罗胜春：在“真实的中国人权状况”听证会上的证词
【2024年2月1日，在联合国对中国进行普遍定期审议后，美国国会行政当局中国委员会（CECC）举行“中国的普遍定期审议和中国人权的真实状况”听证会。这是人道中国理事、被重判12年的丁家喜律师的妻子罗胜春女士的书面证词的中文翻译稿和英文原稿。罗女士的口头发言在视频52分左右开始。Our Head of Advocacy Sophie Luo's testimony at Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing on “The PRC’s Universal Periodic Review and the Real State of Human Rights in China”. See English version below.】
史密斯主席、默克利参议员、尊敬的CECC成员：
非常感谢举行这次听证会，并邀请我作证。作为被监禁的中国人权律师丁家喜的妻子和非政府组织“人道中国”的理事，今天的听证会对我来说非常重要。我们必须继续揭露中国政府骇人听闻的侵犯人权行为。上周二在日内瓦举行的中国普遍定期审议会议上，中国官方代表团否认其侵犯人权的行为，而中国政府的盟友则空洞地赞美扶贫和所谓的权利保障。在此情况下，今天的听证会显得尤为重要。
首先，我要感谢委员会在对中国普遍定期审议之前在社交媒体推特上发布政治犯案件。我还要感谢美国政府在普遍定期审议期间所做的有力发言以及提前提出的问题，包括对被中国政府任意拘留的政治犯和维权人士的关注。
两年前北京冬奥会期间我曾在CECC作证，详细谈到了我丈夫丁家喜和法律学者许志永的案件。那之后，中国当局将他俩秘密审判，并分别判处 12 年和 14 年有期徒刑。迄今为止，家人尚未收到判决书。山东省高级人民法院驳回他们的上诉后，当局于2023年11月将丁家喜送往湖北荆州的江北监狱服刑，将许志永送往山东日照的鲁南监狱服刑。
2023 年 4 月，在丁家喜和许志永的判决公布后，我有幸同被失踪的高智晟律师的妻子耿和女士一起，在众议院外交事务委员会的听证会上向史密斯主席作证。我和耿女士讨论了中国当局如何通过强迫失踪、秘密拘留、酷刑、刑讯逼供、捏造犯罪证据、闭门审判、判刑、在对刑满释放者持续监控等手段迫害维权人士。这些均违反中国宪法和法律，也违反中国政府有义务遵守的国际法和国际公约。
我现在手中举起的图片是目前囚禁在中国的许多政治犯。每次看到这张图，我的心都会感到剧痛。可是我把它放在家里的书桌上，每天都看。我必须让全世界了解中国侵犯人权的情况，呼吁释放所有政治犯！
还有很多很多政治犯不在这张图片上。他们中有些收录在贵委员会的政治犯数据库中。研究人员告诉我该数据库目前有11116条记录，其中2714条是目前被拘留者的案例。中国人权捍卫者网络（CHRD）、香港监察、对话基金会、多个维吾尔族和藏族团体、对华援助协会、法轮功团体等人权非政府组织也都记录了拘留事件。
我的证词接下来的部分将通过具体案例，重点介绍中国当局对维权人士采取的侵犯人权的一些主要手段。
一、强迫失踪。著名人权律师高智晟于2017年8月“被失踪”，自此音讯全无。2018年8月1日，敢言的山东大学退休教授孙文广正在接受美国之音的采访，警察闯入他位于济南的家中，强迫他中断直播。几天后，这位 84 岁的学者同他的妻子都失踪了。此后他们下落不明，直到 2022 年 3 月，才有消息称，孙教授已于 2021 年在秘密拘留中去世，享年 86 岁。他的家人和朋友都被噤声，他的死因至今不明。2020 年 10 月，怀有身孕的公共卫生活动人士何方美朝河南省辉县市政府大门上泼漆后，与丈夫和两个孩子一起失踪。这家人一年多杳无音信。2022 年 3 月，何女士的姐姐收到了何已被捕的通知。随后，家人通过律师了解到，何女士在辉县的一家精神病院生下了一个女婴；在何方美被送往看守所之后，她的两个年幼的女儿，包括一岁时因接种问题疫苗而致残的大女儿，至今仍被关在这家医院里；她的丈夫李新也是一名维权人士，已被判处五年监禁；他们的儿子被寄养在别人家里。今天，何方美仍在等待判决。2018年7月4日在习近平肖像上泼墨的著名维权人士董瑶琼于2021年2月6日第三次被关进湖南株洲的一家精神病院。此后，她再无音讯。2022 年 9 月，她的父亲董建彪死在狱中，死因可疑。另一位湖南人权活动人士王一飞曾因纪念天安门广场大屠杀而被判刑入狱，2022 年 5 月失踪。他曾写过几篇关于自己在看守所和监狱经历的文章。据信他在长沙被国家安全部门带走，但具体细节不详。人权捍卫者彭立发于 2022 年 10 月失踪，此前他在北京的一座桥上举行了个人抗议活动，呼吁习近平因中国政府严厉的零身份证政策而下台。彭立发的妻子和孩子也下落不明，据信他们受到某种形式的关押。乔鑫鑫（本名杨泽伟）是一名积极反对中国“网络防火墙”的活动人士，他在老挝的住所被中国警方抓走，并于2023年6月被引渡回中国，两个多月来下落不明，后来有消息称他被关押在湖南省的一个看守所。
