UN Investigates Torture Suffered by Professor Wu Xiaohua

Professor Wu Xiaohua's case, submitted by the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group, has drawn international attention. The case of Professor Wu has also been taken on by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (the UN Working Group). Professor Wu was one of victims whom the Working Group sought to interview during its visit to China last September. However, the People's Republic of China (PRC) rebuffed all attempts, did not provide information regarding her situation at that time, or allow contact between the UN Working Group and Ms. Wu.

Reports of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations on Professor Wu Xiaohua:

Ms Wu Xiaohua, 47 years old, an associate professor of the Environmental Art Department at Anhui Civil Construction Engineering College at Hefei city, Anhui province, was reportedly placed under house arrest in October 2001, during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit held in Shanghai. Later, she was sent to a labour camp for women. She was allegedly tortured at the camp in a number of ways, including having her mouth stuffed with rags and tissues soaked in urine and menstrual blood. In mid-October 2001, on the tenth day of a hunger strike she had initiated to protest her detention, she was sent to the No. 4 People's Hospital at Hefei city, Anhui province. At the hospital she was stripped of her clothes and shocked with electric needles and an electric baton all over her body. Dr. Li, a medical doctor, tortured her with electric shocks until she became unconscious. She was also forcibly given injections and force-fed drugs. It was further reported that Professor Wu was first arrested in December of 1999 for appealing in Beijing to the Government to put an end to its persecution of Falun Gong. She was allegedly tortured at the Anhui Female Detention Centre in Anhui province. Later she was transferred to the No. 4 People's Hospital of Hefei city where she also was tortured, including being locked in a bathhouse full of mosquitoes for one night and forced to use a pigpen full of spider webs as a toilet. At the end of April 2001, she was again arrested.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continued to persecute Ms. Wu. Late in April 2003, Ms. Wu Xiaohua completed her 18-month term in a forced labour camp. Because she refused to give up practising Falun Gong, her term was extended for two months. Ms. Wu went on a hunger strike to oppose the extension, and the police ordered other detainees to brutally force-feed her. To accomplish this, four of her teeth were extracted. She experienced brutal torture in the forced labour camp, as well as in the mental hospital, which left her struggling for survival, and she was on the verge of death several times. Long-term inhuman persecution made her hair almost totally white and she became extremely weak. As a result, Ms. Wu was released on probation on May 13th 2003.

After her release, she continued her efforts to expose the facts of the persecution. She was arrested twice in other cities after people reported her activities to the authorities. Each time, she was released immediately. On the night of November 16th 2003, Ms. Wu was arrested again after being reported for exposing the facts; her arm was wounded during the arrest. She was detained in the Second Detention Centre in Hefei City, Anhui Province.

Right after she was sent to the labour camp, she was cuffed onto a big board for nine consecutive days. Ms. Wu started a hunger strike to protest the detention and persecution. She had no bowel movement for over 50 days and was reduced to skin and bones. She was severely emaciated when she was finally bailed out of the labour camp.

Conclusion of the Working Group

In its reaction to the reply from the Government, the source states that the Government of China used "disruption of social order" as the pretext for detaining Zhong Bo, Liu Li, Wu Xiaohua, Gai Suzhi, Chen Gang, Zhang Wenfu, Liu Junhua, Zhang Jiuhai and Zhu Xiaofei. According to the source, the Government failed to name the specific offences with which they had been charged. The source notes how strange it is that people of different ages (from 25 to 62), different professions (workers, professors, retirees) and from different locations suddenly develop the same tendency to "disrupt social order", many even repeatedly. According to the source, Zhong Bo, Liu Li, Wu Xiaohua, Gai Suzhi, Chen Gang, Zhang Wenfu, Liu Junhua, Zhang Jiuhai and Zhu Xiaofei are all Falun Gong practitioners and were persecuted for exercising the freedom of belief guaranteed by China's Constitution. They were repeatedly detained and tortured for refusing to renounce Falun Gong.

The Working Group further observes that the Government has not denied that Chen Gang, Zhang Wenfu, Wu Xiaohua, Liu Junhua, Zhang Jiuhai and Zhu Xiaofei are Falun Gong practitioners, or that they were detained in connection with the practice of this discipline.

As there is no evidence that Falun Gong is a violent belief, as far as the cases under consideration are concerned, its free exercise should be protected by article 18 on freedom of belief and article 19 on freedom of opinion and expression of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Even though the sentence of re-education through labour is, as claimed by the Government, a more favourable measure, offering better possibilities to the person concerned than a prison sentence imposed by a court judgement, it still constitutes, in the opinion of the Working Group, administrative deprivation of liberty that may be arbitrary in character, as found by the Group in its deliberation 04 of 1993 (see E/CN.4/1993/24, chap. II).

In its report on its visit to China (E/CN.4/1998/44/Add.2, para. 95), the Working Group stated that the measure of re-education through labour should not be applied to any person exercising his or her fundamental freedoms as guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the cases at hand, detention does constitute a coercive measure designed to undermine the freedom of those persons to adopt beliefs of their own choosing.

The Working Group therefore deems that these persons were prosecuted and sentenced to the administrative measure of re-education through labour, and therefore deprived of their liberty, mainly for exercising fundamental rights which are set out in articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to freedom of conscience and religion (art. 18) and the right to freedom of opinion and expression (art. 19).

In the light of the foregoing, the Working Group issues the following opinion:

The detention of Chen Gang, Zhang Wenfu, Wu Xiaohua, Liu Junhua, Zhang Jiuhai and Zhu Xiaofei is arbitrary, being in contravention of articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and falls within category II of the categories applicable to the consideration of cases submitted to the Working Group.

Consequently, the Working Group requests the Government to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of these persons and to bring it into conformity with the standards and principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and encourages it to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/7/8/105728.html