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China
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices  - 2003
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
February 25, 2004
 

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which, as directed by the Constitution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP or Party) is the paramount source of power. Party members hold almost all top government, police, and military positions. Ultimate authority rests with the 24-member political bureau (Politburo) of the CCP and its 9-member standing committee. Leaders made a top priority of maintaining stability and social order and were committed to perpetuating the rule of the CCP and its hierarchy. Citizens lacked both the freedom peacefully to express opposition to the Party-led political system and the right to change their national leaders or form of government. Socialism continued to provide the theoretical underpinning of national politics, but Marxist economic planning has given way to pragmatism, and economic decentralization increased the authority of local officials. The Party's authority rested primarily on the Government's ability to maintain social stability; appeals to nationalism and patriotism; Party control of personnel, media, and the security apparatus; and continued improvement in the living standards of most of the country's 1.3 billion citizens. The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, in practice, the Government and the CCP, at both the central and local levels, frequently interfered in the judicial process and directed verdicts in many high-profile cases.

The security apparatus is made up of the Ministries of State Security and Public Security, the People's Armed Police, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the state judicial, procuratorial, and penal systems. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces. Security policy and personnel were responsible for numerous human rights abuses.

The country's transition from a centrally planned to a market-based economy continued. Although state-owned industry remained dominant in key sectors, the Government has set up a commission to help reform major state-owned enterprises (SOEs), privatized many small and medium SOEs, and allowed private entrepreneurs increasing scope for economic activity. Rising urban living standards; greater independence for entrepreneurs; the reform of the public sector, including government efforts to improve and accelerate sales of state assets and to improve management of remaining government monopolies; and expansion of the non-state sector increased workers' employment options and significantly reduced state control over citizens' daily lives.

The country faced many economic challenges, including reform of SOEs and the banking system, growing unemployment and underemployment, the need to construct an effective social safety net, and growing regional economic disparities. In recent years, between 100 and 150 million persons voluntarily left rural areas to search for better jobs and living conditions in the cities, where they were often denied access to government-provided economic and social benefits, including education and health care. During the year, the Government issued regulations that relaxed controls over such migration and expanded the rights of migrants to basic social services. In the industrial sector, continued downsizing of SOEs contributed to rising urban unemployment that was widely believed to be much higher than the officially estimated 4 percent, with many sources estimating the actual figure to be as high as 20 percent. Income gaps between coastal and interior regions, and between urban and rural areas, continued to widen. The Government reported that urban per capita income in 2002 was $933 and grew by 12 percent over the previous year, while rural per capita income was $300 and grew by 5 percent. Official estimates of the number of citizens living in absolute poverty showed little change from the previous year, with the Government estimating that 30 million persons lived in poverty and the World Bank, using different criteria, estimating the number to be 100 to 150 million persons.

The Government's human rights record remained poor, and the Government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses. Although legal reforms continued, there was backsliding on key human rights issues during the year, including arrests of individuals discussing sensitive subjects on the Internet, health activists, labor protesters, defense lawyers, journalists, house church members, and others seeking to take advantage of the space created by reforms. Citizens did not have the right peacefully to change their government, and many who openly expressed dissenting political views were harassed, detained, or imprisoned. Authorities were quick to suppress religious, political, and social groups that they perceived as threatening to government authority or national stability.

Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process. Tibetan Lobsang Dondrub was executed in January, a day after his appeal was denied, despite promises made to diplomatic observers that the Supreme People's Court (SPC) would review his case. In April, the Government officially concluded a nationwide "strike hard" campaign against crime, which was implemented with particular force in Xinjiang and included expedited trials and public executions. However, short-term campaigns against specific types of crime were launched in some areas during the year, and, in Xinjiang, particularly harsh treatment of suspected Uighur separatists reportedly continued after the official end of the nationwide strike hard campaign in April. Amnesty International (AI) reported that China executed more persons than any other country.

The judiciary was not independent, and the lack of due process remained a serious problem. Government pressure made it difficult for Chinese lawyers to represent criminal defendants. A number of attorneys were detained for representing their clients actively. During the year, Beijing defense lawyer Zhang Jianzhong and Shanghai housing advocate Zheng Enchong both were sentenced to multi-year prison terms in connection with their defense of controversial clients. The authorities routinely violated legal protections in the cases of political dissidents and religious figures. They generally attached higher priority to suppressing political opposition and maintaining public order than to enforcing legal norms or protecting individual rights.

Throughout the year, the Government prosecuted individuals for subversion and leaking state secrets as a means to harass and intimidate. In July, lawyer Zhao Changqing was sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment on charges of subversion for his alleged role in drafting an open letter to the November 2002 16th Party Congress urging democratization. At least five others who signed the letter were also prosecuted on such charges. In October, former attorney Zheng Enchong was sentenced to 3 years in prison for "disclosing state secrets" as an alleged result of his providing information about labor and housing protests to a foreign human rights organization. The same month, house church member Liu Fenggang was detained on state secrets charges, allegedly for providing information to overseas nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) about his investigation into the destruction of house churches in Zhejiang Province. Others detained, prosecuted, or sentenced on state secrets charges included political dissident Yang Jianli and a number of Internet writers.

Over 250,000 persons were serving sentences, not subject to judicial review, in "reeducation-through-labor" camps. In April, inmate Zhang Bin was beaten to death in a reeducation-through-labor camp, prompting public debate on reeducation through labor and calls to abolish the system.

The number of individuals serving sentences for the now-repealed crime of counterrevolution was estimated at 500-600; many of these persons were imprisoned for the nonviolent expression of their political views. Credible sources estimated that as many as 2,000 persons remained in prison at year's end for their activities during the June 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.

The authorities released political activist Fang Jue in January. Many others, including China Democracy Party co-founders Wang Youcai and Qin Yongmin; Internet activists Xu Wei, Yang Zili, and Huang Qi; Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer; journalist Jiang Weiping; labor activists Yao Fuxin, Xiao Yunliang, and Liu Jingsheng; Catholic Bishop Su Zhimin; house church leaders Zhang Yinan, Liu Fenggang and Xu Yonghai; Tibetan nun Phuntsog Nyidrol; Uighur historian Tohti Tunyaz; and political dissident Yang Jianli remained imprisoned or under other forms of detention.

The Government used the international war on terror as a justification for cracking down harshly on suspected Uighur separatists expressing peaceful political dissent and on independent Muslim religious leaders. The human rights situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and in some ethnically Tibetan regions outside the TAR also remained poor (see Tibet Addendum).

The Government maintained tight restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press. The Government regulated the establishment and management of publications, controlled the broadcast media, at times censored foreign television broadcasts, and at times jammed radio signals from abroad. During the year, publications were closed and otherwise disciplined for publishing material deemed objectionable by the Government, and journalists, authors, academics, and researchers were harassed, detained, and arrested by the authorities. In May, Sichuan website manager Huang Qi and students belonging to the New Youth Study Group received long prison sentences for their Internet essays encouraging democracy. Others detained or convicted for their Internet activity included Tao Haidong, Luo Yongzhong, Du Daobin, Yan Jun, Li Zhi, and Jiang Lijun. In November, Beijing Normal University Student Liu Di and two others were released on bail after a year of pretrial detention in connection with their Internet postings. Internet use continued to grow in the country, even as the Government continued and intensified efforts to monitor and control use of the Internet and other wireless technology including cellular phones, pagers, and instant messaging devices. During the year, the Government blocked many websites, increased regulations on Internet cafes, and pressured Internet companies to pledge to censor objectionable content. NGOs reported that 39 journalists were imprisoned at year's end and that 48 persons had been imprisoned by the Government for their Internet writing during China's brief history of Internet use.

Initially, news about the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was strictly censored, and some journals were closed because they disclosed information about SARS. In April, the Government publicly acknowledged that the SARS epidemic was more serious than previously admitted. Those accused of interfering with SARS prevention were detained. Hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners were detained on such accusations. Information about the spread of HIV/AIDS also continued to be tightly controlled in some provinces. In June, hundreds of police violently suppressed protests by persons infected with HIV/AIDS in Xiongqiao village, Henan Province. Henan health official Ma Shiwen was detained during the year on charges of disclosing state secrets after providing information about the extent of the HIV epidemic in Henan Province to website publishers.

The Government severely restricted freedom of assembly and association and infringed on individuals' rights to privacy.

While the number of religious believers in the country continued to grow, government respect for religious freedom remained poor. Members of unregistered Protestant and Catholic congregations; Muslim Uighurs; Tibetan Buddhists, particularly those residing within the TAR (see Tibet Addendum); and members of folk religions experienced ongoing and, in some cases, increased official interference, harassment, and repression. Protestant activists Zhang Yinan, Xu Yonghai, Liu Fenggang, and Zhang Shengqi were among those detained or sentenced. However, religious groups in some areas noted a greater freedom to worship than in the past. The Government continued to enforce regulations requiring all places of religious activity to register with the Government or to come under the supervision of official, "patriotic" religious organizations. In some areas, religious services were broken up and church leaders and adherents were harassed, detained, or beaten. At year's end, scores of religious adherents remained in prison because of their religious activities. No visible progress was made in improving relations between the Government and the Vatican, although both sides claimed to be ready to resume negotiations aimed at establishing diplomatic relations. The Government continued its crackdown against the Falun Gong spiritual movement, and thousands of practitioners remained incarcerated in prisons, extrajudicial reeducation-through-labor camps, and psychiatric facilities. Several hundred Falun Gong adherents reportedly have died in detention due to torture, abuse, and neglect since the crackdown on Falun Gong began in 1999.

Freedom of movement continued to be restricted. The Government denied the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) permission to operate along its border with North Korea and deported several thousand North Koreans, many of whom faced persecution upon their return. Abuse and detention of North Koreans in the country was also reported. However, the Government continued to relax its residence-based registration requirements and eliminated requirements for work unit approval of certain personal decisions, such as getting married.

The Government did not permit independent domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to monitor human rights conditions. In September, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education visited Beijing. Although the Government extended "unconditional" invitations to the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Torture, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Religious Intolerance, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), expected visits did not occur by year's end. Conditions imposed by the Government caused negotiations with the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Torture to break down and caused USCIRF twice to postpone a planned trip.