二、酷刑，尤其是在“指定地点监视居住”（RSDL）期间。这是一种单独监禁形式，当局可将公民关押长达六个月。政治犯在指定居所监视居住期间极易遭受酷刑和其他形式的虐待。丁家喜和许志永都曾被指定居所监视居住数月，均遭受了酷刑。近年来，在监狱中也有酷刑的报道，即维权人士在拘留所呆了相当长的时间，然后被审判、判刑并转到监狱之后。被冤枉入狱的年轻电脑程序员牛腾宇、广东资深女性维权人士李碧云、南京异议人士邵明亮就是曾遭受酷刑的案例。李碧云和邵明亮作为残疾人，在狱中遭受了可怕的虐待和酷刑。
三、漫长的审前羁押。李昱函是一名辩护律师，曾代理“709案”被囚律师之一王宇的案件。在2023年10月一审开庭之前，七旬李昱函已在看守所被关押了六年，遭受了酷刑，身体也出现了很多问题。
四、在押期间得不到治疗，不予保外就医。李翘楚因为其伴侣、法律学者许志永发声而被拘留。她在被拘留前就有抑郁症。被关至看守所后，她出现了严重的幻听，需要接受治疗。她的母亲提交了 10 多份保外就医申请，均被拒绝。大多数遭受酷刑的被拘留者在拘留所或监狱中都有多种健康问题，却得不到治疗。因在武汉报道疫情而正在上海女子监狱服刑四年的张展，自 2020 年 5 月被捕以来长期绝食抗议，病情严重。她的家人和律师提出的保外就医申请均被拒绝。杨茂东（又名郭飞雄）要求离开中国前往美国探望身患绝症的妻子后于 2021 年 12 月被捕，长期绝食抗议导致其健康状况不断恶化，其妻已于 2022 年 1 月去世。杨茂东已被当局以“煽动颠覆罪”判刑八年。
五、将维权人士判重刑。维吾尔族学者、民族权利倡导者伊力哈木·土赫提于2014年被当局以“分裂国家罪”判处无期徒刑。中国民主倡导者王炳章于2003年被以涉嫌从事间谍活动、组织和领导恐怖组织判处终身监禁。许多维权人士因捏造或莫须有的罪名被判刑10年以上。
六、限制辩护律师的权利，或为被拘留者指定官方律师。辩护律师在为维权人士辩护时面临多重障碍，如当局不允许律师会见被拘留的当事人，不允许阅卷等，这些都侵犯了中国律师依法执业权利。中国当局还施压或强迫代表维权人士的律师签署保密协议，从而阻止辩护律师公开谈论当局认为具有政治敏感性的案件。这样做的另一个负面影响是，中国当局因此有了恶意中伤维权人士或宣传有关他们的虚假信息的空间。为了掩盖案件真相，中国当局往往会指派一名选定的律师作为维权人士的代理人。这一点在阮晓寰一案中显而易见，阮晓寰是一名计算机工程师，曾向公众提供如何绕过“网络防火墙”的信息。自阮晓寰一审以来，他的家人一直在努力争取在上诉审判期间为其委托一名律师，而不是官方指派的律师。
七、狱中强迫劳动。据报道，一家非政府组织的负责人、维权人士程渊和另一名维权人士欧彪峰在湖南省赤山监狱被强迫劳动。台湾维权人士李明哲也曾被关押在赤山监狱，他报告说，在赤山监狱服刑五年期间，他每天从早上七点工作到晚上七点。
八、随意剥夺政治犯家属探视的合法权利。四川维权人士黄琦在监狱服刑12年，自2019年被拘留起就不被允许与家人见面。他的母亲已经 90 岁高龄，身患癌症。同样，丁家喜和许志永至今被剥夺了与家人见面和通讯的权利。
九、“假释放”。上海当局于2024年10月释放了维权人士陈建芳，但从那时起，一群便衣警察就一直在她家门口监视她，限制她的人身自由，阻止她看病或会见朋友。另一位资深活动人士尹旭安曾因纪念“六四”大屠杀被判四年徒刑，于 2023 年 11 月刑满。他出狱后立即被软禁起来，并且不给他治疗极高血压的药物。2023 年 12 月 5 日，他告诉朋友自己的血压已升到 270/170 毫米汞柱，急需就医。从那时起，尹旭安就失去了联系。据信他现在被软禁在一家医院。他的手机肯定被没收了，家人也不知道他在哪里。其他“假释放”的案例包括前面提到的李碧云和邵明亮，他们一直受到全天候监视，并被剥夺了就医的权利。
十、迫害和/或骚扰维权人士的家人：
1) 羁押、判囚维权人士的妻子或亲属。具有代表性的案例包括：被关押的人权律师余文生的妻子许燕、被关押的诗人王藏的妻子王利芹、许志永的女友李翘楚。维权人士的子女由于承受着沉重的压力和监视，往往身心健康受到影响。此外，当父母都在狱中时，孩子们经常无法接受教育。目前最令人担忧的案例是维权人士夫妇李新和何方美的三个年幼子女。
2) 剥夺维权人士子女上学的权利。例如，当局八年多来一直阻止维权律师李和平和王全璋的子女在中国上学。
