U.S. State Department on Death of Chinese Activist Cao Shunli

 U.S.State Department on Death of Chinese Activist Cao Shunli

15 March 2014

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

 

Office of the Spokesperson

 

March 15, 2014

 

STATEMENT BY JEN PSAKI, SPOKESPERSON

 

The United States is deeply disturbed by reports that rights activist Cao Shunli has passed away at a hospital in Beijing. We offer our condolences to her family.

 

Chinese authorities detained Cao Shunli in Beijing on September 14 while she was on her way to participate in civil society meetings in preparation for China’s Universal Periodic Review last October. We have repeatedly raised our concerns about Cao Shunli’s detention, including her deteriorating health, with Chinese authorities.

 

We continue to be concerned about the human rights situation in China and will continue to urge Chinese authorities to guarantee all Chinese citizens the protections and freedoms to which they are entitled under China’s international human rights commitments.

Read more: http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2014/03/20140315296354.html#ixzz2wGHIia4P

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese human rights activist Cao Shunli who passed away after being denied medical treatmentChinese human rights activist Cao Shunli who passed away after being denied medical treatment© Private

“

 

Cao Shunli’s death exposes just how callous and calculating the Chinese authorities are prepared to be to silence critics. The authorities today have blood on their hands.

”

 

Anu Kultalahti, China Researcher at Amnesty International

 

Fri, 14/03/2014

 

The Chinese authorities must immediately ensure detained activists receive all necessary medical care, Amnesty International said, after the reprehensible death of a leading campaigner who was repeatedly denied treatment.

 

Cao Shunli, 52, died from organ failure on Friday at a hospital in Beijing, after five months in detention. Repeated requests by Cao’s family for her to receive medical treatment for serious health problems were denied. 

“Cao Shunli’s death exposes just how callous and calculating the Chinese authorities are prepared to be to silence critics. The authorities today have blood on their hands.” said Anu Kultalahti, China Researcher at Amnesty International. 

 

“Cao Shunli was a courageous woman who paid the ultimate price for the fight for human rights in China.  She should have never been detained in the first place; but to then deny her the medical treatment she desperately needed is a most barbaric act.”

 

In recent months, other high profile activists, including Liu Xia, wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, have been denied medical treatment.

 

Liu Xia, who is under illegal house arrest, was denied treatment for a serious heart condition. She was finally allowed to receive hospital treatment in late February.

 

“The denial of medical treatment for activists in detention is common in order to weaken or punish them. The Chinese authorities must immediately end this unlawful and inhumane practice,” said Kultalahti.

Cao suffered from tuberculosis in both her lungs, cirrhosis of the liver and uterine fibroids. 

 

Beijing police detained Cao last September as she attempted to travel to Geneva to attend a human rights training programme. She faced charges of “picking quarrels and making trouble” believed to be for organizing a sit-in protest along with other campaigners outside China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

Cao had led attempts to allow activists to contribute to China’s national human rights report, ahead of a review at the UN Human Rights Council.

 

 

 Read more: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/china-authorities-have-blood-their-hands-after-activists-death-2014-03-14 

 

 

 Human Rights Watch

 

Dispatches: The Death of a Defender in China

 

MARCH 14, 2014

 

Sophie Richardson

 

 

Cao Shunli

 

Courtesy of open Democracy

 

Cao Shunli died today.  She was 52 and was last publicly seen in September 2013, when she was detained by police at the Beijing airport attempting to board a flight to Geneva.  She had planned to participate in a training session on human rights ahead of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of China. 

 

She never arrived. After her disappearance, Chinese authorities refused to disclose any information about her whereabouts for weeks until she was formally charged in October first with “illegal assembly” and then with “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.” 

 

Chinese officials have claimed in recent days that, “No one suffers reprisal for taking part in lawful activities or international mechanisms.”  “Citizens have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or official.” “There is no so-called issue of suppressing ‘human rights defenders’.”

 

These statements should be at the core of all other governments’ interventions in Geneva next week, at the final phase of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of China.

 

Over the course of 2013, Ms. Cao, a longtime activist, came to particular attention precisely for pressuring Beijing to allow genuine, independent civil society views to feed into the drafting of the government’s report to the Universal Periodic Review process. Cao submitted public letters and organized peaceful protests in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding governmental transparency in the drafting process and civil society participation. Throughout her subsequent months in detention, her lawyer and family members called attention to her worsening medical condition, and she was diagnosed in November 2013 by a prison doctor with illnesses including pneumonia in both lungs.

 

Her family repeatedly requested she be granted medical parole, but only when she fell into a coma in February 2014 did prison officials transfer her to a Beijing hospital. Police then focused on pressuring her family to accept medical parole for her, which would take the authorities off the hook for endangering her life. Police also took into custody five of Cao’s supporters who went to the hospital while she was in critical condition.

Everything about the circumstances of her case – the harassment she faced, her arbitrary detention, the ludicrous and legally baseless charges against her, the reluctance or refusal to swiftly grant access to adequate medical care – suggests it’s unlikely the Chinese government will voluntarily agree to an independent, credible investigation into her death. But with her passing, the onus is on all those concerned about human rights in China to battle for the kind of transparency for which Cao paid with her life.   

 

As China goes before the Human Rights Council on March 19 to defend its dubious claims to respect rights, it should be made to answer for Cao’s death and to promise that those responsible are held accountable.