2015-11-18
Guo Feixiong in a file photo.
Photo courtesy of Guo Feixiong
The wife of a Chinese rights lawyer who has been in movement-restricted solitary confinement with no fresh air or exercise for more than two years has hit out at his inhumane treatment as Beijing’s torture record is reviewed by the United Nations.
U.S.-based Zhang Qing, wife of jailed Chinese rights lawyer and activist Yang Maodong, better known by his pseudonym Guo Feixiong, said he has been held in Tianhe detention center in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou with no space to move around since August 2013.
“One of the biggest issues is that they have locked Guo Feixiong up for [more than] two years in a very small and confined space, where he hasn’t been able to move around,” Zhang told RFA in a recent interview.
“He hasn’t been allowed outside for exercise, or to see sunlight, and this has done huge damage to his health,” she said. “I think that this has already turned into a form of deliberate harm; it’s a slow form of torture.”
“This is a form of political persecution, and it’s a form of physical abuse and torture to lock him up in such a terrible environment for such a long time,” Zhang said.
Guo is awaiting sentencing on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” following a trial at Guangzhou’s Tianhe District People’s Court on Nov. 28.
“I wish they would bring this case to its conclusion,” Zhang said. “Of course it’s because he is innocent, and they are dragging their feet because they have no evidence.”
No verdict after two years
Guo Feixiong’s lawyer Zhang Lei said his client’s basic human rights have been violated by the long delay in the judicial process.
“It is wrong and unjust that he should have been locked up for so long, because the right to the timely expedition of due legal process is a basic human right, one of the standards laid down in international human rights covenants,” Zhang Lei said.
“He has been detained for two years and two months, and it is nearly a year since his trial, and there is still no verdict.”
The United Nations Committee against Torture began the second day of its review of China’s compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment on Wednesday amid widespread criticism of Beijing’s record from U.S. politicians and rights groups.
“The use of torture in China is widespread and routine, the evidence is clear, and should be a matter the international community takes very seriously,” Congressman Chris Smith, who chairs the Congressional Executive Committee on China (CECC) said in a statement ahead of the review.
“Ruthless measures are used regularly to crush dissent, repress religious adherents the government can’t control, brutalize women who seek to circumvent China’s draconian population control policies, and silence legal advocates working on behalf of the poor and persecuted,” Smith said.
He called on the U.N. committee to hold Beijing to account and resist pressure to “sanitize its record.”
Meanwhile, Beijing-based rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, who is a former victim of torture, said that at least seven rights lawyers had been prevented from traveling to give evidence to the committee in Geneva by the Chinese authorities in recent weeks.
“A lot of people who could have given testimony about torture, myself included, are unable to leave the country,” Yu said on Wednesday. “They included Zhang Keke, who had planned to travel to Geneva ahead of the review.”
“It’s not just lawyers, either; some human rights defenders and victims of torture … have received visits from the state security police before they had even tried to leave, telling them not to go,” Yu said, adding that many of the activists had requested anonymity.
“The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t want lawyers, rights activists or former victims of torture showing up in Geneva and giving testimony,” he said.
