IDHAE INFORMATION

OTHER IDHAE - URGENT APPEALS OBSERVATORY FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS Amnesty nternational – Worldwide appeals Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Frontline Defenders Menschenrechte - R e c h t s a n w a l t s k a m m e r. Berlin Humanrightsfirst Alert Human Rights Watch Campaigns (HRW) EURO-MEDITERRANEAN HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK (EMHRN) Asian Centre for Human Rights(ACHR)

CHINA September 29, 2007 violent attack against Li Heping Beijing-based human rights lawyer abducted and assaulted by a group of unidentified men Source : The Observatory CHN 005 / 1007 / OBS 121 See Also AI Index ASA 17/046/2007

Li Heping, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, was abducted and assaulted by a group of unidentified men on 29 September. They beat him with electro-shock batons and told him he should leave Beijing or risk further attack. He was released after about eight hours.

On September 29, 2007, at about 17.30 PM, Li Heping was abducted in the parking lot of his law firm, after he briefly spoke to the policemen who were following him. A dozen plainclothes men put a hood on his head, dragged him into a car with no license plate, drove for about an hour to an unknown location, and took him to a basement. There, the men took off his hood and tore off his clothes, except his underwear. They beat him during several hours with electric rods and took turns grabbing his hair, throwing him around, verbally abusing him and ordering him to leave Beijing. However, they failed to extract any promise from him to leave the city and warned him to practice law "within permissible bounds" and never tell anyone about his beating.

Around midnight, they put the hood back on Li’s head, drove him away and dumped him in the woods on Xiao Tang mountain, in Beijing’s suburbs. Li eventually made his way to a highway and got a taxi home. He sustained injuries all over his body and had to be taken to hospital.

When he returned home, he discovered that his lawyer’s identification card and other personal belongings were missing. All the files on his laptop computer were erased and the computer reprogrammed and thus unusable.

Several days before the attack, police from the National Security Protection Unit of the Beijing Public Security Bureau had verbally ordered Li and his family to leave Beijing. Mr. Li refused and the police had followed and watched him ostentatiously since then.

According to the information received, the men behind this attack would be part of this National Security Protection Unit. Indeed, they were able to drive cars without license plates and they abducted Li while police assigned to monitor him was watching him.

This attack seems to be part of a strategy aimed at keeping out or force out of the city those the authorities consider "trouble makers" before the 17th CCP National Congress starts here next week.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Li Heping had built a reputation for defending sensitive cases, including Christians arrested for unofficial house church activities, members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, alleged victims of forced eviction and independent writers.

Li was the defense lawyer of Yang Zili, a university student jailed for posting articles online; Tan Kai, an imprisoned environmentalist one of the leaders of the "San Ban Pu Ren" (a Christian sect) who was sentenced to death and executed in December 2006. In 2005, Li also appealed to the Beijing Bureau of Judicial Affairs on behalf of the lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, after Gao’s license was suspended by the Bureau . He is also an advisor to a number of United Nations programs in China.
While the space for civil society activities has grown over recent years in China, activistswho take on politically sensitive cases or try to rally others to their cause remain a key target for repression. Abuses against human rights activists have escalated as the authorities tighten controls in the run-up to two key events: the 17th Communist Party Congress in October, and the Beijing Olympics of August 2008. Several human rights lawyers and legal advisors have been subjected to arbitrary detention and torture or ill-treatment. Some have been imprisoned, while others have been placed under tight police surveillance in their own homes. The crackdown flies in the face of official promises to improve human rights in the run-up to the Olympics.

ACTIONS REQUESTED:

Please write to the authorities in the People’s Republic of China, urging them to:

i.Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Mr. Li Heping as well as of his family’s members;

ii.Order a thorough and impartial investigation into the above-mentioned events, in order to identify all those responsible, bring them before a civil competent and impartial tribunal and apply to them the penal, civil and/or administrative sanctions provided by the law;

iii.Put an end to the harassment against all human rights defenders in the People’s Republic of China;

iv.Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially its Article 1, which states that “everyone 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”, and Article 12.2, which provides that “the 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”;

v.Conform with the provisions of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers adopted by the UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1990;

vi.Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by the People’s Republic of China.

Addresses:

 President Hu Jintao, People’s Republic of China, c/o Embassy of the People’s Republic of China; 2300 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., 20008, USA, Fax: +01 202 588-0032;

 Minister of Justice of the People’s Republic of China, Buzhang Sifabu, Wu Aiying, 10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Chaoyangqu, Beijingshi 100020, People’s Republic of China, Fax: +86 10 6529 2345;

 Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Buzhang Waijiaobu, Mr. Li Zhaoxing, 2 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Beijingshi 100701, People’s Republic of China, Fax: +86 10 6588 2594, Email: ipc@fmprc.gov.cn;

Please also write to the diplomatic mission or embassy of the People’s Republic of China in your respective country.

TAKE ACTION NOW !