HONG KONG—As petitioners across China called on parliament to ratify two U.N. human rights covenants, authorities detained a newspaper employee in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi after he wrote to the National People’s Congress demanding an end to forced evictions.
More than 200 petitioners called on the National People’s Congress (NPC) during its annual sessions this week to ratify the United Nations covenants on human rights, which China signed during its bid to host the Olympic Games, but which have never been made law.
“If we all speak out together, they will have to take us seriously,” said Heilongjiang-based petitioner Liu Jie, who heads a petitioner group called Human Rights Defenders.
Liu said the letter was the third sent to the NPC in as many years.
“Today we could be detained, or tomorrow, or locked up the next day. This is always happening. We have to speak with a collective voice, where we have the strength of unity,” she said.
The letter also called on the NPC to abolish the "re-education through labor" camp system and the practice of using trumped-up charges to indict petitioners.
“Sending petitioners [for re-education through labor] is a serious breach of the constitution and runs counter to Chinese law,” Liu said.
Wang Youjin, visiting professor at the China University of Politics and Law said that if the NPC ratified the covenants, then they would be required under international law to enforce them strictly.
“There are a great many conditions attached to the United Nations regulations, and some very clear freedoms,” Wang said.
“Freedom of the press, [for example], which isn’t likely to happen in China That’s why they still haven’t ratified them; they are just claiming on the face of it that China abides by the covenants.”
Critic detained
Meanwhile, in the eastern city of Wuxi, authorities detained Hui Linquan, an official in the state-run media who wrote to the NPC calling for an end to forced evictions in the city.
“The government is behaving in a blatantly criminal manner,” Hui wrote in a letter that was posted online Tuesday.
“Corruption grows ferociously, spreading like wild grass, where political power is allowed to allocate resources on behalf of the municipality.”
“In Wuxi, the government is ... paying compensation well below market rates ... Some of the rural families who were allowed to get rich under the policies of Deng Xiaoping have now found themselves poor again,” he said.
Hui said property speculation had reached “lunatic” proportions in the city, where the government is based in sumptuous offices more glamorous than Beijing’s Zhongnanhai, or the White House.
“Local officials have turned into predators,” he wrote.
“In Wuxi, we have pioneered the ‘assisted eviction,’ which consists of a sudden attack, of the breaking down of people’s doors. They even resort to kidnappings and beatings. A group of people will basically take away everything in your house.”
After the letter was published on the Internet, Hui was detained by police from the Liyuan police station in Binhu district on suspicion of “fabricating the truth” and “disturbing public order.”
Hui’s letter called on ordinary citizens to take their complaints to Beijing during the NPC annual sessions this week. Hui is currently being detained in a “study group” for petitioners, his wife said.
The Liyuan branch police chief, surnamed Zhang, said his officers had detained Hui for 24 hours and then let him go.
“Our government is in charge of this matter now, and I can’t give you any information about it. Our summons expired in 24 hours, so you will have to ask the government if you want to know what happened after that.”
Hui’s wife said local officials had taken him away after his release from the police station.
“After that, the local police station chief said neighborhood committee officials took him away.”
“Two people from the neighborhood committee came round,” she said.
“They showed me some notification order about petitioning, or something, which said he had to go into a special class to learn about the rule of law.”
“After they left, municipal, branch, and local police came and searched my husband’s bedroom. They took the main computer and some CDs and two USB drives,” she said.
“I want to let the NPC know that after Hui Linquan wrote this letter to them, he was illegally detained.”
Evictions common
Forced eviction is becoming increasingly common across China, even in cases where local residents hold full paperwork entitling them to ownership and residence in their property.
The central government passed a law in 2007 aimed at upholding private property rights.
But local officials and their business partners wield too much power, including controlling local law enforcement personnel, for it to have much effect, evictees say.
Shanghai-based civil rights activist Zhang Junwei was detained Tuesday for writing graffiti criticizing forced evictions by municipal authorities in the city.
“They took me away to the police station and detained me until now,” Zhang said, who admitted writing the graffiti.
“I said that this was the truth, that the Communist Party took my house, and took everyone’s wealth for itself,” he said.
“Now we have all become poor.”
“My wife has been ill in bed for six years, and there is no money for her to see a doctor. This is 'seeking truth from facts.'”
Original reporting in Mandarin by Cantonese by Li Li and in Mandarin by Ding Xiao. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.