Too much news?

30 Sep 22 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Burma, Hong Kong, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Opinion, Ruth's blog, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United States, Zimbabwe

The last week has been unprecedented in global news – although I do feel that every time we see the word unprecedented to refer to current events we’re just tempting fate to make it even worse. Our news has been dominated by crucially important and life-changing stories – the economic turmoil in the UK; the impact of global inflation; the real-life effects of Hurricanes Fiona and Ian on the east coast of Canada and the USA; Putin’s annexation of four more Ukrainian territories; the election of the most right-wing prime minister since Mussolini in Italy and; the suspected nation-state-orchestrated sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This has been a busy news week. But beyond the headlines there have been so many other stories, other crises, other issues that in a ‘normal’ week (if there is such a thing anymore) would have demanded our attention.

So this week – I want to do a round-up of what we’ve missed as the world has become an even scarier place for too many people. To remind us all of what else is happening in the world that we’ve missed as we have been glued to the news that is struggling to report on everything that has happened.

These are just a few of the dozens of stories that many of us missed this week while the world is in turmoil. As ever the role of Index is to make sure that these stories and those of dissidents are not ignored or forgotten.

China must protect the rights of Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing

19 Sep 22 | China, News and features

Huang Xueqin (left) and Wang Jianbing (right)

Today, 19 September 2022, marks one year in detention for two young Chinese human rights defenders: Huang Xueqin, an independent journalist and key actor in China’s #MeToo movement, and Wang Jianbing, a labour rights advocate.[1]

We, the undersigned civil society groups, call on Chinese authorities to respect and protect their rights in detention, including access to legal counsel, unfettered communication with family members, their right to health and their right to bodily autonomy. We emphasise that their detention is arbitrary, and we call for their release and for authorities to allow them to carry out their work and make important contributions to social justice.

Who are they?

In the 2010s, Huang Xueqin worked as a journalist for mainstream media in China. During that time, she covered stories on public interest matters, women’s rights, corruption scandals, industrial pollution, and issues faced by socially-marginalized groups. She later supported victims and survivors of sexual harassment and gender-based violence who spoke out as part of the #MeToo movement in China. On 17 October 2019, she was stopped by police in Guangzhou and criminally detained in RSDL for three months – for posting online an article about Hong Kong’s anti-extradition movement.

Wang Jianbing followed a different path, but his story – like Huang’s – demonstrates the commitment of young people in China to giving back to their communities. He worked in the non-profit sector for more than 16 years, on issues ranging from education to disability to youth to labour. Since 2018, he has supported victims of occupational disease to increase their visibility and to access social services and legal aid.

Arbitrary and incommunicado detention

On 19 September 2021, the two human rights defenders were taken by Guangzhou police; after 37 days, they were formally arrested on charges of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. Using Covid-19 prevention measures as an excuse, they were held for five months in solitary confinement, and subject to secret interrogation, in conditions similar to those of ‘residential surveillance in a designated location’, or RSDL. After months of delays and no due process guarantees, their case was transferred to court for the first time in early August 2022.

We strongly condemn the lengthy detentions of Huang and Wang. In a Communication sent to the Chinese government in February 2022, six UN independent experts – including the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and the Working Group on arbitrary detention (WGAD) – raised serious concerns about Wang’s disappearance and deprivation of liberty. They asserted that Wang’s activities were protected and legal, and that Chinese authorities used a broad definition of ‘endangering national security’ that runs counter to international human rights law.

In May 2022, the WGAD went one step further, formally declaring Wang’s detention to be ‘arbitrary’ and urging authorities to ensure his immediate release and access to remedy. Noting other, similar Chinese cases, the WGAD also requested Chinese authorities to undertake a comprehensive independent investigation into the case, taking measures to hold those responsible for rights violations accountable.

We echo their call: Chinese authorities should respect this UN finding, and immediately release Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing.

Risks of torture and poor health

In addition to the lack of legal grounds for their detention, we are also worried about conditions of detention for Wang and Huang. Using ‘Covid-19 isolation’ as an excuse, Wang was held incommunicado, during which he was subject to physical and mental violence and abuse. His physical health deteriorated, in part due to an irregular diet and inadequate nutrition, while he also suffered physical and mental torment and depression. UN and legal experts have found similar risks, possibly amounting to torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, in other Chinese detention practices – including RSDL. According to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the ‘Mandela Rules’), prolonged solitary confinement – solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days – should be prohibited as it may constitute torture or ill-treatment.