3) 不仅禁止维权人士旅行，还禁止其家人旅行。有许多维权人士被禁止旅行，包括丁家喜和卢思位。卢思位在老挝试图到美国与家人团聚时被遣送回中国。律师王全璋和李和平及其家人也被禁止出国，包括他们的子女。 维权人士的子女无法离开中国到国外接受教育，反映了家庭成员受到牵连这一更广泛的问题。
4) 向房东施压撤销租房协议。王全璋和李和平律师及其家人去年被迫多次搬家，他们的租房合同可能突然被撤销。
5）从经济上摧毁维权人士养活自己和家人的能力。中国当局在伊力哈木·土赫提被判刑不久就没收了他一生的积蓄，使他在中国的家人面临严重的经济困难。便衣警察经常在维权人士找工作时对其进行骚扰，导致他们失业，家人陷入经济困境。
我还可以继续列举下去，但由于篇幅限制，我无法描述中国维权人士及其家人所面临的所有形式的迫害。
在结束我的证词之前，我想提出一些我认为美国政府和国际社会可以采取的行动建议，以帮助中国的政治犯及其家人：
1. 美国和其他国家的驻华人权官员应要求访问拘留所和监狱，如果这些拘留设施不符合中国拘留所条例或中国监狱法，应予以报告。定期提出访问要求，让中国当局无法轻易拒绝。
2. 对直接参与迫害维权人士案件的公安局、检察院、法院工作人员实行签证限制，特别是参与实施各种酷刑的人员，如对高智晟律师造成严重伤害并被高智晟律师在书面证词中点名的肇事者。
3. 美国和其他国家的驻华人权官员应该探访维权人士的家人，而不是邀请其去外国使馆，因那样他们很可能在途中遭到阻拦或因此被拘留。
4. 呼吁为父母均被中国当局拘留或监禁的维权人士的子女提供人道主义援助和教育。
5. 呼吁国际社会关注因父母维权而被禁止上学的维权人士子女。
6. 为长期被羁押的政治犯、老年政治犯、健康状况不佳的政治犯要求保外就医或呼吁人道主义援助，如王炳章和秦永敏。
我非常感谢美国和其他一些国家在普遍定期审议期间明确要求中国政府停止任意拘留、强迫失踪，以及对维权人士的虐待。我期待你们继续努力支持维权人士的家人，为他们争取基本权利，并寻求无条件释放政治犯。
谢谢大家！
Raising their Names: Chinese Political and Religious Prisoners at the January 2024 PRC Universal Periodic Review and Beyond
Congressional-Executive Commission on China Hearing on “The PRC’s Universal Periodic Review and the Real State of Human Rights in China”
Written Testimony by Sophie Luo
February 1, 2024
Chairman Smith, Senator Merkley, and distinguished Members of the Commission, thank you so much for holding this hearing and for inviting me to speak. Today’s hearing is so important to me, as the wife of imprisoned Chinese human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi and as Director of Advocacy of the NGO ‘Humanitarian China’. We must continue to speak out about the horrific human rights violations committed by the PRC government and the Chinese Communist Party. This is all the more important in the wake of the Chinese official delegation’s denials about its human rights abuses and the Chinese government’s allies’ empty praise of poverty alleviation and so-called rights safeguards at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, last Tuesday, January 23, 2024.
