The Arab Spring provided the Chinese Government with both the motive and the opportunity to launch a crackdown on HRDs working in a variety of different areas. With the attention of the world elsewhere, and partly in response to anonymous online calls for a ‘Jasmine Revolution’ to take place in China, the authorities took the chance to target scores of HRDs who had been at the forefront of human rights defence in China. Up to 200 HRDs were questioned, harassed, severely threatened, beaten, detained, or simply disappeared. At least 24 HRDs, including 11 human rights lawyers, were forcibly disappeared for time periods ranging from a few days in some cases to over six months in others. While many of the disappeared, on their release, declined to disclose details of their treatment, a number of HRDs to whom Front Line Defenders spoke described being beaten, forced to go days without sleep and being made stay in the same position without moving for hours on end. In a worrying development, draft amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law published in August 2011, if passed, will effectively legalise enforced disappearances for up to six months in cases where suspects are held on charges of, amongst others, ‘endangering state security’. This charge is often used against HRDs, and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo remains in prison on such a charge, while his wife is still under (illegal) house arrest. Also under house arrest is blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng. Chen, along with his wife, mother and six-year old daughter, is being kept prisoner in his own home. Chen and his wife have been severely beaten, and all attempts by fellow HRDs to visit him have been unsuccessful and many have been met with violence. Notwithstanding this, the organisation of an online grassroots campaign by HRDs to visit Chen and to raise greater awareness of his case and the injustices involved was an encouraging development. This campaign has highlighted the increasingly important role that social media are playing in the defence of human rights in China.

URGENT CASES

China: Fear for safety of Mr Chen Guangcheng and his family;fellow HRD Ms He Peirong remains missing and Ms Zeng Jinyan under house arrest

Post date: 2012/05/3

On 2 May 2012, Mr Chen Guangcheng left the US Embassy in Beijing where he had taken refuge for six days following his escape on 22 April 2012 from nineteen months of strict and unlawful house arrest in his home province of Shandong.

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China: Human rights lawyer Mr Chen Guangcheng escapes house arrest; brother and fellow human rights defender, Ms He Peirong, reportedly detained

Post date: 2012/04/27

On 27 April 2012, it emerged that Chinese human rights defender and 'barefoot' lawyer Mr Chen Guangcheng had escaped the brutal house arrest which he and his family had been subjected to since his release from prison in September 2010.

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China: Human rights defender Ni Yulan and husband, Dong Jiqin, sentenced to two years and eight months and two years respectively

Post date: 2012/04/10

At just after 9:00 am on 10 April 2012, human rights defender and disbarred lawyer Ms Ni Yulan was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison by Xicheng District People's Court in Beijing.

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