Violence against women (including imposition of a birth limitation policy coercive in nature that resulted in instances of forced abortion and forced sterilization), prostitution, and discrimination against women, persons with disabilities, and minorities continued to be problems.

Labor demonstrations, particularly those protesting nonpayment of back wages, continued but were not as large or widespread as those in 2002. In May, Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, leaders of the largest demonstrations in 2002, were sentenced to prison terms on charges of subversion. Workplace safety remained a serious problem, particularly in the mining industry. The Government continued to deny internationally recognized worker rights, and forced labor in prison facilities remained a serious problem. Trafficking in persons also remained a serious problem.

However, significant legal reforms continued during the year. In June, the Government abolished the administrative detention system of "custody and repatriation" for migrants. Reforms also expanded legal aid and introduced restrictions on extended unlawful detention. In October, the Third Party Plenum formally approved a constitutional amendment that will, if approved at the March 2004 session of the National People's Congress, put the protection of individual rights into China's constitution for the first time. At year's end, it remained unclear how these reforms would be implemented and what effect they would have.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life

During the year, politically motivated and other arbitrary and unlawful killings occurred. The official press reported extrajudicial killings, but no nationwide statistics were available. Deaths in custody due to police use of torture to coerce confessions from criminal suspects continued to occur. Beating deaths during administrative detention also occurred and sparked public calls for reform (see Sections 1.c. and 1.d.).

Several hundred Falun Gong adherents reportedly have died in detention due to torture, abuse, and neglect since the crackdown on Falun Gong began in 1999. For example, Falun Gong groups alleged that more than 50 persons died in custody in June through August, many from torture in detention camps.

Trials involving capital offenses sometimes took place under circumstances where the lack of due process or a meaningful appeal bordered on extrajudicial killing. NGOs reported over 1,000 executions during the year, including dozens on June 26 to mark international anti-drug day. AI reported that China executed more persons than any other country. In 2002, officials reportedly carried out over 4,000 executions after summary trials as part of a nationwide "strike hard" campaign against crime. The actual number of persons executed likely was far higher than the number of reported cases. The Government regarded the number of death sentences it carried out as a state secret but stated that the number of executions decreased during the year. Some foreign academics estimated that as many as 10,000 to 20,000 persons were executed each year.

b. Disappearance

In some areas, police targeted dissidents without family members for detention or incarceration in psychiatric facilities. With no family to notify, this practice in effect constituted disappearance.

The Government has used incommunicado detention. For example, in December 2002, the Government acknowledged that it was holding dissident Wang Bingzhang, who along with two other individuals disappeared in Vietnam on June 26, 2002. After several months of incommunicado detention, the other detainees, Zhang Qi and Yue Wu, were released but, in January, Wang was convicted on charges of espionage and terrorism and sentenced to life in prison. In February, his appeal was denied. In July, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found that Wang's disappearance, arrest, and imprisonment violated international standards, and he asked the Guangdong Provincial High Court in September to reconsider his case. Wang also objected to being forced to attend political study sessions and went on a hunger strike in prison as a protest. At year's end, the court had taken no action.

As of year's end, the Government had not provided a comprehensive, credible accounting of all those missing or detained in connection with the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The law prohibits torture; however, police and other elements of the security apparatus employed torture and degrading treatment in dealing with some detainees and prisoners. The Prison Law forbids prison guards from extorting confessions by torture, insulting prisoners' dignity, and beating or encouraging others to beat prisoners. While senior officials acknowledged that torture and coerced confessions were chronic problems, they did not take sufficient measures to end these practices. Former detainees reported credibly that officials used electric shocks, prolonged periods of solitary confinement, incommunicado detention, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse. Recommendations from the May 2000 report of the U.N. Committee Against Torture still had not been fully implemented by year's end. These recommendations included incorporating a definition of torture into domestic law, abolishing all forms of administrative detention (including reeducation through labor), promptly investigating all allegations of torture, and providing training courses on international human rights standards for police.

During the year, police use of torture to coerce confessions from criminal suspects continued to be a problem. The 2002 death in custody of Zeng Lingyun of Chongqing Municipality remained unresolved. On July 26, 2002, public security personnel detained Zeng on theft charges. On July 28, his family was informed that he had died. Local officials initially told Zeng's family that he had been shot by police, and the family noticed extensive bruises and a bullet wound on the body.

Since the crackdown on Falun Gong began in 1999, there reportedly have been several hundred deaths in custody of Falun Gong adherents, due to torture, abuse, and neglect (see Section 2.c.).

The Government made some efforts to address the problem of torture during the year. Some provincial governments issued regulations stipulating that judges and police using torture to extract confessions from suspects would face dismissal. The Government announced that evidence obtained through coerced confessions would be excluded from trial in certain administrative cases (which include acts akin to certain criminal misdemeanors as well as behavior punishable through administrative detention, such as disruption to social order). Police officers who tortured suspects faced dismissal and criminal prosecution in some cases. For example, two police in Dandong, Liaoning Province, were sentenced to 1 and 2 years in jail in December, after torturing two suspects to death in 2001.

During the year, there were reports of persons, particularly Falun Gong adherents, sentenced to psychiatric hospitals for expressing their political or religious beliefs (see Section 1.d.).

Conditions in penal institutions for both political prisoners and common criminals generally were harsh and frequently degrading. Prisoners and detainees often were kept in overcrowded conditions with poor sanitation, and their food often was inadequate and of poor quality. Many detainees relied on supplemental food and medicines provided by relatives, but some prominent dissidents reportedly were not allowed to receive supplemental food or medicine from relatives. According to released political prisoners, in many provinces it was standard practice for political prisoners to be segregated from each other and placed with common criminals. Released prisoners reported that common criminals have beaten political prisoners at the instigation of guards. Some prominent political prisoners received better than standard treatment.

The 1994 Prison Law was designed, in part, to improve treatment of detainees and increase respect for their legal rights; however, many provisions of this law have not been effectively implemented. Some prisoners were able to use administrative procedures provided for in this law to complain about prison conditions. The Government also has created some "model" facilities, where inmates generally received better treatment than those held in other facilities. Chinese prison management relied on the labor of prisoners both as an element of punishment and to fund prison operations (see Section 6.c.). During the year, the Government established a pilot program in some locations to separate prison enterprises from prison reform and punishment functions.

Adequate, timely medical care for prisoners continued to be a serious problem, despite official assurances that prisoners have the right to prompt medical treatment if they become ill. Political prisoners continued to have difficulties in obtaining medical treatment, despite repeated appeals on their behalf by their families and the international community. Those with health concerns included China Democracy Party (CDP) co-founders Qin Yongmin and Wang Youcai; Internet essayist Luo Yongzhang; democracy activists Hua Di and He Depu; labor activists Xiao Yunliang, Yao Fuxin, Hu Shigen, Liu Jingsheng, and Zhang Shanguang; Tibetan nun Phuntsog Nyidrol; religious prisoners Liu Fenggang and Bishop Su Zhimin; dissident Wang Bingzhang; and Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer. During the year, anti-corruption campaigner An Jun, Internet dissident Xu Wei, and dissident Wang Bingzhang allegedly went on hunger strikes in prison.

Conditions in administrative detention facilities, such as reeducation-through-labor camps, were similar to those in prisons. Two highly publicized deaths in administrative detention prompted calls for an overhaul of the system. In March, a university graduate, Sun Zhigang from Henan Province, was beaten to death in a Guangzhou city custody and repatriation center after being detained by police as a suspected illegal migrant. Sun did not have a Guangzhou residency document, and police reportedly locked him in a custody and repatriation facility because his accent revealed he was from a different province. In the facility, inmates beat him to death, and some facility employees allegedly knew of and encouraged the beating. Subsequently, criminal charges were filed against 18 persons. One staff member of the facility was executed, and several prisoners who allegedly inflicted the beating received stiff jail terms or suspended death sentences. Police involved were given mostly administrative punishments. Sun's death led to unprecedented public calls for abolition of the custody and repatriation system of administrative detention for illegal migrants, including petitions by legal scholars and National People's Congress (NPC) members. On June 22, the State Council abolished the system and called for the conversion of administrative detention centers into humanitarian relief centers to support migrants, vagrants, and the homeless. At year's end, the impact of these reforms remained uncertain.

In April, inmate Zhang Bin was tortured and beaten to death at the Huludao City Correctional Camp, a reeducation-through-labor facility in Liaoning Province, where he had reportedly been sentenced to 18 months as punishment for theft. For 30 days, 9 inmates and the inmate labor boss reportedly beat Zhang, stripped him naked, abused him with plastic pipes and hammers, applied hot peppers and salt to his wounds, and doused him in cold water. After Zhang died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital on April 16, 2 workers at the camp were indicted on criminal charges of abuse of authority. In December, inmates charged in the beating were sentenced to long prison terms, and the leader of the gang who beat Zhang was given the death penalty. Zhang's death also prompted calls for reform of reeducation through labor, including a petition by six Guangzhou-based members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, but no such reforms had been made as of year's end.

In the wake of the Sun and Zhang deaths in custody, public security officials admitted that these beating deaths were not isolated incidents. Sexual and physical abuse and extortion were reported in some detention centers. Forced labor in prisons and reeducation-through-labor camps was also common. At the Xinhua Reeducation-Through-Labor Camp in Sichuan Province, inmates were forced to work up to 16 hours per day breaking rocks or making bricks, according to credible reports.

The Government generally did not permit independent monitoring of prisons or reeducation-through-labor camps, and prisoners remained inaccessible to international human rights organizations. Although the Government agreed to invite the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Torture, this visit stalled in part because of the Government's refusal to allow him to visit prisons without advance notice (see Section 4). By year's end, the Government had not announced any progress in talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on an agreement for ICRC access to prisons, although there was some discussion of ICRC opening an office in Beijing. Semi-monthly working-level meetings intended to renew cooperation on the U.S.-China Prison Labor Memorandum of Understanding continued during the year (see Section 6.c). A scheduled visit by U.S. officials to discuss prison labor was postponed due to SARS.