As I begin my testimony, I want to thank the Commission for tweeting about cases of political prisoners on social media in advance of the PRC’s UPR. More broadly, I would like to publicly thank the U.S. Government for its robust statement during the UPR and its advance questions, including the focus on political prisoners and human rights defenders arbitrarily detained by the PRC government.
Since my testimony two years ago at the CECC hearing in February 2022 at the time of the Beijing Winter Olympics, I spoke at length about the cases of my husband Ding Jiaxi and his colleague and co-defendant, legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, whom Chinese authorities detained after they held a private gathering of friends to discuss civil society and rule of law in China. Chinese authorities held Ding and Xu in pre-trial detention for nearly two years and six months before trying them secretly in June 2022 and sentencing them in April 2023 to 12 and 14 years in prison. To date, no verdict has been issued to the families. After the Shandong High People’s Court refused their appeal, authorities sent my husband Ding Jiaxi to Jiangbei Prison in Hubei province, and Xu Zhiyong to Lunan Prison in Shandong province in November 2023.
In April 2023, following the announcement of Jiaxi’s verdict, I had the honor of testifying before Chairman Smith at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee together with Ms. Geng He, the wife of disappeared lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Geng He and I discussed how Chinese authorities persecute human rights defenders through forced disappearance, secret detention, torture, coerced confession, fabricating criminal evidence, closed-door trials and sentences, and the use of ongoing surveillance even after human rights defenders are released. These constitute violations of the Chinese constitution and laws as well as the international laws and conventions that the Chinese government is obligated to adhere to and respect.
Today, I am holding up an image that shows many current political prisoners in China. My heart aches terribly every time I see this picture. But I put it on my desk at home, and I look at it every day. I must let the world know the true human rights situation in China. I must fight for their rights and call for the release of all of them!
There are many more prisoners beyond this image. Some of their cases are documented in the Commission’s Political Prisoner Database (PPD)—the research staff informed me that there are now 11,116 records in the CECC’s PPD, among which 2,714 are cases of currently detained individuals. Human rights NGOs such as Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Hong Kong Watch, the Dui Hua Foundation, various Uyghur and Tibetan groups, the China Aid Association, Falun Gong groups, and others have also documented detentions.
For the remainder of my testimony, I will highlight the main human rights-violating tactics used by Chinese authorities against human rights defenders with specific case examples.
No. 1: Forced disappearance. Prominent human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was “disappeared” in August 2017, his family in the U.S. have had no news of him since then. Sun Wenguang, an outspoken retired professor of Shandong University, was in the middle of an interview with Voice of America (VOA) when police broke into his home in Jinan and forced him off air on 1 August 2018. A few days later, the 84-year-old scholar and his wife disappeared. Their wellbeing and whereabouts were unknown until March 2022, when news emerged that he died in secret detention in 2021, aged 86, and his family and friends had been silenced. The circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear. In October 2020, pregnant public health activist He Fangmei was disappeared together with her husband and two children, after she splashed paint on the gate of a government office in Huixian. The family was not heard from for more than a year. In March 2022, Ms. He’s sister received a notice about her arrest. Then through a lawyer the family learned that Ms. He had given birth to a baby girl in a psychiatric hospital in Huixian; her two young daughters, including the older girl who had become disabled as a one year old due to a faulty vaccine, are still locked up in the hospital, even after their mother, He Fangmei, was taken to a detention center; her husband Li Xin, also an activist, was sentenced to five years in prison; her son has been placed in foster care. He Fangmei is still waiting for a verdict. Dong Yaoqiong, who famously splashed ink on Xi Jinping’s portrait on July 4, 2018, was locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Zhuzhou, Hunan for the third time on February 6, 2021. She has not been heard from since. Her father Dong Jianbiao died in prison under suspicious circumstances in September 2022. Another Hunan-based human rights activist Wang Yifei, who was previously jailed for commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre, disappeared in May 2022. He had written several articles about his experience in the detention center and prison. He is believed to have been taken by state security in Changsha but no details are known. Peng Lifa disappeared in October 2022 after he held an individual protest on a bridge in Beijing, calling on Xi Jinping to step down due to the Chinese government’s harsh zero-COVID policy. The whereabouts of Peng’s wife and child are also unknown, and they are believed to be held under some form of detention. Qiao Xinxin (a.k.a. Yang Zewei) was a passionate fighter against China’s censorship apparatus, the “Great Firewall”, he was taken into incommunicado detention by Chinese police from his residence in Laos and extradited back to China in June 2023, and his whereabouts were unknown for more than two months before news emerged that he had been held in a detention center in Hunan province.
