The report is based on the testimony of dozens of people affected by collective punishment last year and has redacted some identifying details to protect them from official reprisals. file. | Image Credit: Reuters
A rights group warned on April 15 that the children of human rights lawyers in China were being punished for their parents’ activism as Beijing intensified its crackdown on civil society.
China has long faced accusations of suppressing human rights, particularly in the troubled regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and more recently in the former British colony of Hong Kong.
Beijing has consistently denied the accusations and says the allegations are part of a deliberate smear campaign involving its development.
But a new report released Monday by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a group of international and Chinese NGOs, points to several recent cases of “mass punishment” against the families of human rights defenders.
“This report focuses on 2023, where Chinese authorities have used these tactics for decades, causing enormous damage with impunity,” it said.
“Seeking redress often triggers police harassment, brutality and baseless prosecutions,” it added.
The report is based on the testimony of dozens of people affected by collective punishment last year and has redacted some identifying details to protect them from official reprisals.
It said authorities threatened and harmed the children of rights advocates, including imposing curfews, forcing them to stay out of school, and detaining them in psychiatric wards and orphanages.
AFP The claims could not be independently verified.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s collective punishment of families of human rights defenders is an informal or covert policy carried out by government officials,” the report quoted one activist as saying.
It refers to the case of He Fangmei, a jailed campaigner for vaccine safety and victims of botched vaccines — whose young children were placed in a psychiatric hospital after her and her husband’s arrest.
After she gave birth, her newborn baby was also kept in the institution, the report said.
In another case, the family of human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhong was reportedly subjected to severe persecution and his young son was denied an education through official pressure on schools.
Last month, police showed up at the school the boy had been attending for just ten days, according to reports.
“He got kicked out of school again!” His mother Li Wenju — also an activist — is mentioned.
Those who try to flee such treatment by going abroad are slapped with exit bans, the report said — a practice that rights groups say has intensified in recent years as President Xi Jinping tightens controls.
Monday’s report shed some light on the fate of activist Peng Lifa, who disappeared after putting up banners condemning Xi and the country’s Covid policies.
“To prevent his family from speaking out, Chinese police… put his family members and relatives under surveillance and cut off all contact with each other and the outside world,” the report said.