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Arbitrary arrest and detention remained serious problems. The law permits authorities, in some circumstances, to detain persons without arresting or charging them, and persons may be sentenced administratively to up to 3 years in reeducation-through-labor camps and other similar facilities without a trial. Because the Government tightly controlled information, it was impossible to determine accurately the total number of persons subjected to new or continued arbitrary arrest or detention. Official government statistics indicated that there were 230,000 persons in reeducation-through-labor camps, while NGOs claimed some 310,000 persons were in reeducation through labor during the year. According to a 2001 article by the official news agency, 300 reeducation-through-labor facilities have held more than 3.5 million prisoners since 1957. In addition, it was estimated that approximately 2 million persons per year were detained in a form of administrative detention known as custody and repatriation until that system was abolished in June after the beating death of Sun Zhigang (see Section 1.c.). The Government also confined some Falun Gong adherents, labor activists, and others to psychiatric hospitals. Approximately 500-600 individuals continued to serve sentences for the now-repealed crime of counterrevolution. Many of these persons were imprisoned for the nonviolent expression of their political views (see Section 1.e.).

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) coordinates the country's law enforcement, which is administratively organized into local, county, provincial, and specialized police agencies. Recent efforts have been made to strengthen historically weak regulation and management of law enforcement agencies; however, judicial oversight is limited and checks and balances are absent. Many police and law enforcement units in the country remained poorly trained and lacked basic investigation skills. Corruption at the local level was widespread. Police officers reportedly coerced victims, took individuals into custody without due cause, arbitrarily collected fees from individuals charged with crimes, and mentally and physically abused victims and perpetrators. State media reported that the Government fired over 44,700 police officers for corruption and abuse of authority or dereliction of duty during the year.

Extended, unlawful detention by security officials remained a serious problem. The Supreme People's Procuratorate reported that, from 1998 through 2002, there were 308,182 persons detained for periods longer than permitted by law. At a National People's Congress committee hearing, the Government acknowledged that the problem of extended detention "has not been fundamentally resolved" and varied by location.

Unlawful extended detention disproportionately affected political dissidents. Dissident Yang Jianli was held without charges for over a year before his August 4 trial. At year's end, he remained in jail without a conviction or legal justification for his extended detention. In June, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that China's pretrial detention of Yang Jianli violated the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The release on bail of Internet writer Liu Di after a year of pretrial detention, as well as the convictions of democracy activist Jiang Lijun after a year of pretrial detention and of attorney Zhang Jianzhong after more than 19 months of pre- and post-trial detention, were results of public concern over the issue of unlawful extended detention and a resulting government campaign to address the problem.

This campaign, addressing both pre- and post-trial detention, began in July when the SPC, and later the MPS and Supreme People's Procuratorate, directed courts and police to resolve cases and provide statistics about unlawful extended detention. The MPS stated that police responsible for unlawful extended detention would be prosecuted, and some police were prosecuted and jailed on such charges during the year. At year's end, the SPC announced that Chinese courts had reviewed all cases of unlawful extended detention by police and the courts. According to state media, courts reviewed and solved 4,100 cases of unlawful extended detention, releasing 7,658 detainees; only 91 cases remained unresolved and required further examination.

According to the 1997 Criminal Procedure Law, police can unilaterally detain a person for up to 37 days before releasing him or formally placing him under arrest. After a suspect is arrested, the law allows police and prosecutors to detain him for months before trial while a case is being "further investigated." The law stipulates that authorities must notify a detainee's family or work unit of his detention within 24 hours. However, in practice, failure to provide timely notification remained a serious problem, particularly in sensitive political cases. Under a sweeping exception, officials were not required to provide notification if doing so would "hinder the investigation" of a case. In some cases, police treated those with no immediate family more severely. Police continued to hold individuals without granting access to family members or lawyers, and trials continued to be conducted in secret. Detained criminal suspects, defendants, their legal representatives, and close relatives were entitled to apply for bail, but, in practice, few suspects were released pending trial.

The Criminal Procedure Law does not address the reeducation-through-labor system, which allows non-judicial panels of police and local authorities, called Labor Reeducation Committees, to sentence persons to up to 3 years in prison-like facilities. The committees could also extend an inmate's sentence for an additional year. Defendants were legally entitled to challenge reeducation-through-labor sentences under the Administrative Litigation Law. They could appeal for a reduction in, or suspension of, their sentences; however, appeals rarely were successful. Many other persons were detained in similar forms of administrative detention, known as "custody and education" (for example, for prostitutes and their clients) and "custody and training" (for minors who committed crimes). Persons could be detained for long periods under these provisions, particularly if they could not afford to pay fines or fees.

According to foreign researchers, the country had 20 "ankang" institutions (high-security psychiatric hospitals for the criminally insane) directly administered by the MPS. Some dissidents and other targeted individuals were housed with mentally ill patients in these institutions. The regulations for committing a person into an ankang psychiatric facility were not clear. Credible reports indicated that a number of political and trade union activists, "underground" religious believers, persons who repeatedly petitioned the Government for redress of grievances, members of the banned China Democratic Party, and hundreds of Falun Gong adherents were incarcerated in such facilities during the year. These included Wang Miaogen, Wang Chanhao, Pan Zhiming, and Li Da, who were reportedly held in an ankang facility run by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. According to NGO reports, more than 30 persons were committed during 2002 to the Harbin Psychiatric Hospital against their will after petitioning authorities for redress of various personal grievances. New regulations issued during the year by some jurisdictions to control police abuses required that all verifications of mental illness must be conducted in hospitals appointed by provincial governments, but it was unknown what impact, if any, the regulations would have in practice. A motion before the World Psychiatric Association to expel China from the organization for using psychiatric facilities to incarcerate political prisoners remained under consideration during the year.

Arrests on charges of revealing state secrets, subversion, and common crimes were used during the year by authorities to suppress political dissent and social advocacy. For example, Shanghai housing advocate Zheng Enchong was arrested on June 6 after he represented hundreds of residents forced from their homes as a result of an urban redevelopment scheme. Henan health official Ma Shiwen was reportedly detained for revealing state secrets after allegedly providing information to NGOs about the HIV infection of thousands of villagers through blood collection procedures. Police sometimes harassed and detained relatives of dissidents (see Section 2.a.). Journalists also were detained or threatened during the year, often when their reporting met with the Government's or local authorities' disapproval (see Section 2.a.). Dozens of citizens writing on the Internet or engaging in on-line chatrooms about political topics were detained during the year (see Section 2.a.). Persons critical of official corruption or malfeasance also frequently were threatened, detained, or imprisoned. In December, Sichuan local official Li Zhi was sentenced to 8 years in prison for "subverting state power" after writing on the Internet to expose official corruption. In January 2002, Jiang Weiping, who had written a series of articles exposing official corruption, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for "subverting state power."

Local authorities used the Government's campaign against cults to detain and arrest large numbers of religious practitioners and members of spiritual groups (see Section 2.c.).

The campaign that began in 1998 against the China Democracy Party (CDP), an opposition party, continued during the year. Dozens of CDP leaders, activists, and members have been arrested, detained, or confined as a result of this campaign. Since December 1998, at least 38 core leaders of the CDP have been given severe punishments on subversion charges. Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai, and Qin Yongmin were sentenced in 1998 to prison terms of 13, 12, and 11 years respectively. While Xu Wenli was released on medical parole to the United States in December 2002, Wang and Qin remained in prison. In March, Shanghai CDP leader Han Lifa was detained reportedly for "soliciting prostitutes," a charge used in the past to discredit dissidents. He was sentenced to 3 years' reeducation through labor. Immediately before and after the 16th Party Congress in November 2002, authorities rounded up a number of the 192 activists, many of whom were members of the CDP, in 17 provinces who had signed an open letter calling for political reform and a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Among those detained or sentenced to prison terms on subversion charges during the year in connection with the open letter were lawyer Zhao Changqing, He Depu, Sang Jiancheng, Ouyang Yi, Dai Xuezhong, and Jiang Lijun.

A nation-wide anti-crime "strike hard" campaign began in April 2001 and continued early in the year before officially ending in April. It was characterized by large-scale sentencing rallies and parades of condemned prisoners through the streets of major cities, followed by public executions. The campaign was implemented with special force in Xinjiang, and particularly harsh treatment of suspected Uighur separatists reportedly continued there after the official end of the campaign in April. According to official reports, 12,976 persons in Beijing alone were sentenced to death or prison for longer than 2 years during the 2-year campaign. Officials announced regional results of the campaign during the summer, but no nationwide statistics were available. Diplomatic officials were barred from a Beijing museum display showing results of the campaign. Short-term campaigns against specific types of crime were launched in some areas during the year.

The strike hard campaign in Xinjiang specifically targeted the "three evils" of extremism, splittism, and terrorism as the major threats to Xinjiang's social stability. Because the Government authorities in Xinjiang regularly grouped together those involved in "ethnic separatism, illegal religious activities, and violent terrorism," it was often unclear whether particular raids, detentions, or judicial punishments targeted those peacefully seeking their goals or those engaged in violence. Many observers raised concerns that the Government's war on terror was a justification for cracking down harshly on suspected Uighur separatists expressing peaceful political dissent and on independent Muslim religious leaders (see Section 5).

Chinese law neither provides for a citizen's right to repatriate nor otherwise addresses exile. The Government continued to refuse reentry to numerous citizens who it considered to be dissidents, Falun Gong activists, or troublemakers. Although some dissidents living abroad have been allowed to return, dissidents released on medical parole and allowed to leave the country were effectively exiled.

The Government's refusal to permit some former reeducation-through-labor camp inmates to return to their homes constituted a form of internal exile.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution states that the courts shall, in accordance with the law, exercise judicial power independently, without interference from administrative organs, social organizations, and individuals. However, in practice, the judiciary received policy guidance from both the Government and the Party, whose leaders used a variety of means to direct courts on verdicts and sentences, particularly in politically sensitive cases. At both the central and local levels, the Government frequently interfered in the judicial system and dictated court decisions. Trial judges decide individual cases under the direction of the trial committee in each court. In addition, the Communist Party's Law and Politics Committee, which includes representatives of the police, security, procuratorate, and courts, has authority to review and influence court operations; the Committee, in some cases, altered decisions. People's Congresses also had authority to alter court decisions, but this happened rarely. Corruption and conflicts of interest also affected judicial decision-making. Judges were appointed by the people's congresses at the corresponding level of the judicial structure and received their court finances and salaries from those government bodies, which sometimes resulted in local politicians exerting undue influence over the judges they appointed and financed.

