World Report 2001 Entry

World Report 2000 Entry

World Report 1999 Entry

World Report 1998 Entry

"Nipped in the Bud": Suppression of the China Democracy Party
In this thirty-five page report released today, Human Rights Watch called on China's President Jiang Zemin to release more than thirty people imprisoned for their role in the China Democracy Party and all others who have been detained in China for peaceful political  activities. The Chinese President will be in the U.S. on September 7 to meet world leaders at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.  The new report, "Nipped in the Bud: Suppression of the China  Democracy Party,"  documents China's  systematic crushing of  attempts by a group of  activists to form the first  legally registered opposition  party since the founding of the  People's Republic in 1949.  The activists, who announced  the founding of the party on  the eve of President Bill  Clinton's state visit to China in June 1998, used the provisions of  international human rights treaties as evidence of their right to  organize. Some members had already been arrested when China  finally signed – but did not ratify – one of those treaties, the  International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in October  1998. More arrests and harsh sentences followed.
(C1205) 9/00, 36pp., $5.00
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Tibet Since 1950: Silence Prison or Exile
Introduction by Elliot Sperling
Essays by Orville Schell and Steve Marshall
Interviews with Tibetan exiles and former prisoners by
Mickey Spiegel
The bleak reality of Tibet under Chinese control, as never before seen in print. Through photographs, history, personal interviews and stories, Tibet Since 1950 looks beyond Tibet's Shangri-la image to the impact of Chinese political repression on Tibetan lives. Fifty years of direct Chinese government control has altered every aspect of the culture, politics, economy, and religion in Tibet. The manifestations of repressive rule are evident in the extensive prison network used to detain those perceived as challenging the Chinese government, and in the often-extreme measures used to keep protests in check. Tibet Since 1950 contains rare photographs of Chinese crackdowns on Tibetan demonstrations and first-hand accounts from Tibetans living in exile of why they chose to leave. It looks at the destruction of Tibetan religious institutions in the past and the more subtle damage still being done today. The volume includes a discussion of Tibetan prisons by Steve Marshall and a consideration of Tibet as myth and reality by Orville Schell, renowned journalist and China scholar. Produced in cooperation with Aperture Foundation.
ISBN 089381-794-5, 5/00, 184 pages plus 2 eight-page gatefolds, $40.00
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China and Tibet: Profiles of Tibetan Exiles
This report profiles five Tibetans living in exile in Dharamsala, India. All are in their late  twenties or thirties, and all are originally from the areas known to Tibetan nationalists  as Amdo and Kham. Today almost all of this territory lies in what Tibetans call  "eastern Tibet" and Chinese call the Tibetan regions of Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, and  Yunnan provinces. Their stories show a common pattern: all had unusual access to  education; all became involved in political activities through discussions at state   schools or academies; all were arrested and detained by Chinese security forces for  possession or circulation of published materials about the Dalai Lama or Tibetan  independence; and some were tortured. The men's stories are similar to many others  we heard in Dharamsala, and while we do not claim that five cases are illustrative of a  broader pattern of repression, their accounts suggest that peaceful political activity in  Tibetan areas outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region (T.A.R.) and its capital, Lhasa,  is no more acceptable to authorities than it is in the T.A.R.
(C1105), 9/99, 29pp., $5.00
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China -- State Control of Religion: Update #1
This report analyzes a Chinese government report from Xinjiang which recommends antidotes to threats to stability in the region stemming from "national separatism and illegal religious activity," and it summarizes the "Guangzhou City Regulations for the Management of Religious Affairs" which went into effect on March 1, 1998. In addition, we provide a listing of arrests and detentions of religious activists in Jiangxi province in 1997, as well as the detention or house arrest of Protestant and Catholic activists in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hebei province during the U.S. delegation's visit in February. The authorities seemed determined to prevent these activists from meeting with members of the delegation, though other dissident religious activists did make contact with the group. The information in the Xinjiang document, the Guangzhou regulations, and in the case data reinforces and updates the material contained in the October 1997 report published by Human Rights Watch, China: State Control of Religion.
