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China rights website founder held over 'state secrets': Amnesty
by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) Dec 22, 2016


Draft law may allow China police to shoot protesters: HRW
Beijing (AFP) Dec 22, 2016 - A revised draft of China's policing law could give officers the power to use firearms against peaceful protesters, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday as it called for the country to bring the legislation in line with UN standards.

The draft -- a revision to a law first adopted in 1995 and revised once before in 2012 -- was issued by the public security bureau on December 1 for public commentary before the end of the year.

It seeks to give police more concrete guidelines on the use of weapons, according to Chinese media reports.

But three out of the five situations in which it stipulates police may use firearms "after warnings are ineffective" did not conform to basic UN principles, Human Rights Watch said in comments on the draft submitted Thursday to Chinese authorities.

The legal text states that police may use weapons on those who "resist arrest or flee while or after perpetrating acts that seriously endanger national security or public safety". according a draft posted on the public security bureau's official web site.

But as the terms "national security" and "public safety" are broadly interpreted within Chinese law, the wording gives police the right to train firearms on individuals in situations far beyond what is permissible under international law, HRW China researcher Maya Wang told AFP.

"The Chinese government frequently conflates peaceful criticism of the government with threats to national security, so this could potentially mean that the police could use firearms against people who peacefully criticise the government," she said.

Additionally, the new draft gave county-level police the ability to "implement internet controls" with the permission of the provincial-level public security organs "when necessary".

Though it provided no further details about the nature of the controls, it listed times of "natural disasters, accidents, public health incidents, public security incidents, or imminent risk of the occurrence of these disasters", among others, as situations where the clause would be applicable.

Chinese police already have the power to monitor and censor online content, but the new provision could give them the ability to impose "network suspension" -- the cutting of internet access to entire regions -- Human Rights Watch said.

The tactic was employed by authorities in 2009 in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, where internet access was cut for 10 months after violent riots.

"The draft revisions to the Police Law do little to make the police more accountable, and actually expand the force's powers in ways that could exacerbate abuses," HRW China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement.

The founder of one of China's few websites dedicated to reporting human rights abuses has been formally arrested for "leaking state secrets", Amnesty International said Thursday -- the latest blow in a broad crackdown on activists.

Huang Qi ran the website "64 Tianwang", named in part after the bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protestors, for nearly two decades.

Its headlines -- "Village Officials Stab Campaigner", "Gangsters Detain Protestor" -- are rarely seen in ordinary Chinese media, and the content is blocked on the mainland.

The site was awarded the Reporters Without Borders (RSF)-TV5 Monde Press Freedom Prize in early November. Twelve years ago, he received RSF's "Cyber-Dissident Prize."

Just weeks after receiving the most recent prize, Huang was detained by police in his hometown of Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, according to Amnesty -- his third detention this year.

Last Friday, his family received official notice that he had been formally arrested for leaking state secrets to overseas entities, the campaign group said.

It remained unclear whether he had access to a lawyer, Amnesty China researcher Patrick Poon told AFP, stating that Huang was "at risk of torture and other mistreatment".

"He may have been targeted because of the international attention he and his website received" from the RSF prize, Poon said.

Huang's arrest might also be intended as a warning to websites chronicling grassroots activism in advance of a controversial new law set to impose restrictions on foreign NGOs operating in China, which will come into force in January.

The law gives police wide-ranging powers over overseas charities and bans them from recruiting members or raising funds in the country.

"I'm quite worried that the government is trying to send a signal to organisations that they believe to have foreign links," said Poon, noting that authorities had detained Liu Feiyue, founder of the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, around the same time as Huang.

President Xi Jinping has overseen a wide-ranging clampdown on civil society since assuming power in 2012.

But Huang's struggles to continue his work date even further back.

In 2000 he was jailed for five years, the first ever Chinese "cyber-dissident" to be imprisoned for online activism.

He was imprisoned again for a further three years in 2009 for reporting on low-quality school buildings that collapsed in a massive earthquake the previous year in Sichuan which claimed 87,000 lives.

He had been physically abused while in jail, Huang told AFP during an interview last year, but stated that he nevertheless felt that authorities now appreciated his coverage, as the exposure of injustices committed by local officials dovetailed with an anti-corruption campaign also launched under Xi.

"The top levels of government no longer think of me as a threat," he said at the time. "They even see me as useful, because I expose a lot of cases which they don't know about."


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