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) is the highest court, followed in descending order by the higher, intermediate, and basic people's courts. These courts handle criminal, civil, and administrative cases, including appeals from decisions by police and security officials to use reeducation through labor and other forms of administrative detention. There were special courts for handling military, maritime, and railway transport cases.

Corruption and inefficiency were serious problems in the judiciary as in other areas (see Section 3). Safeguards against corruption were vague and poorly enforced.

In recent years, the Government has taken steps to correct systemic weaknesses in the judicial system and to make the system more transparent and accountable to public scrutiny. State media reported that, from January 2002 through October 2003, prosecutors filed 7,402 cases against judicial officials nationwide, involving 8,442 officials. Of these cases, 80 percent involved suspected malfeasance and rights violations, while 20 percent involved corruption and bribery. In 1999, the SPC issued regulations requiring all trials to be open to the public, with certain exceptions, including cases involving state secrets, privacy, and minors. The legal exception for cases involving state secrets was used to keep politically sensitive proceedings closed to the public and even to family members in some cases. Under the regulations, "foreigners with valid identification" are to be allowed the same access to trials as citizens. As in past years, foreign diplomats and journalists sought permission to attend a number of trials only to have court officials reclassify them as "state secrets" cases, thus closing them to the public. Since 1998, some trials have been broadcast, and court proceedings have become a regular television feature. A few courts published their verdicts on the Internet.

Lawsuits against the Government continued to increase as a growing number of persons used the court system to seek legal recourse against government malfeasance. Administrative lawsuits rose, with more than 100,000 such cases filed in 2001, according to government statistics. Losses by plaintiffs dropped from 35.9 percent in 1992 to 28.6 percent in 2001. In 2002, the SPC established guidelines giving litigants the right to access government files to facilitate lawsuits against government bodies. Decisions of any kind in favor of dissidents remained rare.

Court officials continued efforts to enable the poor to afford litigation by exempting, reducing, or postponing court fees. On September 1, new national regulations went into effect expanding the category of cases eligible for legal aid services and permitting those eligible to obtain legal aid as early as the initial interrogation in criminal cases. Those seeking to obtain compensation from government officials became eligible for legal aid services. From 2000 to 2002, the courts waived over $387 million (RMB 3.2 billion) in litigation costs.

According to the SPC's March report to the NPC, from 1998 through 2002, 2.83 million criminal cases were tried, and 3.22 million offenders were sentenced, up 16 and 18 percent, respectively, from the previous 5-year period. In 2001, the country's courts handled 5,927,660 cases, 730,000 of which were criminal cases, a 33 percent increase over the previous year, as well as more than 100,000 appeals of administrative decisions. Some 819,000 criminal defendants were sentenced to jail terms of 5 years or more, life imprisonment, or death, during the 5-year period, accounting for approximately 25 percent of the total.

Police and prosecutorial officials often ignored the due process provisions of the law and of the Constitution. For example, police and prosecutors subjected many prisoners to torture and severe psychological pressure to confess, and coerced confessions frequently were introduced as evidence. The Criminal Procedure Law forbids the use of torture to obtain confessions, but does not expressly bar the introduction of coerced confessions as evidence. In August, new public security regulations were announced banning the use of torture to obtain confessions and prohibiting the use of coerced confessions in certain administrative cases. However, the new regulations offer no mechanism for a defendant in an administrative case to ensure that his coerced confession is disregarded. Some provinces passed further regulations noting that police who coerced defendants into confessing could be fired. Nonetheless, defendants who failed to show the "correct attitude" by confessing their crimes often received harsher sentences.

During the year, the conviction rate in criminal cases remained at approximately 90 percent, and trials generally were little more than sentencing hearings. In practice, criminal defendants often were not assigned an attorney until a case was brought to court. The best that a defense attorney generally could do in such circumstances was to get a sentence mitigated. In many politically sensitive trials, which rarely lasted more than several hours, the courts handed down guilty verdicts immediately following proceedings. There was an appeals process, but no statistics were available on the results of appeals. In practice, appeals rarely resulted in reversed verdicts.

The lack of due process was particularly egregious in death penalty cases. There were 65 capital offenses, including financial crimes such as counterfeiting currency, embezzlement, and corruption, as well as some other property crimes. A higher court nominally reviewed all death sentences, but the time between arrest and execution was often days and sometimes less, and reviews consistently resulted in the confirmation of sentences. Minors and pregnant women were expressly exempt from the death sentence. Tibetan Lobsang Dondrub was convicted of involvement in bombings in Sichuan Province without due process and executed the day after his appeal was rejected; despite assurances provided to diplomats that his case would be reviewed by the SPC, no review ever occurred (see Tibet Addendum). The Government regarded the number of death sentences it carried out as a state secret, but officials stated that the number of executions carried out decreased during the year, with a faster rate of decrease in Beijing than in outlying provinces.

The 1997 Criminal Procedure Law falls short of international standards in many respects. For example, it has insufficient safeguards against the use of evidence gathered through illegal means, such as torture, and it does not prevent extended pre- and post-trial detention (see Section 1.c. and 1.d.). Appeals processes failed to provide sufficient avenue for review, and there were inadequate remedies for violations of defendants' rights. Furthermore, under the law, there is no right to remain silent, no right against double jeopardy, and no law governing the type of evidence that may be introduced. The mechanism that allows defendants to confront their accusers was inadequate; according to one expert, only 1 to 5 percent of trials involved witnesses. Accordingly, most criminal "trials" consisted of the procurator reading statements of witnesses whom neither the defendant nor his lawyer ever had an opportunity to question. Defense attorneys have no authority to compel witnesses to testify. Anecdotal evidence indicated that implementation of the Criminal Procedure Law remained uneven and far from complete, particularly in politically sensitive cases.

The Criminal Procedure Law gives most suspects the right to seek legal counsel shortly after their initial detention and interrogation; however, police often used loopholes in the law to circumvent defendants' right to seek counsel. Defendants in sensitive political cases frequently found it difficult to find an attorney. In some cases, defendants and lawyers in sensitive cases were not allowed to speak during trials. Even in non-sensitive trials, criminal defense lawyers frequently had little access to their clients or to evidence to be presented during the trial. Defendants in only one of every seven criminal cases had legal representation, according to credible reports citing internal government statistics. Government-employed lawyers still depended on official work units for employment, housing and other benefits, and therefore many were reluctant to represent politically sensitive defendants. The percentage of lawyers in the criminal bar reportedly declined from 3 percent in 1997 to 1 percent in 2001.

Some lawyers who tried to defend their clients aggressively continued to face serious intimidation and abuse by police and prosecutors. For example, according to Article 306 of the Criminal Law, defense attorneys could be held responsible if their clients commit perjury, and prosecutors and judges in such cases have wide discretion in determining what constitutes perjury. In December, prominent Beijing defense attorney Zhang Jianzhong was sentenced to 2 years in prison on charges of assisting in the fabrication of evidence in a major corruption case. Originally denied the right to counsel, Zhang had been detained since May 3, 2002. He was due to be released in May 2004 after receiving credit for the 19 months he served in jail without a conviction. Chinese legal scholars claimed he was singled out for being too effective at representing criminal defendants, and approximately 600 lawyers signed a petition, which was submitted to the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court, demanding that Zhang be found not guilty. According to the All-China Lawyers Association, since 1997 more than 400 defense attorneys have been detained on similar charges. In September, legal advisor Ma Wenlin asked the Shaanxi Provincial Higher People's Court to overturn his 1999 conviction for "disturbing social order" based on his representation of peasants in a lawsuit to reduce their tax burden. Ma was released early in May, after 4 years in prison. In August, lawyers' professional associations held a major conference on criminal defense law, continuing demands for better protection of lawyers and their legitimate role in the legal process.

In recent years, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) drafted regulations to standardize professional performance, lawyer-client relations, and the administration of lawyers and law firms. The regulations set educational requirements for legal practitioners, encourage free legal services for the general public, grant lawyers formal permission to establish law firms, and provide for the disciplining of lawyers. A growing number of lawyers organized private law firms that were self-regulating and did not have their personnel or budgets determined directly by the State. More than 60 legal aid organizations, many of which handled both criminal and civil cases, have been established around the country, and the MOJ established a nationwide legal services hotline.

The Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the MOJ also have issued regulations establishing standards, including an examination, for judges and prosecutors, but those regulations are not uniformly enforced. Recent regulations also require judicial or prosecutorial appointees to be law school graduates with a minimum period of experience in legal practice. However, a great number of sitting judges and procurators continued to serve despite having little or no legal training.

During the year, Chinese and foreign lawyers, law professors, legal journals, and jurists publicly pressed for faster and more systemic legal reform. Among the suggested reforms were the introduction of a more transparent system of discovery, the abolition of coerced confessions, abolition of all forms of administrative detention, a legal presumption of innocence, an independent judiciary, improved administrative laws, and adoption of a plea bargaining system.

Government officials denied holding any political prisoners, asserting that authorities detained persons not for their political or religious views, but because they violated the law; however, the authorities continued to confine citizens for reasons related to politics and religion. Thousands of political prisoners remained incarcerated, some in prisons and others in labor camps. According to human rights organizations, more citizens were in prison for political crimes during the year than at any time since 1992. The Government did not grant international humanitarian organizations access to political prisoners.