(C1001) 3/98, 22pp., $3.00
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CHINA: STATE CONTROL OF RELIGION
Religion is becoming more and more important in China. In a country that remains officially atheist, conversions to Christianity have risen sharply, the country's 19 million Muslims are attracting the attention of their co-religionists elsewhere, and Buddhism is the fastest growing religion of all. The Chinese government acknowledges 100 million believers of all faiths out of a population of 1.2 billion, but it has been using the 100 million figure since the mid-1950s. In the kind of intrusive control the Chinese government exercises over religious activities, it violates the rights to freedom of association, assembly, and expression as well as freedom of religion. The only limitations that a government can impose, according to the declaration, are those necessary to secure "due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others" and protecting "morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society." The peaceful gathering of unregistered groups is no threat to morality, public order, or general welfare; China's onerous registration requirements are clearly an unnecessary limitation on freedom of religion, particularly when failure to register results in some of the penalties outlined above.
(2246) 10/97, 152 pp., $10.00/£8.95
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IN WHOSE INTEREST?
"State Security" in China's New Criminal Code
The National People's Congress took the historic step at its annual session in March of eliminating crimes of "counterrevolution" from the criminal code, a step that at first glance seemed to indicate movement toward greater respect for the rule of law. But in fact, China merely replaced the term with the equally elastic notion of "endangering state security" and actually broadened the capacity of the state to suppress dissent. This report is a detailed analysis of the provisions of China's new law relating to national security concerns, pointing out the changes and additions in the revisions as compared with the 1979 version; gives a brief overview of two other key security laws, the State Security Law and the State Secrets Law, which further elucidate the notion of "endangering state security"; assesses the past use of the crime of "counterrevolution" and points out how the changes in the law are affecting how the state treats dissent. The report also contains several appendices comprising the full texts of some of the laws mentioned in the report and a list of individuals sentenced in the last two years to prison or reeducation through labor for political "crimes."
(C904) 4/97, 56 pp., $7.00/£5.95
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Chinese Diplomacy, Western Hypocrisy and the U.N. Human Rights Commission
This report is an analysis of China’s diplomatic efforts with respect to key members of the commission over the last three years. It describes a pattern of aggressive lobbying by Chinese officials, using economic and political blandishments, that has worked to undermine the political will in both developed and developing countries to hold Beijing accountable in Geneva, coupled with procrastination and passivity on the part of China’s critics, the same governments that have been such vocal proponents of multilateralism.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(C903) 3/97, 14 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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SLAMMING THE DOOR ON DISSENT
Wang Dan’s Trial and the New “State Security” Era
With its decision to bring Chinese dissident Wang Dan to trial on October 30 on the charge of “conspiracy to subvert the government,” the most serious charge in the Chinese criminal code, the Chinese government has signaled its determination to deny freedom of speech and association to any citizen daring publicly to raise fundamental criticisms of government policy. The charge sends a message to China’s dissidents that the courts will no longer draw a distinction between political speech or writing on the one hand and concrete action on the other: both levels of dissent are henceforth to be indiscriminately treated as “endangering state security.” It casts serious doubt on the commitment of top Chinese officials to the vaunted reform of the country’s legal system. And it shows conclusively that Western mantras about economic growth producing political liberalization notwithstanding, Chinese leaders are growing increasingly intolerant of dissent. In addition, by holding Wang Dan’s trial just weeks before the visit to Beijing of U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and just weeks after visits of German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel and Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini, Beijing has chosen to disregard international expressions of concern over its human rights record.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(C810) 11/96, 15 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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THE COST OF PUTTING BUSINESS FIRST
China is increasingly using trade and diplomatic reprisals to silence human rights criticism, and governments around the world, when thus forced to choose between principle and profit, are putting business first. The perceived conflict between human rights and trade was perhaps best symbolized by U.S. President Bill Clinton's decision in May 1994 to abandon any effort to place human rights conditions on China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status, arguing that a tough human rights policy was hampering the ability of the U.S. to pursue trade and security interests. His unconditional renewal of MFN marked the end of effective international pressure on China to improve its human rights practices and the triumph of commercial diplomacy, with its self-serving premise that free enterprise leads to a free society. Two years later, the market economy in China was booming yet there is little evidence of a freer society or greater respect for human rights. But there were telling signs that the same factors that produce serious abuses of human rights in China are also detrimental to trade, including a flouting of the rule of law that leaves businesspeople and economic reformers increasingly vulnerable to the types of arbitrary detention customarily meted out to dissidents, and strict controls on politically “sensitive” information, including economic data.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(C807) 7/96, 33 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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CUTTING OFF THE SERPENT’S HEAD
