ASA 17/035/2012

CHINA

Four Falun Gong practitioners are being held in Jiamusi Detention Centre in China after being arbitrarily detained on 10 September. They are at risk of torture and ill-treatment.

Shortly after 7.00 pm on 10 September – at the same time that nine other Falun Gong practitioners were being detained in another home in Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang province, China – plain-clothed police officers broke into Ren Shuxian’s home and detained a group of Falun Gong practitioners meeting there. Ren Shuxian, Wang Yingxia, Zhang Limin and his wife Qiu Yujie, and Liu Hongli and her eight-year-old daughter were taken to the Jianshe Police Station. Qiu Yujie was taken out of the house on a stretcher.

At 1.00 am on 11 September, Liu Hongli’s daughter was released and collected by her father. While at the police station Liu Hongli developed symptoms of a serious heart condition and was sent to hospital. After a check-up she was returned to the police station. However, her condition worsened and she was sent back to the hospital. After being sent back and forth from the police station to the hospital twice more, Liu Hongli was finally sent home in the evening of 11 September.

On 11 September, the remaining four in custody were transferred to the Jiamusi Detention Centre. Two of them have reportedly begun hunger striking. Most of those detained previously spent time in prison or re-education through labour camps on account of their beliefs. Wang Yingxia previously spent three years in prison.

When family members enquired about the detainees on 10 September, the police refused to provide any information and told the family to inquire with the city’s Public Security Bureau. Neither detention nor arrest warrants were presented by the police. According to sources on the ground, officers from several public security offices were present during the detentions, including the local police and Public Security and National Security Bureau officials.

Please write immediately in Chinese or your own language:

* Calling on the Chinese authorities to release all those being held in custody (naming them), as they are detained solely on the basis of exercising their freedom of belief;

* Ensuring that all those detained are not tortured or otherwise ill-treated while they are in custody.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 30 OCTOBER 2012 TO:

Gonganju juzhang

Jiang Zhifang

Baoweilu 100 hao, Jiamusishi.

Heilongjiangsheng

People’s Republic of China 154000

Tel: +86 454 8298114 (Chinese only)

Salutation: Dear Chief of the Public Security Bureau

Zhengfawei shuji

Liu Chen

Chang’anlu, Xiduan 2666 hao

Jiamusishi, Heilongjiangsheng

People’s Republic of China 154000

Tel: +86 454 8224598 (Chinese only)

Salutation: Dear Party Secretary

And copies to:

Governor

Wang Xiangui

202 Zhongshanlu 202, Harbin

Heilongjiangsheng

People’s Republic of China

Tel: +86 451 82622351, +86 451 82625015 (Chinese only)

Email: webmaster@hlj.gov.cn

Salutation: Dear Governor

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.

KINESISKA FOLKREPUBLIKENS AMBASSAD

LIDOVÄGEN 8

115 25 STOCKHOLM

FAX 08-579 364 54

E-post: protocol@chinaembassy.se

Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement, which gained a large number of supporters in China during the 1990s. After the movement staged a peaceful gathering in Tiananmen Square in July 1999, the government outlawed the group and launched a long-term campaign of persecution. Individuals are imprisoned for their spiritual beliefs and for exercising their rights to freedom of expression by distributing materials about the group. They are sentenced to long prison terms, held in psychiatric hospitals, re-education through labour facilities (a form of administrative detention imposed without charge, trial or judicial review), and held in specialized detention centres, where the mission is to “transform” Falun Gong practitioners by forcing them via coercion into renouncing their spiritual beliefs, often through the use of torture and ill-treatment.

Torture and other ill-treatment is common in all forms of detention, despite China’s ratification of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1988. Amnesty International has documented numerous deaths in custody believed to have been caused by torture and other ill-treatment, and torture and ill-treatment leading to permanent disability, including of of Falun Gong practitioners.

Name: Ren Shuxian (f), Wang Yingxia (f), Zhang Limin (m), Qiu Yujie (f), Liu Hongli (f)

Gender m/f: Both