Even more concerning are detention conditions for Huang Xueqin, because during the year she has been deprived of her liberty – again, without formal access to a lawyer or communication with her family – no one, including a legal counsel of her choosing, has received formal notification of her situation. We are deeply worried about her physical and mental health, and reiterate that incommunicado detention is a grave violation of international law.

Lack of fair trial guarantees

Given the circumstances, many brave Chinese lawyers may have stepped up to defend Huang Xueqin. But we are alarmed that Huang has been prevented from appointing a lawyer of her choice. In March 2022, her family stepped in, appointing a lawyer on her behalf; she was not allowed to meet her client or see the case file. Nonetheless, that lawyer was dismissed – according to authorities, with Huang’s approval – after just two weeks. The right to legal counsel of one’s choosing is not only a core international human rights standard, but a right guaranteed by the Criminal Law of the PRC.

Chilling effect on rights defence

As is too often the case in China, the authorities’ ‘investigation’ into Huang’s and Wang’s case has had concrete impacts on civil society writ large. Around 70 friends and acquaintances of the two defenders, from across the country, have been summoned by the Guangzhou police and/or local authorities. Many of them were interrogated for up to 24 hours – some for several times – and forced to turn over their electronic devices. The police also coerced and threatened some individuals to sign false statements admitting that they had participated in training activities that had the intention of ‘subverting state power’ and that simple social gatherings were in fact political events to encourage criticism of the government. The Chinese government has been repeatedly warned by UN experts that the introduction of evidence stemming from forced or coerced confessions is a violation of international law and that officials engaged in this practice must be sanctioned.

A call for action

One year on, we call on the Chinese authorities to respect human rights standards, and uphold their international obligations, in the cases of Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing. Until Chinese authorities implement UN recommendations and Huang and Wang are released, the relevant officials should:

  • Ensure that Huang and Wang can freely access legal counsel of their own choosing, and protect the rights of lawyers to defend their clients.
  • Remove all barriers to free communication between Huang and Wang and their families and friends, whether in writing or over telephone.
  • Provide comprehensive physical and mental health services to Huang and Wang, including consensual examinations by an independent medical professional, and share the findings with lawyers and family members, or others on request.
  • Guarantee that Huang and Wang are not subjected to solitary confinement or other forms of torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and that the conditions of their detention comply with international human rights standards.
  • Cease actions that aim to intimidate and silence members of civil society from engaging in advocacy for the protection of rights, and ensure that no evidence from coerced confessions is permissible in Huang’s and Wang’s – or anyone else’s – court proceedings.

Signed:

ACAT-France

Amnesty International

Center for Reproductive Rights

Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University

Changsha Funeng

China Against the Death Penalty

China Labour Bulletin

CSW (Christian Solidarity Worldwide)

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Frontline Defenders

Hong Kong Outlanders

Hong Kong Outlanders in Taiwan

Human Rights in China

Human Rights Now

Index on Censorship

International Service for Human Rights

Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada

Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders

NüVoices

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Safeguard Defenders

台灣人權促進會 Taiwan Association for Human Rights

Taiwan Labour Front

The Rights Practice

Uyghur Human Rights Project

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

[1] As their cases are deeply connected, their friends and supporters refer to them as a single case called the ‘Xuebing case’, using a portmanteau of their first names.

Why we need to protect end-to-end encryption

21 Jul 22 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom

For over fifty years, Index on Censorship has supported dissidents, journalists and activists in part by training them on the most current technology. In recent years that has included how to use encryption and encrypted communication apps, helping them to protect themselves from repressive regimes in the easiest and most comprehensive ways possible. This training was especially necessary when accessing encryption proved to be a specialist pursuit, involving intensive training, helping people on the ground to understand the options and downloading often complex peer-to-peer messaging apps.

Now, thankfully, encryption is everywhere; human rights defenders, journalists and MPs use platforms like Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp to exchange everything from gossip to public interest data. Encryption is critical for investigative journalists who need to communicate with sources and to protect their investigations against hostile actors, whether states or criminal gangs.

And for all of us encryption has its uses: sending family photos and sharing personal information. After all, who hasn’t sent their bank details to a friend?