Tightening Control in Tibet, 1994-1995
Political repression in Tibet has increased sharply since 1994, and there are now more political prisoners in custody there than at any time since 1990. The increased repression is the result of a Chinese government policy that has led to tighter internal security in Tibet, longer sentences for political offenses, increased control over monasteries and nunneries, a demand for declarations of loyalty from thousands of Tibetans, and intensified political education in schools. Over 230 Tibetans were detained for political offenses in 1995, a 50 percent increase over the year before, bringing the total now believed in custody to over 600. Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head gives a detailed account of the emergence of the new policies, based on several hundred interviews, reports from Tibet, and internal Chinese documents. It includes an analysis of the political developments leading to the deterioration in human rights, a description of coercive practices: political imprisonment, torture, and restrictions on religious freedom, and the first study of compulsory labor in Tibet.
(Co-published with Tibet Information Network)
View the summary and introduction of this report.
(1665) 3/96, 208 pp., ISBN 1-56432-166-5, $15.00/£12.95
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CHINESE ORPHANAGES
A Follow-Up
The publication of our Death By Default in January 1996 was followed by weeks of intense media coverage. We found that most orphaned or abandoned children in China die within one year of their admittance to state-run orphanages and that the government does little or nothing to prevent it. While the report generated a response that was overwhelmingly supportive, it also provoked sharp criticism, not only from the Chinese government, which was expected, but also from some concerned groups and individuals in the West who felt that the report would harm rather than help the children in these institutions. Others differed with our perceptions of the observable conditions in China’s orphanages or misunderstood our arguments and conclusions. We address the various charges that arose and respond to the Chinese government’s allegations that the report was a fabrication.
View the summary and table of contents of this report.
(C801) 3/96, 11 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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DEATH BY DEFAULT
A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China’s State Orphanages
China’s claim to guarantee the “right to subsistence” conceals a secret world of starvation, disease, and unnatural death. The victims are orphans and abandoned children in custodial institutions run by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. This report documents the pattern of cruelty, abuse, and malign neglect, which has dominated child welfare work in China since the early 1950s. We have pieced together a fragmentary picture of conditions for abandoned children throughout China, including staggering mortality rates for infants in state institutions and the failure of official statistics to track the vast majority of orphans, whose whereabouts and status are unknown. The Chinese government’s own statistics reveal a situation worse than even the most alarming Western media reports have suggested. In 1989, the most recent year for which nationwide figures are available, the majority of abandoned children admitted to China’s orphanages were dying in institutional care. China’s demonstrated ability to guarantee the lives and welfare of the vast majority of its children renders the appalling death rates in these institutions even more inexcusable and sinister.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(1630) 1/96, 408 pp., ISBN 1-56432-163-0, $20.00/£14.95
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Religious Persecution Persists During 1994-95
Chinese government and Communist Party officials, struggling to contain political and social unrest and to promote the economic development that would secure party allegiance, broadened the drive to eliminate all expression of dissent. It issued new directives requiring all congregations to register with religious authorities, stepped up pressure on evangelists, and tightened control on contact with foreigners and distribution of religious materials. Those suspected of linking religion to political activity were singled out for the harshest treatment. We focus on the persistent crackdown against religious expression of Catholics and Protestants, noting that repression in China is directed against all religions.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(C716) 12/95, 49 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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“LEAKING STATE SECRETS”
The Case of Gao Yu
Gao Yu, one of China’s most prominent journalists, was sentenced to six years in prison on November 10, 1994, for “illegally providing state secrets to institutions outside [China’s] borders” in a series of four articles in two Hong Kong-based publications. The “secrets” in question related to policy decisions taken by senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party in early 1993, and those decisions had already been reported in the Hong Kong press—including by pro-Beijing papers. Gao Yu’s arrest and conviction sent shock waves through media circles in Hong Kong.
