Annual Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in China ...

<strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Report</strong> on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in China (2009)April 26, 2010participating in human rights education. Throughout the year, CHRD documented casesof human rights defenders denied the right to participate in rights-defense training andinformation sessions, police harassment of groups attempting to disseminate humanrights documents to fellow citizens, and pressure from academic institutions on teachersand professors who spoke out in defense of human rights.Pressure continued to be put on human rights defenders seeking to attend internationalworkshops run by NGOs or human rights organizations. This is not a new phenomenonby any means, but it is worth highlighting as the situation has not changed following therelease of the Action Plan. For the fourth consecutive year, Chinese officials preventedChinese human rights activists from leaving the country to attend a training program onUN human rights mechanisms organized by the International Service for Human Rights(ISHR), a Geneva-based organization.In the fall of 2009, journalist Wang Keqin ( ) and rights activists Chen Wei ( )and Xie Qiang ( ) all separately encountered official interference as they prepared toleave the country for the ISHR program. Mr. Wang, a renowned investigative reporterand scholar, was pressured to abandon his plan to apply for a visa by officials at hisnewspaper, the China Economic Times. Mr. Chen, a rights activist from Suining City,Sichuan Province, was called in for “chats” by local National Security police and toldthat, as his personal information had already been transmitted to border patrol officials,he would be unable to leave the country at any border crossing. He was then placed undersurveillance by local police to ensure he did not attempt to leave Suining. Finally, Mr.Xie, a digital activist from Hunan Province living in Beijing, was seized at his home bypolice the night before he was due to depart for Geneva, detained overnight in Beijing,then forcibly returned to his hometown in Hunan the next day and placed under “soft王 强 谢 卫 陈 勤 克detention.”Not only did the government maintain restrictions on human rights defenders leaving thecountry to participate in human rights-related training in the past year, it also continued toharass and disrupt domestic human rights trainings organized by civil society members.The Guizhou Human Rights Forum, a loose circle of local activists who meet to discusshuman rights and distribute educational materials in and around Guiyang City, have foryears been the target of police harassment. A particular focal point of their activitiescomes every December, as members of the group gather to distribute copies of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on Universal Human Rights Day. In2008, for the 60 th anniversary of the UDHR, the group organized a citizen forum onhuman rights. Police told the group this gathering was “illegal;” in the days before thescheduled gathering, police detained organizers Chen Xi ( Shen Younian (and Du Heping ( and prevented the event from taking place. 121 杜 申 陈One year later, following the government’s proclamations about its dedication to humanrights education, members of the Guizhou Human Rights Forum once again plannedactivities to mark Universal Human Rights Day. Chen Xi was summoned and brieflydetained by police three times in the week leading up to the anniversary, and on the33西 ),) 年 有) 平 和