Telegram is used by activists, journalists and politicans. Photo: Christian Wiediger/Unsplash

For Index on Censorship, protecting encryption is a critical frontline in the fight for freedom of expression. Free speech isn’t just about the words themselves: it is the freedom to exchange information, the freedom to gather information and the freedom to confide ideas and thoughts to others without the risk of arrest and detention. Encryption is now central to our collective ability to exercise the right to freedom of expression.

Five years ago, Jamie Bartlett wrote for Index on Censorship about how his experience of police intimidation in Croatia, a democratic EU member state, changed his view on encryption. In Jamie’s case it offered a secure means of communicating with a source who the authorities had made it clear they did not want him to speak to.

Today, in too many states, encryption is now essential. As we speak the reality on the ground in authoritarian regimes including China, Hong Kong, Belarus and Russia, the difference between using an encrypted messaging app to express yourself, or unencrypted communications will mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment, if not worse.

Promoting and defending encryption is essential for any organisation that promotes and defends free speech. That’s why Index on Censorship is delighted to announce that we’ve received a grant from WhatsApp, the messaging app, to support our work in defending encryption. The grant of £150,000 will be used for our general work in defending digital freedom and our work streams will not be determined by any one other than my team at Index. From our perspective this grant is incredibly welcome as it will allow us to develop new content that explains the importance of encryption to the public, allows us to get new legal advice on why encryption should be protected as a fundamental defence of our human rights, as well as bringing new voices into the debate on why encryption is so critical to defend free speech.

As with any grant, the grantee has no influence whatsoever over Index on Censorship policy positions or our work itself. Index has had its criticisms of Meta (WhatsApp’s parent company) in the past and I’m sure we will in the future, and we’ll continue to speak freely to any government or company.

Right now, we’re continuing to argue for a pause to the UK government’s rush to push through its flawed Online Safety Bill, ensuring we have the opportunity to work with Ministers to amend the bill to remove the flawed ‘legal but harmful’ provisions in the legislation (as demolished by Gavin Millar QC’s power legal opinion for Index) and also ensure the potential undermining of encryption is taken out of this legislation.

We’ve got a lot to do – but the political weather is changing in the right direction.

China’s fifth most wanted democracy advocate looks back at Tiananmen

01 Jun 22 | China, Hong Kong, News and features

There was a time when Zhou Fengsuo wanted to change his name. It had become synonymous with the Tiananmen Square protests, which he had an instrumental role in leading. He’d helped with general organisation, he’d delivered speeches in the square, he’d provided medical help for those during the hunger strike –just a few of the hats he wore. For this Zhou was named as number five on the Chinese government’s most wanted list and was arrested shortly after the crackdown. He spent a year in Qincheng Prison, a maximum-security prison in Beijing, after which he was exiled to Yangyuan in Hebei province, a poor, rural area to be “re-educated”. Constant monitoring and police harassment became a part of his life and he struggled to earn a living. He couldn’t even get a passport to leave the country.

“I wanted to change my name to have a normal life,” he told Index ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the protests and the massacre that brought them to a terrifying and devastating end.

“But that was then,” he added.

Today the importance of keeping his name is paramount. The Chinese government would gladly erase it, alongside all memory of the massacre.

“We do whatever we can to preserve the memory and preserve the truth,” Zhou said, who has remained a staunch advocate for human rights in the years since, including being president of Humanitarian China and the Chinese Democracy Education Foundation. When we speak he is working on a Tiananmen museum in the town where he now lives in the New York metro area (he was finally given a passport and left for the USA in 1996).

Zhou is understandably proud of his role in the protest movements, which called for greater freedoms, especially in relation to freedom of speech and the media. They had been happening in pockets of China for several years by then and built to a crescendo in the spring of ‘89, described as like a “volcanic eruption” by Zhou. The main ones that took place in Tiananmen Square from April through to June were “China’s version of a festival of freedom” he said.

“It was exhilarating because for the first time people could have a taste of freedom. These were very joyful, hopeful moments, even though there was a sense of defiance,” he added. He has a particularly fond memory of 18 April 1989.

“I made a speech at the monument of the People’s Heroes where I compared the US Bill of Rights to the Chinese constitution. For me it was the first time I could speak out on these issues. These were my own views that I felt really strongly about and I had had to keep them to myself and all of a sudden, I was there in an important place with thousands listening. There was such a powerful feeling of freedom in the air. I was overwhelmed by the passion that people showed.”

