Human Rights Work for China

Since the coming into power of the Communist party many millions of people are persecuted, arrested, convicted, tortured, raped and killed or executed for political reasons in the People’s Republic of China. Freedom of opinion, -press, -religion, -association, -movement and the right to belong to unions are suppressed. Ethnic minorities like the Tibetans or Uyghurs which strive for more autonomy, are violently forced to recognise the Chinese government’s policies. Ten thousands of innocent people are detained in prisons, penal-, labour and re-education camps because the Chinese government has declared them to be enemies and persecuted them for political reasons. Currently members of the Buddhist meditation school Falun Gong are severely persecuted.

• There are documentations of over 1000 cases of death by torture or maltreatment from the last years,
• Hundred thousands were unlawfully arrested and imprisoned,
• Over 100,000 were sent to labour- and re-education camps without a trial,
• Over 500 were sentenced to up to 18 years of prison without consultation of a lawyer,
• Hundred thousands were forced to participate in re-education courses (“brain-washing courses”) in camps or at their work place,
• Over 1000 healthy Falun Gong members were admitted to a mental institution and abused with psychotropic drugs,
• Especially women are victims of numerous forms of sexual violence, rape, sexual abuses and forced abortions.

In November 2001 ISHR members protested against the arrest, persecution, torture and killing of Falun Gong members in the PR China. They protested on Tianmen Square in Beijing and set a public signal against the injustice through their civil courage. Since then several protests took place with ISHR’s support. It was realised there that the Chinese government is exerting pressure on Germany and other countries and that this pressure is not averted adequately.

ISHR fights against these crimes through its publications, press releases, appeal- and signature campaigns, through letters to Chinese decision makers, through conversations with and contacts to members in Germany and the European Parliament, the EU and representatives of the United Nations etc. The 2008 Olympic Games will take place in Beijing. ISHR will use the presence of many visitors to raise attention to the human rights situation in the PR China.