View the summary and table of contents of this report.
(C708) 7/95, 32 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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Keeping the Lid on Demands for Change
One year after Pres. Clinton unconditionally renewed Most Favored Nation status for China and international pressure to improve its human rights practices decreased, the Chinese government continued to impose tight controls on dissent and to engage in a pattern of abuse of prisoners. More than a dozen well-known intellectuals were detained in May-June 1995 in response to petitions they signed seeking greater political openness. Tight new security laws were put into effect. Torture continued in China’s vast network of prisons, detention centers and labor camps, as did the production by prisoners of goods for export. Freedom of expression and association remained tightly restricted, in anticipation of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September 1995.
(C707) 6/95, 13 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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THE THREE GORGES DAM IN CHINA
Forced Resettlement, Suppression of Dissent and Labor Rights Concerns
In April 1992, China’s National People’s Congress formally approved the “Resolution on the Construction of the Yangtze River Three Gorges Project.” By mid-1994, excavation for the world’s largest dam began. One crucial aspect of the project which until now has received little public attention is its potential for causing major human rights violations in the proposed reservoir region: the Chinese government’s continuing suppression of dissenting viewpoints and the human rights issues that surround the forced resettlement of more than one million inhabitants of the area, and the rights of workers on the dam site.
(C702) 2/95, 48 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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ENFORCED EXILE OF DISSIDENTS
Government “Re-Entry Blacklist” Revealed
The existence of confidential Chinese government blacklists barring overseas-based pro-democracy and human rights activists from returning to China has long been suspected. Until now, however, no conclusive documentary evidence confirming the operation of such a policy has ever come to light. In this report, we provide details of a document that was issued secretly by China’s Ministry of Public Security in May 1994 titled “A List of 49 Overseas Members of Reactionary Organizations Currently Subject to Major Control.” All those named on the list are identified by the security authorities as subject to government decrees banning them from reentering China. (With Human Rights in China.)
(C701) 1/95, 22 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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Use of Criminal Charges Against Political Dissidents
The Chinese government is increasingly using false or frivolous criminal charges to arrest or convict political activists in a clear attempt to discredit them both at home and abroad. Of the twelve known cases of human rights advocates and political dissidents formally charged or sentenced since the beginning of 1994, all have been accused of criminal offenses rather than political crimes. Their offenses range from embezzlement to fraud to “hooliganism.”
(C611) 10/94, 22 pp., $3.00/£1.95

Organ Procurement and Judicial Execution in China
In recent years, it has become increasingly evident that executed prisoners are a principal source of supply of body organs for medical transplantation purposes in China, leading to a wide range of human rights and medical ethics violations.
(C609) 8/94, 42 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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Pressure Off, China Targets Activists
In the months since President Clinton ended the linkage between Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status for China and human rights, the Chinese government has begun long-delayed trials of human rights and labor activists. In a new and disturbing pattern of arbitrary detention, it has begun to hold leading dissidents in prolonged incommunicado detention without informing their families of their whereabouts or in some cases, even acknowledging the facts of their arrest.