No. 2: Torture, especially while held under “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL). RSDL is a form of incommunicado detention that allows authorities to hold individuals up to six months. Political prisoners are extremely vulnerable to torture and other forms of maltreatment during RSDL. Both Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong were held for months in RSDL and reported that they were severely tortured. In recent years, torture also has been reported in prison—in other words, after rights defenders have spent considerable time in detention centers, and then are tried, sentenced, and transferred to prisons. One such example is the torture of the unjustly imprisoned young computer coder Niu Tengyu, the Guangdong-based female veteran rights activist Li Biyun, and Nanjing-based dissident Shao Mingliang. Both Li and Shao have disabilities and were subjected to horrendous mistreatment and torture in prison.
No. 3: Lengthy pre-trial detention. Li Yuhan is a defense lawyer, and she represented one of the “709” lawyers, Wang Yu. Li was detained, tortured, and suffered many health problems in the detention center for six years before her first trial was held in October 2023.
No. 4: Lack of access to medical treatment in detention and denial of medical parole. Li Qiaochu was detained because she spoke up for her partner, the legal scholar Xu Zhiyong. She had mental health challenges even before being detained. After detention, she experienced severe auditory hallucinations, and needed medical treatment. Her mother submitted over 10 requests for medical parole, but all were denied. Most detainees who were tortured suffered from many types of health issues in the detention center or in prison but had no access to medical treatment. Zhang Zhan, who is serving four years in prison in Shanghai for reporting on COVID-19 from Wuhan, has been gravely ill as she has been on hunger strikes to protest her innocence since her arrest in May 2020. Her family and lawyer’s applications for medical parole were declined too. Yang Maodong’s (a.k.a. Guo Feixiong) health also steadily declined as a result of hunger strike since he was arrested in December 2021 following his request to leave China and visit his terminally ill wife in the U.S. His wife died in January 2022. Yang is now serving eight years in prison for “inciting subversion”.
No. 5: Heavy prison sentences for human rights defenders. Uyghur scholar and ethnic rights advocate Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 on the charge of “splitting the country.” China democracy advocate Wang Bingzhang was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 for alleged espionage and organizing and leading a terrorist group. Many rights defenders have been sentenced to more than 10 years on fabricated or trumped-up charges.
No. 6: Restrict defense lawyers’ rights or impose officially assigned lawyers to the detainee.
Defense lawyers face multiple obstacles in representing human rights defenders, such as authorities not allowing lawyers to meet with their detained clients and withholding case documents and evidence, all of which are in violation of Chinese lawyers’ legal practice rights. The Chinese authorities also pressure or coerce legal counsel representing human rights defenders to sign confidentiality agreements, thus preventing defense lawyers from speaking publicly about cases that authorities deem to be politically sensitive. This has a further negative impact in that Chinese authorities thus have space to malign human rights defenders or publicize false information about them. Chinese authorities often assign a lawyer of their choosing to legally represent rights defenders in order to cover up the truth of the case. This was evident in the case of Ruan Xiaohuan, a computer engineer who provided information to the public about how to circumvent the “Great Firewall.” Since Ruan’s first trial, his family has been fighting very hard to authorize a lawyer for Ruan during the appeal trial instead of the officially assigned lawyers.
No. 7: Forced labor in prison. Cheng Yuan, the managing director of an NGO and rights advocate, and Ou Biaofeng, another rights advocate, reportedly had to engage in forced labor at Chishan Prison in Hunan province. Cheng Yuan recently was moved to a different unit in Chishan Prison where he no longer has to do forced labor, according to his wife Shi Minglei, who now lives in the U.S. The Taiwanese rights defender Lee Ming-che, who also was held in Chishan Prison, reported that he worked from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. every day at Chishan Prison while he served a five-year prison sentence.
