11国驻华大使联名 促中共公安部查709律师酷刑案

dandenong

日前，11个国家的驻华大使联名致信中共公安部长郭声琨，要求公安部对709案多名被捕律师，谢阳、李和平、王全璋、李春富律师及人权活动家吴淦遭受的酷刑指控进行独立调查。并对仍被关押的维权人士表示关切。


加拿大环球邮报3月20日报导，加拿大、澳大利亚、日本、瑞士以及7个欧盟成员国（比利时、捷克、爱沙尼亚、法国、德国、瑞典和英国），共11个国家的驻华大使馆于2月27日联合致信中共公安部，对〝最新有关被拘禁的人权律师和人权活动人士遭受酷刑以及其它非人性的、侮辱人格的惩罚方式的报导表示严重关切〞。并呼吁中共对人权人士停止〝监视居住〞的做法。

据人权组织统计，从2015年7月到2016年5月，〝709案〞中被刑拘、带走、失联、传唤、约见的法律从业者达300余人，涉及25个省份。目前仍有律师被中共关押，并传出一些人曾在羁押期间遭受酷刑虐待的消息。






《环球邮报》刊登的联署信中称，谢阳告知他的律师，他被审讯人员拳打脚踢，还威胁说〝会把你折磨到疯掉〞。

李和平和王全璋的夫人被告知中共打手使用电棍电击折磨李和平、王全璋二人。李春富的家人说500天的秘密关押令李春富精神〝崩溃〞。吴淦披露说好几天不许他睡觉。

据报导，大使联署信发出两天后，3月1日，中共多家官媒即发布消息，称谢阳遭受酷刑是编造出的〝假消息〞。

而谢阳的代理律师陈建刚则对中共媒体的报导发表了一份详细的反驳，称中共官媒那些消息是〝毫无根据的谎言〞。陈建刚告诉德国之声，2月6日他在长沙看守所最后一次见到谢阳。此后官方就禁止他再与谢阳见面，并且威胁、禁止他接受媒体采访。

维权律师庞琨表示，从中共官媒力图摆脱酷刑指责的表现来看，相信十一国大使的联署行动，起到了一定效果。

庞琨说，中共官方在世界各国中都要参与一些事情，也需要顾及颜面，如果接下来其他国家的大使能够持续的交涉、施压，相信709案能得到解决。

人权观察负责中国事务的负责人索菲．理查森认为，多个国家联合行动是对中共最有效的压力方式，同时，理查森与〝中国改变〞网站的创办人曹雅学，对美国没有参与联署行动表示质疑，呼吁美国不要缺席。

国际特赦中国研究员潘嘉伟表示，希望美国和其他国家都对酷刑事件发声。他认为，不同国家对别国人权提出问题，不是出于外交考虑，而是国际人权的义务和责任。

据悉，至今为止，人权律师江天勇已被关押4个月，其妻子金变玲在美国声称，我希望各国大使向北京当局申请探望江天勇，我在3月8日给美国总统川普和国务卿写了信，我希望美国政府多关注中国人权的事情，和北京当局交涉，让江天勇和我们母女相聚。

childish

11国都签字，唯独美国川普当局拒绝签字。

childish

Washington Post--Eleven countries signed a letter slamming China for torturing lawyers. The U.S. did not.

By Simon Denyer and Emily Rauhala March 22

BEIJING — When 11 embassies signed on to a joint letter criticizing China over “credible claims” that lawyers and human rights activists have been tortured while in detention, there were two notable abstentions.

One was the 28-nation European Union, although some E.U. members signed on to the letter. The other was the United States.

Several joint letters have been sent by diplomatic missions in Beijing in the past year or so expressing concern over a crackdown on human rights, with a variety of nations signing on to all or some of the letters. But this marked the first time that the United States declined to sign on the dotted line.

When Canada’s Globe and Mail broke the story this week, questions were soon raised. Was this a sign that the U.S. government was backtracking on its commitment to human rights under President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson?

No, said the embassy. Tillerson, it pointed out, stood alongside China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Saturday and said he had made clear in private discussions with his counterpart “that the United States will continue to advocate for universal values such as human rights and religious freedom.”

Some sources said the decision not to sign the letter may have been made within the State Department’s bureaucracy, rather than by Tillerson or any of his team. That may be a function of the chaotic nature of the transition since Trump took over — with several senior positions still unfilled — and the lack of a clear strategy on how to deal with China, rather than a sign of a fundamental shift in stance.