(C607) 7/94, 28 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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Persecution of a Protestant Sect in China
Sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to fifteen years for peaceful religious worship outside the aegis of the official Chinese church, thirteen members of a banned evangelical Protestant sect called the “Shouters” were serving lengthy sentences in labor camps or prisons in Henan province, China, as of May 1994. Their situations are profiled in this report from HRW/Asia and Human Rights in China.
(C606) 6/94, 22 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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THE PRICE OF OBSCURITY IN CHINA
Revelations About Prisoners Arrested After June 4, 1989
Having obtained new lists of over 500 prisoners in Beijing alone who were convicted for offenses related to the June 1989 protests, HRW/Asia and Human Rights in China believe these new cases situated as they are in a region of China more intensely scrutinized by foreign observers than any other, serve again to demonstrate that all known cases of political and religious imprisonment in China represent only the tip of the iceberg.
(C605) 5/94, 51 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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NO PROGRESS ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA
Update No. 1 to Detained in China and Tibet
As indicated in our previous report, Detained in China and Tibet, a 688-page directory of political prisoners in China, a marked deterioration in the human rights situation took place in 1993. This update shows the trend continues as religious believers are rounded up and sent to prison and peaceful advocates of Tibetan independence are imprisoned or faced with increased sentences.
(C603) 5/94, 46 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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New Arrests Linked to Worker Rights in China
In a crackdown on dissidents that coincided with the visit to China of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck and Secretary of State Warren Christopher in February and March 1994, more than fifteen prominent activists were detained and questioned by security authorities. This report reveals that the reasons for the crackdown appeared to have more to do with the fear of a resurgent pro-democracy movement than with the U.S. delegations.
(C602) 3/94, 17 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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CHINA IN 1993
One More Year of Political Repression
While the releases of a few well-known political prisoners were cause for rejoicing, they were overshadowed by more than 200 arrests or trials of people who had engaged in peaceful political or religious activities. There was no indication that the economic reform offensive was leading to any political liberalization. This report comprises a list of people detained, arrested, tried or sentenced during 1993.
(C520) 11/93, 36 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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Continuing Religious Repression in China
Despite the release of several dozen religious prisoners, the Chinese government’s repression of religious freedom intensified in 1992 and 1993, apparently fuelled by an unprecedented growth in religious activity. Rather than long prison sentences for violators of official religious policy, other forms of punishment, such as short-term detention, prohibitive fines, destruction of personal property, surveillance and forced relocations of influential clergy, are now common.
(029) 6/93, 60 pp., ISBN 1-56432-102-9, $7.00/£5.95
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DEMOCRACY WALL PRISONERS
Xu Wenli, Wei Jingsheng & Other Jailed Pioneers of the Chinese Pro-Democracy Movement
Xu Wenli and Wei Jingsheng have been held in solitary confinement for 13 and 15 consecutive years respectively for alleged counterrevolutionary offenses. Whereas Wei rejected Marxism and called for the establishment of full Western-style democracy in China, Xu sought to promote a democratic and pluralist transformation of the existing socialist system. For the Communist Party, Wei was the infidel and Xu the heretic, but the 15-year sentences given to both men suggest that what counted for the authorities was the mere fact of public opposition.
(C506) 3/93, 51 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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ECONOMIC REFORM, POLITICAL REPRESSION
Arrests of Dissidents in China since Mid-1992
In the wake of Deng Xiaoping’s highly publicized tour of southern China in late January 1992, China experienced a major new wave of economic reform that was heralded by some observers as the “rebirth of capitalism” in the country. In what might be termed “compensatory repression,” however, China’s political dissidents have paid a heavy price for this vigorous new round of economic reform. At least 40 of them were secretly arrested during 1992 and are still being held, their families often denied all information on their whereabouts or conditions of detention. Peaceful, underground dissident organizations were smashed and dispersed by the authorities as well.