No. 8: Randomly deprive political prisoners of their lawful right to be visited by family members. The Sichuan-based rights defender Huang Qi is serving a 12-year prison sentence and has not been allowed to see his mother since 2019. His mother is now 90 years old and is suffering from cancer. Similarly, both Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong have been deprived of their rights to meet with their families and to communicate with them by letters to this day.
No. 9: “Non-release release.” Shanghai authorities released rights defender Chen Jianfang in October 2024, but a group of plainclothes police have been outside her home surveilling her since that time, preventing her from enjoying her right to freedom of movement and association, including for medical appointments or to meet with friends. Another veteran activist Yin Xu’an served a four-year sentence for commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre and was released in November 2023. He was immediately placed under house arrest and has not been given medication for his extremely high blood pressure. On December 5, 2023, he told friends that his blood pressure was 270/170 mm Hg and he urgently needed to seek medical treatment. Since then, Yin has been out of contact. He is believed to be in a hospital under surveillance. His phone must have been confiscated and his family has not been told where he is. Other “non-release release” cases include the forementioned Li Biyun and Shao Mingliang, who have been under around-the-clock surveillance and deprived of the right to seek medical treatment.
No. 10: Persecution and/or harassment of the families of the human rights defenders:
1) Detain and put into prison the rights defenders’ wife or loved ones: Representative cases include Xu Yan, wife of detained human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng; Wang Liqin, wife of imprisoned poet Wang Zang; and Li Qiaochu, girlfriend of Xu Zhiyong. The children of rights defenders often suffer mental and physical health challenges due to the heavy pressure and surveillance placed on them. Additionally, the children are frequently prevented from accessing an education when both their parents are in prison. Among the most worrying cases currently are the three young children of He Fangmei and Li Xin, both are rights defenders.
2) Deprive the children of rights defenders their right to attend school. For example, authorities have prevented the children of human rights lawyers Li Heping and Wang Quanzhang from going to school in China for more than eight years.
3) Impose travel bans not only on the rights defenders but also on their families. There are many human right defenders who have been banned from traveling, including Ding Jiaxi and lawyer Lu Siwei, who was sent back to China while trying to cross the border in Laos. Lawyers Wang Quanzhang and Li Heping and their families have not been allowed to go abroad. Chinese authorities also banned their children from going abroad. Children of rights defenders have been severely harassed and prevented from leaving China to receive an education abroad. This reflects a wider problem of the harassment of family members.
4) Pressure landlords to revoke rental agreements, Lawyers Wang Quanzhang and Li Heping and their families were forced to move many times last year and continue to expect that their housing may suddenly be revoked.
5) Economically destroy the rights defender’s capacity to support himself and his family The Chinese authorities confiscated the life savings of Ilham Tohti shortly after he was sentenced, leaving his family in China to face severe economic difficulties. Plainclothes police officers often harass rights defenders when they are trying to find a job, leaving them jobless and their family in difficult economic situations.
I could go on and on, but due to time constraints, I am not able to describe all the forms of persecution that Chinese human rights defenders and their families are facing.
Before ending my testimony, I would like to put forward a few recommendations of actions that I think the U.S. government and international society could take to help political prisoners and their families:
1. Human rights officers based in China from the United States and other countries should request to visit detention centers and prisons, and should report if these detention facilities are not compliant with Chinese detention center regulations or Chinese prison law. Routinely ask for such access so that Chinese authorities can’t say no easily.
2. Apply visa restrictions on the those working at the Public Security Bureau, the Procuratorate, and the Courts who are directly involved in the human rights defender persecution cases, especially those who are involved in implementing various forms of torture, for example, the perpetrators who inflicted grievous harm on lawyer Gao Zhisheng and were named by Gao in his written testimony.
3. Human rights officers based in China from the US and other countries should visit human right defenders’ families instead of inviting them to go to the foreign embassy and being blocked or detained on their way.
4. Call for humanitarian assistance and education for the children of the rights defenders when both parents have been detained or imprisoned by Chinese authorities.
5. Call for international attention to the children of rights defenders who are not allowed to go to school because of their parents’ rights activism.
6. Request medical parole or call for humanitarian assistance to political prisoners serving life sentences and require the release of elderly political prisoners and those in bad health condition, such as Wang Bingzhang and Qin Yongmin.
I deeply appreciated the countries, in addition to the US, that specifically asked the Chinese government to end arbitrary detention and forced disappearance, and its abusive treatment of human rights defenders, during the UPR. I look forward to your continuous support to the families of human rights defenders to fight for basic rights and to seek the unconditional release of these arbitrarily detained political prisoners!
Thank you!