“I tend to think this is more to do with the fact that U.S. policy is so disorganized right now,” said Paul Haenle, who served in the National Security Council under George W. Bush and stayed on into the Obama administration. “Transitions are always really disorganized and confused, but this one is at a level I have never seen before.”

But other experts said the decision was most likely made at a senior level.

"We have consistently supported such joint initiatives in the past, particularly when others have taken the lead, because they show China that many countries, not just the U.S., disapprove of its conduct," said Tom Malinowksi, who served Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 2014 to 2017. "I can’t recall any time in the past when we have declined to join our allies in making such a statement. And I would be extremely surprised if a decision to break so sharply with past practice had been made at any level below the Secretary of State."

With senior vacancies across the State Department, including for Tillerson’s deputy, no ambassador in place in Beijing, and a strong sense that the entire organization is being sidelined in foreign policy formulation, some diplomats said they weren’t surprised that the United States declined to sign on to the letter this time around.

But others expressed disappointment, especially given that the letter was negotiated by the various embassies over four to five weeks.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing insists that its stance has not changed.

“As part of our regular discussions with the Chinese, we raise our serious concerns over China’s human rights record, including raising individual cases of people in China who have been harassed, detained without trial and allegedly tortured,” embassy spokeswoman Mary Beth Polley said. “As Secretary Tillerson has stated, the American people’s commitment to human rights and championing of people the world over is embedded in all we do.”

The State Department’s Human Rights Report, released this month, accused China of a slew of human rights abuses, including:

“arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life, executions without due process, illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities known as ‘black jails,’ torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and detention and harassment of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others whose actions the authorities deemed unacceptable.”

Nevertheless, the fact that Tillerson did not hold a news briefing to launch that report, as predecessors in his job have done, also left activists and politicians wondering whether the United States might be wavering.

“For 1st time in a long time @StateDept #humanrights report will not be presented by Secretary of State,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), a Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “I hope they reconsider.”


Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, noted that the United States has joined diplomatic efforts to call out China in the past, including a joint statement criticizing Beijing at the United Nations' Human Rights Council last year.

“Last March, we watched the U.S. take the lead on a badly needed and unprecedented joint statement at the Human Rights Council,” she said. “This March it appears the U.S. is declining that kind of cooperation on an issue that it has already taken a strong position on.”

The letter, dated Feb. 27, was addressed to China’s minister of public security, Guo Shengkun, and signed by ambassadors and chargés d’affaires from Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland, along with seven E.U. members: Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany and Sweden.

Diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said Hungary had prevented the E.U. from signing as a bloc and threatened to do so in all such future cases. The Hungarian Embassy in Beijing declined to offer a comment.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, is an enthusiastic supporter of Trump and has warned European leaders not to lecture China over human rights. China is a major investor in Hungary, with Budapest styling itself as China’s gateway to Europe.

The E.U. delegation in Beijing pointed out that it had already made a separate statement in January about the “serious mistreatment of detained human rights lawyers Li Heping, Wang Quanzhang and Xie Yang.” It added that, if verified, “this mistreatment would amount to torture,” and asked for an investigation.

Yet it is also notable that 20 other E.U. nations besides Hungary also declined to sign the February letter on an individual basis.

In the letter, the diplomatic missions expressed “growing concern over recent claims of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in cases concerning detained human rights lawyers and other human rights defenders.”

“In the cases of Xie Yang, Li Heping and Wang Quanzhang, Wu Gan and Li Chunfu credible claims of torture have been brought to our attention,” it said.

“Detaining people without any contact with the outside world for long periods of time is contrary to China's international human rights obligations. In this context, we call on China to comply with its obligations under international human rights law, in particular the Convention Against Torture.”

The letter asked the Chinese government to “put in place necessary mechanisms to ensure that neither torture nor any other form of ill-treatment takes place in any form of detention” and inform the missions of the results of any investigation into the particular cases.

China’s Foreign Ministry issued an angry rebuttal.

“China is always opposed to the efforts of any country to disrupt the normal case handling by Chinese judicial authorities at the excuse of human rights,” Hua Chunying, a ministry spokeswoman, said Tuesday.

“You mentioned this expression of opinions by 11 missions in China,” Hua said, in response to a question from the Globe. “I believe this in itself is violating the spirit of rule of law.”

“All sovereign states enjoy the independence of judicial affairs, and no country has the right to interfere with the independence of their judicial affairs,” she added. “China has repeatedly expressed that China is a country under the rule of law and everyone stands equal in front of the law, and no one can rise beyond the law.”

For those who want to know more about what prompted the concerns, The Washington Post wrote about the case of Li here, while the New York Times wrote about Xie here.