Although the crime of "counterrevolution" was removed from the criminal code in 1997, western NGOs estimated that approximately 500-600 persons remained in prison for the crime. Hundreds of others were serving sentences under the State Security Law, which covers similar crimes as the repealed crime of counterrevolution. Persons detained for counterrevolutionary offenses included labor activists Hu Shigen and Liu Jingsheng; writer Chen Yangbin; Inner Mongolian activist Hada; and dissidents Han Chunsheng, Liang Qiang, Yu Zhijian, Zhang Jingsheng, and Sun Xiongying. These prisoners rarely were granted sentence reductions or parole. Foreign governments urged the Government to review the cases of those charged before 1997 with counterrevolution and to release those who had been jailed for nonviolent offenses under the old statute. During the year, the Government held expert-level discussions with foreign officials on conducting such a review.

AI has identified 211 persons who remained imprisoned or on medical parole for their participation in the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations; other NGOs estimated that as many as 2,000 persons remained in prison for their actions at that time.

In January, the Government permitted the early release of political dissident Fang Jue, and, in March, Tibetan nun Ngawang Sandrol was allowed to leave the country. The Government also released a few other political prisoners after granting them sentence reductions, including Internet activist Qi Yanchen and labor activist Kang Yuchun. However, CDP co-founders Wang Youcai and Qin Yongmin; Internet activists Xu Wei, Yang Zili, and Huang Qi; Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer; journalist Jiang Weiping; labor activists Yao Fuxin, Xiao Yunliang, and Liu Jingsheng; Catholic Bishop Su Zhimin; house church leaders Zhang Yinan, Liu Fenggang and Xu Yonghai; Tibetan nun Phuntsog Nyidrol; Uighur historian Tohti Tunyaz; and political dissident Yang Jianli, among many others, remained imprisoned or under other forms of detention during the year. Political prisoners generally benefited from parole and sentence reduction at significantly lower rates than ordinary prisoners.

Criminal punishments could include "deprivation of political rights" for a fixed period after release from prison, during which the individual is denied the limited rights of free speech and association granted to other citizens. Former prisoners also sometimes found their status in society, ability to find employment, freedom to travel, and access to residence permits and social services severely restricted. Economic reforms and social changes have ameliorated these problems for nonpolitical prisoners in recent years. However, former political prisoners and their families frequently still were subjected to police surveillance, telephone wiretaps, searches, and other forms of harassment, and some encountered difficulty in obtaining or keeping employment and housing.

Officials confirmed that executed prisoners were among the sources of organs for transplant but maintained that consent was required from prisoners or their relatives in advance of the procedure. There was no national law governing organ donations, but a Ministry of Health directive explicitly states that buying and selling human organs and tissues is not allowed. On August 22, the first local law regulating organ donation was passed in Shenzhen. It requires all organ donations to be voluntary, prohibits the sale or trade of human organs, provides for fines of $60,000 (RMB 500,000) for violations, and grants the Shenzhen Red Cross sole authority to match donors and recipients. However, the law was expected to have limited impact due to its limited geographical jurisdiction, covering just the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. There were no reliable statistics on how many organ transplants occurred using organs from executed prisoners; however, anecdotal evidence, testimony of former officials and doctors, and the numbers of post-transplant patients seeking follow-up care in Western countries indicated that it is a significant number.

f. Arbitrary Interference With Privacy, Family, Home, Correspondence

The Constitution states that the "freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens are protected by law"; however, the authorities often did not respect the privacy of citizens in practice. Although the law requires warrants before law enforcement officials can search premises, this provision frequently was ignored; moreover, the Public Security Bureau and the Procuratorate could issue search warrants on their own authority. During the year, authorities monitored telephone conversations, facsimile transmissions, e-mail, text-messaging, and Internet communications. Authorities also opened and censored domestic and international mail. The security services routinely monitored and entered residences and offices to gain access to computers, telephones, and fax machines. All major hotels had a sizable internal security presence, and hotel guestrooms were sometimes searched for sensitive materials.

In urban areas, many persons depended on government-linked work units for housing, healthcare, and other aspects of ordinary life. However, the work unit and the neighborhood committee, which originally were charged with monitoring activities and attitudes, have become less important as means of social and political control, and government interference in daily personal and family life continued to decline for most citizens. In some areas, citizens still were required to apply for government permission before having a child, and the Government continued to restrict the number of births. During the year, the Government amended a regulation so that couples seeking to get married no longer require permission from their work units.

Cases of forced entry by police officers continued to be reported. However, after state media widely reported a police raid on the home of a married couple watching a legal adult movie in Shaanxi Province, police authorities asserted that private personal conduct not forbidden by law would no longer be subject to police interference. For this and other reasons, government officials, including Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang, emphasized in several public statements that police must do a better job of respecting citizens' human rights. In October, the Third Party Plenum formally approved a constitutional amendment that will, if approved at the March 2004 session of the National People's Congress, put the protection of individual rights into China's constitution for the first time.

Some dissidents were under heavy surveillance and routinely had their telephone calls monitored or phone service disrupted. The authorities blocked some dissidents from meeting with foreigners during politically sensitive periods. Police in Beijing ordered several dissidents not to meet with Western journalists or foreign diplomats during the visits of high-level foreign officials. The authorities also confiscated money sent from abroad that was intended to help dissidents and their families.

Major political events and visits by high-ranking foreign officials routinely sparked roundups of dissidents. For example, immediately before and after the 16th Party Congress in November 2002, authorities detained a number of activists who had signed an open letter calling for political reform and a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre (see Section 1.d.). Similarly, dissidents reported greater surveillance and harassment from public security officials during the National People's Congress in March, before the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, and before the October 1 National Day.

Authorities also harassed relatives of dissidents and monitored their activities. Security personnel kept close watch on relatives of prominent dissidents, particularly during sensitive periods. For example, security personnel followed the family members of political prisoners to meetings with Western reporters and diplomats. Dissidents and their family members routinely were warned not to speak with the foreign press. Police sometimes detained the relatives of dissidents (see Section 2.a.).

Official poverty alleviation programs and major state projects have included forced relocation of persons to new residences. The Government estimated that at least 1.2 million persons have been relocated for the Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River.

Forced relocation because of urban redevelopment was common, sometimes resulting in protests over relocation terms or compensation. The case of Shanghai housing lawyer Zheng Enchong prompted significant public protest over urban relocation. In October, Zheng was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment in connection with his advocacy on behalf of hundreds of Shanghai residents displaced in a controversial urban redevelopment project. Legal proceedings in Zheng's case prompted many demonstrations, including one planned to involve hundreds on National Day at Tiananmen Square. That protest was prevented by police. Many of the protesters were detained for short periods in Beijing and Shanghai. Some protest leaders were prosecuted and sentenced to reeducation through labor (see Sections 2.b. and 3).

The Population and Family Planning Law, the country's first formal law on this subject, entered into force on September 1, 2002. The National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) enforces the law and formulates and implements policies with assistance from the Birth Planning Association, which had 1 million branches nationwide. The law is intended to standardize the implementation of the Government's birth limitation policies; however, enforcement continued to vary from place to place. The law grants married couples the right to have a single child and allows eligible couples to apply for permission to have a second child if they meet conditions stipulated in local and provincial regulations. Many provincial regulations require women to wait 4 years or more after their first birth before making such an application. The law requires counties to use specific measures to limit the total number of births in each county. The law further requires couples to employ birth control measures. According to a September 2002 U.N. survey, the percentage of women who select their own birth control method grew from 53 percent in 1998 to 83 percent in 2000. The law requires couples who have an unapproved child to pay a "social compensation fee" and grants preferential treatment to couples who abide by the birth limits. Although the law states that officials should not violate citizens' rights, neither those rights nor the penalties for violating them are defined. The law provides significant and detailed sanctions for officials who help persons evade the birth limitations.

The law delegates to the provinces the responsibility of drafting implementing regulations, including establishing a scale for assessment of social compensation fees, but State Council Decree 357 provides general principles to guide local authorities. This decree also requires family planning officials to obtain court approval for taking "forcible" action, such as confiscation of property, against families that refuse to pay social compensation fees.

The one-child limit was more strictly applied in the cities, where only couples meeting certain conditions (e.g., both parents are only children) were permitted to have a second child. In most rural areas (including towns of under 200,000 persons), where approximately two-thirds of citizens lived, the policy was more relaxed, generally allowing couples to have a second child if the first was a girl or disabled. Ethnic minorities, such as Muslim Uighurs and Tibetans, were subject to much less stringent population controls (see Tibet Addendum). In remote areas, limits generally were not enforced, except on government employees and Party members. Local officials, caught between pressures from superiors to show declining birth rates, and from local citizens to allow them to have more than one child, frequently made false reports. The NPFPC estimated fertility at 1.8 births per woman, a figure roughly confirmed by the 2000 census. It claimed that the yearly growth rate of the population has dropped to less than 1 percent per year.

Authorities continued to reduce the use of targets and quotas, although over 1,900 of the country's 2,800 counties continued to use such measures. Authorities using the target and quota system require each eligible married couple to obtain government permission before the woman becomes pregnant. In many counties, only a limited number of such permits were made available each year, so couples who did not receive a permit were required to wait at least a year before obtaining permission. Counties that did not employ targets and quotas allowed married women of legal child-bearing age to have a first child without prior permission.

The country's population control policy relied on education, propaganda, and economic incentives, as well as on more coercive measures such as the threat of job loss or demotion and social compensation fees. Psychological and economic pressure were very common; during unauthorized pregnancies, women sometimes were visited by birth planning workers who used the threat of social compensation fees to pressure women to terminate their pregnancies. The fees were assessed at widely varying levels and were generally extremely high. Reliable sources reported that the fees ranged from one-half to eight times the average worker's annual disposable income. Local officials have authority to adjust the fees downward and did so in many cases. Additional disciplinary measures against those who violated the limited child policy by having an unapproved child or helping another to do so included the withholding of social services, higher tuition costs when the child goes to school, job loss or demotion, loss of promotion opportunity, expulsion from the Party (membership in which was an unofficial requirement for certain jobs), and other administrative punishments, including in some cases the destruction of property. These penalties sometimes left women little practical choice but to undergo abortion or sterilization. Rewards for couples who adhered to birth limitation laws and policies included monthly stipends and preferential medical and educational benefits. In the cases of families that already had two children, one of the parents was usually pressured to undergo sterilization.

