Paris-Geneva, January 12, 2005

Re: Arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of Ms. Mao Hengfeng

Dear Sir,
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), wishes to express its serious concern for the alleged ill-treatment and the increase in the custodial sentence of Ms. Mao Hengfeng, a long-term campaigner against China’s coercive family planning policies.
According to the information received from Human Rights in China (HRIC), Ms. Mao Hengfeng was sentenced to 18 months of Re-education Through Labour (RTL) by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau in April 2004, for protesting and petitioning against family planning policies; she has been detained at an RTL Camp in Shanghai since then. Ms. Mao has been campaigning against such policies for about 15 years, since she was dismissed from her job because of an out-of-plan pregnancy.
Ms. Mao Hengfeng is allegedly being subjected to abusive treatment in the RTL camp, including being suspended in mid-air with bound hands and feet, and subjected to severe beatings. It has been reported in November 2004 that police have bound her wrists and ankles with leather straps, and then pulled her limbs while demanding that she acknowledge wrongdoing. On November 18, 2004, at a hearing on her legal action against the authorities for terminating her welfare assistance, Ms. Mao displayed her injuries, but officials have taken no action on her behalf.
In addition, according to the information received, camp officials threatened to reduce her family visits and telephone calls, after she refused to sign a document acknowledging “thought reform”.
At the end of 2004, high-level Chinese officials reportedly authorised an extension of Ms. Mao’s detention by three months. However, neither the detained activist nor her family were allowed to examine the order authorising this extension, nor was she informed of any recourse for appeal.
The Observatory is extremely concerned by the psychological and physical integrity of Ms. Mao Hengfeng in such arbitrary and brutal conditions, worsened by these recent developments, and urges the Chinese authorities to take the necessary measures to put an end to the ill-treatment Ms. Mao has been subjected to and apply legal and administrative sanctions against those responsible. Moreover, the Observatory urges you to ensure that Ms. Mao Hengfeng be immediately released. Indeed her detention is arbitrary, since it aims at sanctioning her activity in favour of women’s rights.
The Observatory recalls that China’s birth control policies and refusal to implement reproductive rights are in contradiction with many of its international obligations and commitments. In particular, they violate article 16.1(e) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, ratified by China in 1980, which provides that “State parties shall (...) ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women: (...) The same rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights”; and 12(1), according to which “State parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning”.
Hence, Ms. Mao’s detention violates her right to defend human rights prescribed in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in particular its Article 1, which provides that “[e]veryone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”; as well as to article 12.2, which provides that “[t]he State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”.
In hope you will take these considerations and requests into account,
We remain,

L’OBSERVATOIRE pour la Protection des Défenseurs des Droits de l’Homme - THE OBSERVATORY for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders - EL OBSERVATORIO para la Protección de los Defensores de Derechos Humanos - LA LIGNE D’URGENCE - THE EMERGENCY LINE - LA LINEA DE URGENCIA : E-mail : observatoire@iprolink.ch - Direct FIDH : tel : 33 (0) 1 43 55 20 11 - fax : 33 (0) 1 43 55 18 80 - Direct OMCT : tel 41 (0) 22 809 49 39 - fax : 41 (0) 22 809 49 29