five Women Human Rights Defenders
Dear President Xi Jinping,
The undersigned individuals and organisations write to express our deep concern about the arbitrary detention of Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting, Wang Man and Li Tingting and to urge the Ministry of Public Security to immediately and unconditionally release them and drop all charges.
On March 6 and 7, 2015, police without warrants took into custody the five women, along with several other women’s rights activists, after they planned to raise public awareness through the distribution of stickers about sexual harassment at public transport hubs. The other women were subsequently released but the five remain detained at the Haidian detention center in Beijing. Beijing police have submitted requests to the procuratorate for their formal arrests on April 6 for “gathering crowds to disrupt order in a public place.”
Since their detention, lawyers for Li, Wei, and Wu have had inconsistent access to their clients and have stated that Haidian detention center authorities have on occasion prevented them from seeing their clients altogether.
We are also deeply concerned about the deteriorating health of at least two of the women. Wu has a chronic liver disease and Wang suffers from heart problems, and both have been hospitalized during their detention. Their medical conditions appear to have been aggravated by their detention as authorities earlier denied Wu access to her medication and made her sleep on the floor of the cell. The authorities have subjected both to lengthy, late-night interrogations.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed but not yet ratified, both guarantee everyone the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, to receive, and to impart information. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has repeatedly stated that human rights defenders should not be punished or harassed for disseminating information of legitimate public interest.
As the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders makes clear in article 12, states should take all necessary measures to ensure the protection of human rights defenders from any violence, threat, retaliation pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of the legitimate exercise of rights, which includes the freedom of expression.
We also remind you of the UN General Assembly Resolution on women’s human rights defenders, adopted in December 2013. The resolution stresses that respect and support for women human rights defenders “is essential to the overall enjoyment of human rights” and calls on states to ensure that women human rights defenders are able to exercise their rights to peaceful protest without arbitrary arrest and detention.
Finally, the Political Declaration adopted by the 2015 Commission on the Status of Women pledged to continue supporting civil society engaged in promoting gender equality, including by creating a safe and enabling environment.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women hosted in Beijing in 1995, during which a landmark global agreement on gender equality, the Beijing Platform for Action, was adopted. We note that China is co-hosting an event to commemorate this important anniversary in New York in September and that should China wish to play a leading role in the commemoration, it is critical that the government release the five women and display political leadership on women’s equality and empowerment.
Your government is also poised this year to adopt its first and long-awaited Anti-Domestic Violence Law. But instead of winning praise for these achievements, this year may be remembered as a major setback for women’s rights in China.
We urge your government to take all measures necessary to:
- Ensure the immediate release of the five women, and drop all charges against them;
- Prior to their release, ensure that the five women have access to their lawyers and that they are able to communicate privately in confidence;
- Ensure that the women’s physical and psychological integrity is protected at all times and that they are safe from any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and have access to appropriate medical care;
- End any harassment of women’s family members, friends, colleagues and supporters.
We look forward to your prompt actions on these important cases.
Yours sincerely,
Jody Williams Nobel Peace Laureate (1997), Chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative
Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Laureate (2011)
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, (1976)
Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate (2003)
Amnesty International
Global Fund for Women
Global Justice Centre
Human Rights Watch
International Women’s Health Coalition
Just Associates
Observatoria Genero Democratia y Derechos Humanas
Physicians for Human Rights
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
Women’s Media Centre
Women’s Network Croatia
Women Thrive
