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China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices  - 2006
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 6, 2007

(The section for Tibet, the report for Hong Kong, and the report for Macau are appended below.)

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which, as specified in its constitution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the paramount source of power. Party members hold almost all top government, police, and military positions. Ultimate authority rests with the 24-member political bureau (Politburo) of the CCP and its nine-member standing committee. General Secretary Hu Jintao holds the three most powerful positions as CCP general secretary, president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. The party's authority rested primarily on the government's ability to maintain social stability; appeals to nationalism and patriotism; party control of personnel, media, and the security apparatus; and continued improvement in the living standards of most of the country's 1.3 billion citizens. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.

Although the constitution asserts that "the state respects and preserves human rights," the government's human rights record remained poor, and in certain areas deteriorated. There were an increased number of high-profile cases involving the monitoring, harassment, detention, arrest, and imprisonment of journalists, writers, activists, and defense lawyers, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under law. The government tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, including stricter control and censorship of the Internet. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both local and international, continued to face increased scrutiny and restrictions. As in previous years, citizens did not have the right to change their government. Other serious human rights abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings; torture and coerced confessions of prisoners; and the use of forced labor, including prison labor. Legal reforms continued to stall, as the party and state exercised strict political control of courts and judges, and maintained closed trials and administrative detention. Executions often took place on the day of conviction or immediately after the denial of an appeal. A lack of due process and new restrictions on lawyers further limited progress toward rule of law. Individuals and groups, especially those considered politically sensitive, continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble; their freedom to practice religion, including strengthened enforcement of religious affairs regulations implemented in 2005; and their freedom to travel. The government continued its coercive birth limitation policy, in some cases resulting in forced abortion and sterilization.

The government failed to adequately protect refugees, and the forced repatriation of North Koreans continued to be a grave problem. Serious social conditions that affected human rights included endemic corruption, trafficking in persons, and discrimination against women, minorities, and persons with disabilities. The government continued its severe cultural and religious repression of minorities in Tibetan areas and Xinjiang; in Xinjiang, trials and executions of Uighurs charged with separatism continued.

The government continued to pursue some criminal and judicial reforms. China's highest court, the Supreme People's Court (SPC), began implementing new appellate procedures for hearing death penalty cases and took concrete steps towards reclaiming the death penalty review power from provincial courts. In July the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) issued new regulations that detail criteria for prosecuting official abuses of power, and clarified that police are accountable when they use torture to coerce confessions.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life

During the year politically motivated and other arbitrary and unlawful killings occurred, although no official statistics on deaths in custody were available.

On September 30, People's Armed Police at the Nangpa La pass fired at a group of approximately 70 Tibetans attempting to cross into Nepal, killing 17-year-old nun Kelsang Namtso and wounding others (see Tibet Addendum).

In December 2005 police shot and killed at least three protesters in Dongzhou Village, Guangdong Province. Villagers claimed that as many as 20 villagers were shot and killed by paramilitary riot police, with approximately 40 others missing. The government said the shooting occurred after protesters threw explosives at police and claimed that three protesters were killed. On May 24, 13 villagers from Dongzhou were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to seven years for alleged crimes during the protest. Four government officials were given internal warnings, but only the deputy director of the local Public Security Bureau (PSB) was removed from his position.

Trials involving capital offenses sometimes took place under circumstances involving severe lack of due process and with no meaningful appeal. Some executions took place on the day of conviction or failed appeal. In past years executions of Uighurs whom authorities accused of separatism, but which some observers claimed were politically motivated, were reported (see sections 1.e. and 5). The government regarded the number of death sentences it carried out as a state secret. However, in March 2004 a National People's Congress (NPC) deputy asserted that nearly 10,000 cases per year "result in immediate execution," a figure SPC and Ministry of Justice officials stated was exaggerated. Foreign experts estimated that the country executed between 5,000 and 12,000 persons each year. Media reports stated that approximately 10 percent of executions were for economic crimes, especially corruption. The SPC began implementing new appellate procedures requiring it to review all death sentences, thus consolidating and reclaiming the death penalty review power from provincial courts. The SPC and SPP issued a joint interpretation to establish specific guidelines for how local courts and procuratorates should handle death penalty appeals. The SPC added three new tribunals to conduct reviews of death sentences and hired hundreds of personnel to staff the new tribunals, but at year's end it had not begun exercising its reclaimed review authority. The SPC has not issued a judicial interpretation to settle unresolved issues in the death penalty review process and to clarify its own procedures for final review (see section 1.e.).