According to previously published local regulations in at least one province, women who do not qualify for a Family Planning Certificate that allows them to have a child must use an intrauterine device (IUD) or implant. The regulations further require that women who use an IUD undergo quarterly exams to ensure that it remains properly in place. In another province, rules state that "unplanned pregnancies must be aborted immediately." In some counties, women of childbearing age were required periodically to undergo pregnancy tests.

At the same time, the Government maintained that, due to economic development and other factors such as small houses, both parents working full-time, and high education expenses, couples in major urban centers often voluntarily limited their families to one child.

The Population and Family Planning Law delegates to the provinces the responsibility of implementing appropriate regulations to enforce the law. By year's end, all provincial-level governments except the TAR had amended their regulations. Anhui Province, for example, passed a law permitting 13 categories of couples, including coal miners, some remarried divorcees, and some farm couples, to have a second child. The law does not require such amendments, however, unless existing regulations conflict with it. Existing regulations requiring sterilization in certain cases, or mandatory abortion, are not contradicted by the new law, which says simply that compliance with the birth limits should "mainly" be achieved through the use of contraception.

Central Government policy formally prohibits the use of physical coercion to compel persons to submit to abortion or sterilization. Because it is illegal, the use of physical coercion was difficult to document. A few cases were reported during the year, but most observers believed that the frequency of such cases was declining. In May, officials in Anhui Province who tried to force a woman to be sterilized were reprimanded after the woman informed national family planning officials that she knew it was her right under the law to choose her method of birth control.

Senior officials stated repeatedly that the Government "made it a principle to ban coercion at any level," and the NPFPC has issued circulars nationwide prohibiting birth planning officials from coercing women to undergo abortions or sterilization against their will. However, the Government does not consider social compensation fees and other administrative punishments to be coercive. Under the State Compensation Law, citizens also may sue officials who exceed their authority in implementing birth planning policy, and, in a few instances, individuals have exercised this right.

Corruption related to social compensation fees reportedly decreased after the 2002 passage of State Council Decree 357, which established that collected "social compensation fees" must be submitted directly to the National Treasury rather than retained by local birth planning authorities. NPFPC officials reported in 2002 that they responded to more than 10,000 complaints against local officials.

In March, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) concluded a 4-year pilot project in 32 counties. Under this program, local birth planning officials emphasized education, improved reproductive health services, and economic development, and they eliminated the target and quota systems for limiting births. However, these counties retained the birth limitation policy, including the requirement that couples employ effective birth control methods, and enforced it through other means, such as social compensation fees. Subsequently, 800 other counties also removed the target and quota system and tried to replicate the UNFPA project by emphasizing quality of care and informed choice of birth control methods. In April, a new UNFPA program began in 30 counties. Under this program, officials defined a list of "legitimate rights of reproduction according to law," including the rights to choose contraception and right to legal remedies, among others.

In order to delay childbearing, the Marriage Law sets the minimum age at marriage for women at 20 years and for men at 22 years. It continued to be illegal in almost all provinces for a single woman to bear a child, and social compensation fees have been levied on unwed mothers. The Government stated that the practice of levying social compensation fees for "pre-marriage" births was abolished on an experimental basis in some counties during the year. In 2002, Jilin Province passed a law making it legal, within the limits of the birth limitation law, for an unmarried woman who "intends to remain single for life" to have a child.

Laws and regulations forbid the termination of pregnancies based on the sex of the fetus, but because of the intersection of birth limitations with the traditional preference for male children, particularly in rural areas, many families used ultrasound technology to identify female fetuses and terminate these pregnancies (see Section 5). The use of ultrasound for this purpose is prohibited specifically by the Population Law and by the Maternal and Child Health Care Law, both of which mandate punishment of medical practitioners who violate the provision. During the year, new regulations were issued that specifically forbid sex-selective abortions. According to the NPFPC, few doctors have been charged under these laws. The most recent official figures, from November 2000, put the overall male to female birth ratio at 116.9 to 100 (as compared to the statistical norm of 106 to 100). For second births, the national ratio was 151.9 to 100.

The Maternal and Child Health Care Law requires premarital and prenatal examinations in part to determine whether couples have acute infectious diseases or certain mental defects or are at risk for passing on debilitating genetic diseases. The law states that abortion or sterilization are recommended in some cases. In practice, however, most regions of the country still did not have the medical capacity to determine accurately the likelihood of passing on debilitating genetic diseases.

Lack of informed consent was a general problem in the practice of medicine throughout the country.

As of 2001, the China Psychiatric Association no longer listed homosexuality as a mental illness. Many gays and lesbians saw the move as a hopeful sign of increased official tolerance. In major cities, gays and lesbians sometimes could gather publicly for social purposes, but societal discrimination caused most social gatherings to remain private.

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution states that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental rights to be enjoyed by all citizens; however, the Government tightly restricted these rights in practice. The Government interpreted the Party's "leading role," as mandated in the preamble to the Constitution, as circumscribing these rights. The Government strictly regulated the establishment and management of publications. The Government did not permit citizens to publish or broadcast criticisms of senior leaders or opinions that directly challenged Communist Party rule. The Party and Government continued to control many and, on occasion, all print and broadcast media tightly and used them to propagate the current ideological line. All media employees were under explicit, public orders to follow CCP directives and "guide public opinion," as directed by political authorities. Both formal and informal guidelines continued to require journalists to avoid coverage of many politically sensitive topics. These public orders, guidelines, and statutes greatly restricted the freedom of broadcast journalists and newspapers to report the news and led to a high degree of self-censorship. The Government continued an intense propaganda campaign against the Falun Gong.

The Government continued to threaten, arrest, and imprison persons exercising free speech. Internet essayists in particular were targeted.

Many individuals were jailed for their Internet publications during the year. In January, Tao Haidong was sentenced in Urumqi, Xinjiang, to 7 years in prison for "incitement to subvert state power" based on articles on democracy he posted on the Internet. In May, Sichuan website manager Huang Qi, founder of a site for missing persons from the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Also in May, four students belonging to the New Youth Study Group--Yang Zili, Xu Wei, Jin Haike, and Zhang Honghai--who used the Internet to circulate articles on political and social topics received sentences of 8 to 10 years for subversion. Their appeal to the Supreme People's Court was denied in November. Three of the four witnesses who testified against them at trial recanted their stories, but the SPC refused to hear testimony from these witnesses on appeal. In October, Internet essayist Luo Yongzhong from Jilin Province was sentenced to 3 years in prison after publishing articles on overseas websites calling for democracy and human rights. On October 29, Internet writer Du Daobin in Hubei Province was detained and later charged with distributing articles that "subverted state power." At year's end, he was awaiting trial. The legal credentials of Du's attorney were cancelled because he agreed to represent Du. In November, Beijing Normal University student Liu Di, website publisher Li Yibin, and Wu Yiran were released on bail after a year in detention. The court returned their file to prosecutors because of insufficient evidence but sentenced their alleged confederate Jiang Lijun to 4 years in prison for subversion. On December 8, Xian teacher Yan Jun was sentenced to 2 years for subversion based on his Internet postings. On December 10, Sichuan local government official Li Zhi was sentenced to 8 years for subversion in connection with his on-line writings about corruption and democracy. Sichuan Internet writer Ouyang Yi has been detained since December 2002 on charges of incitement to subvert state power. He was tried on October 15, but no verdict in his case was issued by year's end. In December, factory worker Kong Youping was detained for posting political articles and poems on the Internet. The NGO Reporters Without Borders reported that, between November 1 and December 15 alone, 9 persons were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of 2 to 10 years in jail for putting messages critical of the Government on the Internet. The group named China "the biggest jail in the world for cyberdissidents," stating that the country has jailed 48 persons for their Internet writing in recent years.

Journalists who reported on sensitive topics also continued to suffer harassment, detention, and imprisonment. For example, South Korean photojournalist Seok Jae Hyun was imprisoned in January while photographing North Korean refugees trying to board boats headed for South Korea and Japan (see Section 2.d.). In May, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison. Reporter Jiang Weiping, who had written a series of articles exposing official corruption in Liaoning Province, remained in prison, although his sentence was reduced from 8 to 6 years. The Committee to Protect Journalists again assessed China as "the world's leading jailer of journalists," with 39 journalists imprisoned at year's end.

Some Chinese remained active and continued to speak out, despite the Government's restrictions on freedom of speech. For example, in April, Dr. Jiang Yanyong disclosed that the spread of SARS in Beijing, particularly in military hospitals, had been significantly under-reported. This disclosure ultimately contributed to broader acknowledgment of the extent of the spread of SARS. In June, scholar Cao Siyuan convened a symposium that proposed constitutional amendments to establish a Constitutional Court, incorporate human rights, provide "freedom of speech, publication, and association without pre-approval," and to allow direct elections. While neither person was formally detained, both were followed by public security officials and at times forbidden from contact with foreigners or the media.

There were a few privately owned print publications, but they were subject to pre- and post-publication censorship. There were no privately owned television or radio stations, and all programming had to be approved by the Government.

The Communist Party continued to control tightly media and academic discussion of many political topics. In March, reporting about the National People's Congress was strictly controlled, and the Beijing newspaper 21st Century World Herald was closed for publishing articles on political reform deemed too controversial. In June, the weekly newspaper Beijing Xinbao was closed and its editors fired after it published an article that mocked Party officials. In July, the Government issued a directive known as "The Three Forbiddens." According to western media reports, it banned open discussion of constitutional reform, political reform, and reconsideration of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen movement. More broadly, in a June meeting, the Communist Party's Propaganda Department advised all media to avoid the following sensitive topics: Dr. Jiang Yanyong's communication with foreigners about SARS, the Sun Zhigang case (see Section 1.c.), corruption cases against Shanghai-based businessman Zhou Zhengyi and Chinese/Dutch national Yang Bin, an April submarine accident that killed all 70 sailors on board, and nuclear weapons in the DPRK.