Zhou said that even the most marginalised people felt there was hope. They even joked that thieves stopped stealing.

Zhou remembers the run-up to 4 June 1989 as one of the most peaceful times. He spoke of how people made homemade meals to send to the protesters and that “Coca Cola had just arrived in China and was considered a luxury – people would buy it for the students as a way to show support. It was incredible the feeling of solidarity.”

But then came the tanks.

“It was like an invasion of Beijing by armed troops,” said Zhou, who reckons there were around a quarter of a million soldiers by the time they turned on the students on the evening of 3 June.

“It was brutally senseless.”

Many of Zhou’s friends died on that fateful night and in the following days, with plenty of others arrested and put in jail.

“The government are guilty of murdering their own people,” he said.

No-one knows for certain exactly how many people were killed. Shortly after, the Chinese government said just 200 civilians had died. Other estimates place it in the region of thousands. In 2017, documents from the British ambassador to China at the time, Sir Alan Donald, said that as many as 10,000 had actually died.

The Chinese government has gone out of its way to erase the exact figure and surrounding memories. Any references to Tiananmen are carefully removed from books and the internet. The country’s censors work overtime to stay ahead of the game, blocking anything from obvious references like #tank to more obscure ones (#35 for 31 May plus four days; #6+si for the sixth month and si meaning four in Mandarin). Sometimes they even block the words “today” and “tomorrow”. Commemorative events – well-nigh impossible to hold in mainland China – are now off the agenda in Hong Kong too, which for years hosted a large memorial event in Victoria Park. Also in Hong Kong, the Pillar of Shame statue to honour those killed in the square was recently removed. There is a rumour it might reappear in Taiwan.

Despite the dangers, when it was the 25th anniversary of the massacre, Zhou returned to China, albeit briefly. He snuck back in due to a change in China’s immigration policy that allowed people in transit to enter for 72 hours without a visa. During that trip he was interrogated by the police who had also been in Beijing in 1989 but he was allowed to leave for the USA again.

Thirty-three years on and China remains as jumpy about the event as if it was yesterday.

As China’s long arm stretches further overseas, the attempts to eradicate its memory have arrived on distant shores. Just two weeks ago Zhou was in Prague on a panel with the Chinese dissident artist Badiucao. When there the event’s curator received a call from the Chinese embassy. The person who called her said that if she continued with the event it would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and would damage Czech-Chinese relations. She ignored the call, but it left her and Zhou spooked.

“It was strange because Michelle didn’t publish that number and was not sure how they got hold of it,” he explained.

The Chinese government has found willing participants in this erasure game in the form of companies with close ties to China. Two years ago, for example, Zoom closed Zhou’s paid account a week after he held an event discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He also had a run-in with LinkedIn, who temporarily blocked his page and posts from being seen within China.

Zhou says that “US companies who do business with China will try to stay away from people like me.”

“Global trade and digital communications have enabled China to exert control even in the US. This wasn’t possible before, even in Nazi times. But China is much more dangerous now than Nazi Germany,” he said, revealing that over the years it’s become harder to stay in touch with his family back in China. He has tried to distance himself “so they don’t get in trouble”, calling it a “price I have paid for my conscience”.

There’s no doubt that Tiananmen matters, whether it be a year ago, 20 years ago, 50 or 100. But it feels particularly relevant looking at the current Chinese landscape. Thirty-three years after students took to the square, the very same universities that they came from have erected fences in response to students protesting draconian Covid measures; in Shanghai, the lockdown has been so extreme that some people have jumped out of their own windows to their death. Traces of these recent events are being scrubbed from the internet as we speak. The path that the leaders chose when they sent the tanks in is one that we are still walking today, but it’s sadly narrower. Control is near absolute.

“No matter how rich, people can lose their freedom and be prisoners in their own home,” said Zhou. “They can be starved to death. Shanghai has amongst the highest house prices in the world but the government can use technology to control the people.”

And just like Tiananmen, we might never know how many people will have died as a result of the government’s ruthless Zero Covid policy.

“This is why Tiananmen is so important,” he added. “There’s no limit to what the government can do to violate human rights. It’s beyond the worst imagination.”

Zhou holds on to the one major positive that came out of the Tiananmen protests though.

“They demonstrated to the world that the Chinese people loved freedom. We were willing to fight for it and many people lost their lives for it. It showed the world what a different China could be. Today’s China is a nightmare. There could be a different China.’