(C504) 3/93, 28 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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ANTHEMS OF DEFEAT
Crackdown in Hunan Province 1989-92
Three years after the crackdown near Tiananmen Square, the aftershocks are still being felt thousands of miles away. In Anthems of Defeat, Asia Watch provides a shocking first-person account of what happened to the students, workers, Party cadre and others who took to the streets in Hunan Province in May and June of 1989 and ended up in the Chinese gulag where some 500 people may remain today. As a case study of a single province, it changes the entire scope of our knowledge of human rights violations in China. It also features the story of one of the founders of the Hunan Students Autonomous Federation, Tang Boqiao, who was detained for over a year in more than ten different jails and detention centers in Hunan and Guangzhou. The State Department submitted a list of just over 800 names of imprisoned dissidents to the Chinese government, seeking information on their status. Anthems of Defeat lists 150 people still behind bars in one province alone and shows that whatever “leniency” of the sentences handed down to activists in Beijing, many pro-democracy movement participants continue to suffer the endemic, systematic violence of Chinese prisons.
(074X) 5/92, 188 pp., ISBN 1-56432-074-X, $15.00/£12.95
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Continuing Crackdown in Inner Mongolia
In early May 1991, the Chinese authorities launched a secret campaign of repression against ethnic Mongolian intellectuals in China’s third largest administrative area, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Updating a report published in July 1991 by Asia Watch, Continuing Crackdown in Inner Mongolia recounts the ongoing repression against peaceful dissidents in Inner Mongolia and summarizes other developments there.
(0596) 3/92, 38 pp., ISBN 1-56432-059-6, $5.00/£2.95
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Freedom of Religion in China
Since 1989, the Chinese government has engaged in a campaign to curb religious activities. The campaign escalated after the June 4, 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. These events intensified government fears that “unofficial” Catholic and Protestant churches, Tibetan monasteries and mosques in Xinjiang would become vehicles for “hostile infiltration” from abroad and “splittist activities” from within. Through the use of official documents, records of state and provincial meetings and case studies of harassment, intimidation and arrests of those who practice religion outside the official religious bureaucracy, this report reveals the emptiness of China’s claim that the free expression of religious belief is permitted. A series of appendices graphically illustrates the detailed restraints on places of worship, religious education, training of religious personnel and the reproduction and distribution of religious publications.
(0502) 1/92, 80 pp., ISBN 1-56432-050-2, $7.00/£5.95
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Crackdown in Inner Mongolia
Documents in this report reveal in remarkable detail the previously unknown history of a movement in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China to promote Mongolian ethnic identity and struggle against Han domination. They include a top-secret directive of the Chinese Communist Party dated May 11, 1991, ordering a crackdown on two small cultural organizations called the Ih Ju League National Culture Society and the National Modernization Society. Also included is the text of a handwritten appeal issued ten days after the crackdown began by the Inner Mongolian League for Human Rights. Crackdown in Inner Mongolia analyzes the impact of appalling abuses inflicted on the region during the Cultural Revolution, when by the Party’s own admission, 790,000 people were detained, 22,000 detainees died, and 120,000 were maimed.
(0359) 6/91, 36 pp., ISBN 1-56432-035-9, $5.00/£2.95
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TWO YEARS AFTER TIANANMEN
Political Prisoners in China; Cumulative Data
Since the June 4, 1989 crackdown, the Chinese government has reportedly detained without trial as many as 30,000 pro-democracy activists. This revised and updated version of Repression in China Since June 4, 1989, first released by Asia Watch in September 1990, represents the most comprehensive compilation from any human rights organization listing over 1,000 people reportedly under arrest in China for political or religious activities. Despite official declarations to the contrary, the Chinese authorities’ drastic campaign of political repression continues. In the first half of 1991, the biggest wave of dissident trials since the summer of 1989 took place: several dozen of the principal student and intellectual leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen movement have been subjected to trials totally lacking in due process, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment with hard labor ranging from two to thirteen years.
(0308) 5/91, 158 pp., ISBN 1-56432-030-8, $15.00/£12.95
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