Censorship related to SARS was particularly controversial. On February 11, Guangzhou municipal authorities held a press conference announcing over 300 SARS cases in Guangzhou. Afterward, from February through April, domestic news outlets were prohibited from discussing the disease. Reporting about the causes and extent of SARS was also strictly controlled. For example, in February, Guangdong Province's Southern Metropolitan Daily newspaper was sanctioned for publishing articles that contradicted the Government line that SARS was caused by the chlamydia virus. On April 14, the Government publicly acknowledged that the SARS epidemic was more serious than previously admitted, and it punished some officials for underreporting SARS cases. Some hailed this as a new sign of openness by the Government. The Government held live televised press conferences to answer questions about SARS. However, newspapers and magazines whose reporting on SARS exceeded limits set by government censors continued to face closure and other sanctions. The June 20 edition of Caijing, an influential business news magazine, was withdrawn from newsstands. It contained an article on the impact of SARS and another on a bank loan scandal linked to Government officials. Caijing's previous edition had published an interview with SARS informant Dr. Jiang Yanyong.

Discussion of corruption also was tightly controlled. Newspapers could not report on corruption without government and Party approval, and publishers published such material at their own risk. In recent years, journalists and sometimes editors have been harassed, detained, threatened, and even imprisoned for reporting on subjects that met with the Government's or local authorities' disapproval, including corruption. During the year, journalists and editors who exposed corruption scandals frequently faced problems with the authorities, and the Government continued to close publications and punish journalists for printing material deemed too sensitive.

Government restrictions on the press and the free flow of information continued to prevent accurate reporting on the spread of HIV/AIDS. This problem was particularly acute in Henan Province. Henan health official Ma Shiwen was detained for several months before his release in October. Ma had allegedly provided information to NGOs about villagers who became infected with HIV after selling blood (see Section 1.d.). Henan provincial officials attempted to prevent 77-year-old Dr. Gao Yaojie, an advocate for AIDS orphans, from attending an AIDS forum at Beijing's Qinghua University in November.

For several years, journalists openly have called for legislation granting press freedom protection, without success. New regulations reported during the year required government officials to accept supervision by the media and public on all matters except those involving state security.

The Government kept tight control over the foreign press during the year and continued efforts to prevent foreign media "interference" in internal affairs. The international edition of Time Magazine has been banned since an article appeared in 2001 on the Falun Gong.

The publishing industry consists of three kinds of book businesses: approximately 560 government-sanctioned publishing houses, smaller independent publishers that cooperated with official publishing houses to put out more daring publications, and an underground (illicit) press. The government-approved publishing houses were the only organizations legally permitted to print books. The Communist Party exerted control over the publishing industry by preemptively classifying certain topics as off-limits; selectively rewarding with promotions and perks those publishers, editors, and writers who adhered to Party guidelines; and punishing those who did not adhere to Party guidelines with administrative sanctions and blacklisting. Some independent publishers took advantage of a loophole in the law to sign contracts with government publishing houses to publish politically sensitive works. These works generally were not subjected to the same multi-layered review process as official publications of the publishing houses.

Underground printing houses have been targets of periodic campaigns to stop all illegal publications (including pornography and pirated computer software and audiovisual products). These campaigns had the effect of restricting the availability of politically sensitive books. State-run media reported that over 300,000 pirated or pornographic books were destroyed in a public event held in July in Beijing.

Many intellectuals and scholars, anticipating that books or papers on political topics would be deemed too sensitive to be published, exercised self-censorship. Overt intervention by the State Press and Publications Administration and Party Propaganda Department mostly occurred after publication. In areas such as economic policy or legal reform, there was far greater official tolerance for comment and debate. Criticism of Central Government authorities continued to remain largely off-limits. Among books banned during the year were a new biography of former Premier Zhou Enlai, "The True Face of China's June Fourth," and "The Destruction of China." Books once published legitimately and circulated widely, such as "I Tell the Truth to the Premier," a controversial indictment of the Party's rural policies, were reportedly ordered off shelves during the year. In March 2002, the Department of Cultural Affairs in Urumqi, Xinjiang, ordered the destruction of thousands of books on Uighur history and culture. The books detailing and documenting Uighur history originally had been published with the approval of the authorities. Content about the Tiananmen Square student movement and the Dalai Lama, among other passages, was censored in U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton's book, "Living History." Chinese publishers reported that increasing commercialization of their industry led to tension between ideological constraints and market imperatives.

In June, the Government ended the practice of forcing government work units to subscribe to official newspapers, forcing many official newspapers to compete for readership or face insolvency.

The authorities continued to jam, with varying degrees of success, Chinese-, Uighur-, and Tibetan-language broadcasts of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). English-language broadcasts on VOA generally were not jammed, unless they immediately followed Chinese-language broadcasts, in which case portions of the English-language broadcasts were sometimes jammed. Government jamming of RFA and BBC appeared to be more frequent and effective. Despite jamming, in the absence of an independent press, overseas broadcasts such as VOA, BBC, RFA, and Radio France International had a large audience, including activists, ordinary citizens, and even government officials.

The Government prohibited some foreign and domestic films from appearing in the country. Television broadcasts of foreign programming, which largely were restricted to hotel and foreign residence compounds, also suffered from occasional censorship of topics including sensitive political issues and SARS.

The Government continued to encourage expanded use of the Internet; however, it also took steps to increase monitoring of the Internet and continued to place restrictions on the information available. While only a very small percentage of the population accessed the Internet, use among intellectuals and opinion leaders was widespread and growing rapidly. Young persons, both urban and rural, accounted for the greatest number of Internet users. According to a quasi-government report, the number of Internet users at the end of 2002 was 59.1 million. During the year, industry officials estimated the number of users at 80-100 million, with only 27 percent of those in the urban centers of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

China's Internet control system employed more than 30,000 persons and was allegedly the largest in the world. According to a 2002 Harvard University report, the Government blocked at least 19,000 sites during a 6-month period and may have blocked as many as 50,000. At times, the Government blocked the sites of some major foreign news organizations, health organizations, educational institutions, Taiwanese and Tibetan businesses and organizations, religious and spiritual organizations, democracy activists, and sites discussing the June 4 Tiananmen massacre. The number of blocked sites appeared to increase around major political events and sensitive dates. The authorities reportedly began to employ more sophisticated technology enabling the selective blocking of specific content rather than entire websites in some cases. Such technology was also used to block e-mails containing sensitive content. The Government generally did not prosecute citizens who received dissident e-mail publications, but forwarding such messages to others sometimes did result in detention. Internet usage reportedly was monitored at all terminals in public libraries.

The Ministry of Information Industry regulated access to the Internet while the Ministries of Public and State Security monitored its use. Regulations prohibit a broad range of activities that authorities have interpreted as subversive or as slanderous to the state, including the dissemination of any information that might harm unification of the country or endanger national security. Promoting "evil cults" was banned, as was providing information that "disturbs social order or undermines social stability." Internet service providers (ISPs) were instructed to use only domestic media news postings, record information useful for tracking users and their viewing habits, install software capable of copying e-mails, and immediately end transmission of so-called subversive material. Many ISPs practiced extensive self-censorship to avoid transgressing the very broadly worded regulations. A study released in May by Reporters Without Borders reported that only 30 percent of messages with "controversial content" were allowed onto Chinese "chatroom" websites. The remaining 70 percent of messages were filtered out by censors or removed by the site host.

The State Council has promulgated a comprehensive list of prohibited Internet activities, including using the Internet to "incite the overthrow of the Government or the Socialist system" and to "incite division of the country, harming national unification."

In addition to imprisoning several persons during the year for disseminating information through the Internet, the Government detained several individuals for using the Internet to express support for other detained Internet activists. NGOs reported that several people were detained during the year for expressing support for detained Beijing Normal University Internet writer Liu Di. Those detained for expressing on-line support for Liu included Kong Youping, Yuan Langsheng, Cai Lujun, Luo Changfu, and a 17-year old Henan girl identified only as Zheng. Liu Di's case sparked this reaction because she herself was detained for expressing sympathy for another Internet activist, Sichuan website manager Huang Qi. In November, Liu was released on bail after a court found that the evidence against her was insufficient; however, some persons detained for supporting her remained in custody at year's end (see Section 1.d.).

In 2002, the Government began a "Public Pledge on Self Discipline for China's Internet Industry" drive. More than 300 companies signed up, including the popular Sina.com and Sohu.com, as well as foreign-based Yahoo!'s China division. Those who signed the pledge agreed not to spread information that "breaks laws or spreads superstition or obscenity." They also promised to refrain from "producing, posting, or disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability."

In 2002, the country had more than 200,000 Internet cafes. In response to the health crisis caused by SARS, the authorities closed all of the nation's Internet cafes on April 27. Beijing cafes stayed closed until August, while cafes in Shanghai and Sichuan reopened sooner.

During the year, the Government announced new plans to censor simple messaging system text messages distributed by mobile telephone. The country's largest service provider, China Mobile, reported in July that its customers sent an estimated 40 billion text messages in 2002.

The Government did not respect academic freedom and continued to impose ideological controls on political discourse at colleges, universities, and research institutes. Scholars and researchers reported varying degrees of control regarding issues they could examine and conclusions they could draw. For example, several professors were warned against calling for abolition of reeducation through labor after the beating death of inmate Zhang Bin (see Section 1.c.). Participants at a June conference on constitutional reform faced harassment by public security officials. Government decrees, such as the "three forbiddens," significantly interfered with academic freedom. Scholar Xu Zerong remained in prison for "illegally providing state secrets" by sending sensitive reference materials on the Korean War to a contact in Hong Kong.

The Government continued to use political attitudes as criteria for selecting persons for government-sponsored study abroad, but did not impose such restrictions on privately sponsored students, who constituted the majority of students studying abroad.

Researchers residing abroad also have been subject to sanctions from the authorities when their work did not meet with official approval.

b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides for freedom of peaceful assembly; however, the Government severely restricted this right in practice. The Constitution stipulates that such activities may not challenge "Party leadership" or infringe upon the "interests of the State." Protests against the political system or national leaders were prohibited. Authorities denied permits and quickly moved to suppress demonstrations involving expression of dissenting political views.

At times, police used excessive force against demonstrators. Demonstrations with political or social themes were often broken up quickly and violently. The most widely publicized demonstrations in recent years were those of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. The Government continued to wage a severe political, propaganda, and police campaign against the Falun Gong movement. Since the Government banned the Falun Gong in 1999, mere belief in the discipline, without any outward manifestation of its tenets, has been sufficient grounds for practitioners to receive punishments ranging from loss of employment to imprisonment, and in many cases, to suffer torture and death (see Sections 1.a. and 2.c.). In many cases, Falun Gong practitioners were subject to close scrutiny by local security personnel, and their personal mobility was tightly restricted, particularly at times when the Government believed public protests were likely.

The number of protests by individuals or small groups of Falun Gong practitioners at Tiananmen Square remained very low during the year. Some observers attributed this to the effectiveness of the sustained government crackdown, which, by the end of 2001, had essentially eliminated public manifestations of the movement. Authorities also briefly detained foreign practitioners who attempted to unfurl banners on Tiananmen Square or pass out leaflets, in most cases deporting them after a few hours.

In many cases, the authorities dealt with demonstrations about economic issues more leniently than with those that addressed political issues, but some economic demonstrations were dispersed by force. During the year, Ministry of Public Security publications indicated that the number of demonstrations was growing and that protesters were becoming more organized. Some of these demonstrations included thousands of participants.

The vast majority of legal and illegal demonstrations that occurred during the year concerned economic and social issues such as housing, health, and welfare. Labor protests over the downsizing of SOEs and resulting unemployment in the country's northeastern provinces continued but were smaller in scale than in 2002. However, protests by workers seeking unpaid wages continued throughout the country, including among migrant laborers and construction workers who often were paid in one installment before Chinese New Year and who demonstrated when employers withheld their salaries or underpaid them (see Section 6.b.). In May, labor leaders Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang received prison sentences of 7 and 4 years, respectively, for their roles in leading large 2002 protests by factory workers demanding backpay and other benefits (see Section 6.b.). The Government denied requests by Liaoyang workers for a permit to protest Yao and Xiao's imprisonment. In April, some 200 persons reportedly protested the construction of a hospital for quarantining SARS patients between Beijing and Tianjin municipalities. Similar protests over SARS quarantine hospitals were reported in other provinces, with some resulting in arrests. Protests by persons with HIV/AIDS occurred in Henan Province and other central provinces and were sometimes met with violence or arrests. On May 17, 100 AIDS patients protested lack of health care in Wenlou village hospital and at least one protester reportedly was severely beaten. In June, after a few HIV/AIDS protesters were detained in Xiongqiao village, Henan Province, hundreds of police officers reportedly were sent into the village, where they beat several protesters and detained over a dozen others. The scope of police reaction produced widespread international concern. Demonstrations of over 100 persons protesting property relocation resulted in arrests in Shanghai. On August 28, in Shanghai, over 200 persons demonstrated to protest the trial of attorney Zheng Enchong, who represented residents dislocated in an urban relocation scheme. The demonstration reportedly resulted in arrests when police sought to disperse the crowd. Before National Day on October 1, security officials briefly detained more than 80 persons for their plans to participate in a Tiananmen Square protest about urban development and the relocation of residents.

The Constitution provides for freedom of association; however, the Government restricted this right in practice. Communist Party policy and government regulations require that all professional, social, and economic organizations officially register with, and be approved by, the Government. Ostensibly aimed at restricting secret societies and criminal gangs, these regulations also prevent the formation of truly autonomous political, human rights, religious, spiritual, environmental, labor, and youth organizations that might directly challenge government authority. Since 1999, all concerts, sports events, exercise classes, or other meetings of more than 200 persons require approval from Public Security authorities.

No laws or regulations specifically govern the formation of political parties. The Government continued to use surveillance, detention, and prison terms to suppress the CDP (see Section 3).

According to government statistics, at the end of 2002, there were approximately 133,000 social organizations, including 1,712 national-level and cross-provincial organizations, 20,069 provincial organizations, and 52,386 local and county-level organizations registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. There were 111,000 private, nonprofit corporations registered. Experts estimated that there were at least 1 million, and perhaps as many as 2 million, unregistered NGOs. Although these organizations all came under some degree of government control, some were able to develop their own agendas. Some had support from foreign secular and religious NGOs. Some were able to undertake limited advocacy roles in such public interest areas as women's issues, the environment, health, and consumer rights. NGOs were required to register with the Government, which has 2 months in which to grant approval. To register, an NGO must obtain an organizational sponsor, have an official office, and hold a minimal amount of funds (for local-level NGOs, at least $3,600 (RMB 30,000); for national-level groups, at least $12,000 (RMB 100,000)). According to government guidelines, NGOs must not advocate non-party rule, damage national unity, or upset ethnic harmony. Groups that disobeyed guidelines and unregistered groups that continued to operate could face administrative punishment or criminal charges. During the year, the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau ordered 51 organizations to close for failure to register. It was difficult to estimate how many groups may have been discouraged from organizing NGOs because of these regulations. However, preexisting groups reported little or no additional interference by the Government since NGO registration regulations came into effect in 1998.

c. Freedom of Religion

The Constitution provides for freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe; however, the Government sought to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of the activity of religious groups. There are five official religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. A government-affiliated association monitored and supervised the activities of each of the five faiths. Membership in religions was growing rapidly. While the Government generally did not seek to suppress this growth outright, it tried to control and regulate religious groups to prevent the rise of sources of authority outside the control of the Government and the Party.

Overall, government respect for religious freedom remained poor. Even though freedom to participate in religious activity increased in many areas of the country, crackdowns in some locations against unregistered groups, including underground Protestant and Catholic groups; Muslim Uighurs; and Tibetan Buddhists (see Tibet Addendum) continued. The Government continued its repression of groups that it determined to be "cults" and of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in particular. During the SARS crisis, the Government arrested hundreds of Falun Gong adherents and others whom it accused of preaching doomsday messages and disrupting anti-SARS activity. The atmosphere created by the nationwide campaign against Falun Gong reportedly had a spillover effect on unregistered churches, temples, and mosques in many parts of the country.

All religious groups and spiritual movements were required to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA, formerly known as the central Religious Affairs Bureau) or its provincial and local offices (still known as Religious Affairs Bureaus (RABs)). SARA and the RABs were responsible for monitoring and judging the legitimacy of religious activity. SARA and the Communist Party's United Front Work Department provided policy "guidance and supervision" over implementation of government regulations on religious activity. In December 2001, all members of the Politburo Standing Committee attended a Party Work Conference on religion at which then-President Jiang Zemin and then-Premier Zhu Rongji gave speeches praising the social work being done by numerous religious institutions. They urged "mainstream" religious groups to register with the Government and, at the same time, called for stepped-up measures to eliminate "non-mainstream" religious groups.

This national campaign to require religious groups and places of worship to register or to come under the supervision of official "patriotic" religious organizations continued and, in some places, intensified during the year. Some groups registered voluntarily, some registered under pressure, some avoided officials in an attempt to avoid registration, and authorities refused to register others. Some unofficial groups reported that authorities refused them registration without explanation. The Government contended that these refusals were mainly the result of failure to meet requirements concerning facilities and meeting spaces. Many religious groups were reluctant to comply with the regulations out of principled opposition to state control of religion or due to fear of adverse consequences if they revealed, as required, the names and addresses of church leaders and members.

However, in some areas, supervision of religious activity was minimal, and registered and unregistered churches were treated similarly by authorities. Coexistence and cooperation between official and unofficial churches, both Catholic and Protestant, in such areas were close enough to blur the line between the two. In some areas, congregants worshiped in both types of churches. In others, underground churches procured Bibles with the help of colleagues in registered churches. In many areas, small house churches and "family" churches were generally tolerated by the authorities, so long as they remained small and unobtrusive. Some of these churches reportedly encountered difficulty when their memberships became too large, when they arranged for the use of facilities for the specific purpose of conducting religious activities, or when they forged links with other unregistered groups or when links with overseas organizations came to light. Official churches also sometimes have faced harassment when local authorities wished to acquire the land on which a church was located. In addition to refusing to register churches, in recent years there have been reports that RAB officials demanded illegal "donations" from churches in their jurisdictions in order to raise revenue.

Leaders of unauthorized groups were sometimes the targets of harassment, interrogation, detention, and physical abuse. Police closed scores of "underground" mosques, temples, seminaries, Catholic churches, and Protestant "house churches," including many with significant memberships, properties, financial resources, and networks. Authorities particularly targeted unofficial religious groups in locations where there were rapidly growing numbers of unregistered churches, or in places of long-seated conflict between official and unofficial churches, such as with Catholics in Baoding, Hebei Province, and Chengle, Fujian Province.

The Government intensified pressure against Protestant house churches and their leaders during the year. In April and May, Protestant house churches in Anshan, Liaoning Province, reportedly were raided and worshippers detained. In June, six house churches in locations across the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were reportedly closed by authorities and their leaders detained. In June, underground Christians in Funing County, Yunnan Province, were detained for several days after they attended a meeting with local officials to ostensibly discuss registration. Also in June, an unofficial seminary in Kunming, Yunnan Province, was closed and some of the students were detained. In September, house church historian Zhang Yinan and legal advisor to the South China Church Xiao Biguang were among approximately 100 Christians detained in Nanyang, Henan Province. While Xiao was released a month later, Zhang was sentenced to 2 years of reeducation through labor. He was reportedly beaten in the camp. In October, Beijing-based house Christian Liu Fenggang was detained in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province, for conducting an investigation into reports of church demolitions and detention of leaders in the Local Assembly ("Little Flock") church. In July, a large church was reportedly closed by police; many worshippers were detained briefly and church leaders were "invited to attend a seminar" for a number of days before being permitted to return home. Liu was charged with illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities, a charge activists believe was related to Liu's providing information about his investigation to overseas NGOs. Beijing police also seized Liu's computer equipment and files. Two other house Christians, Beijing homeless advocate Dr. Xu Yonghai and Jilin Internet writer Zhang Shengqi, also remained detained at year's end, allegedly for supporting Liu.

A number of Catholic priests and lay leaders also were beaten or otherwise abused during the year. For example, underground Catholic officials in Fujian and Jiangxi provinces were harassed and detained in April and May. On June 16, a priest in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, was detained while preparing to administer sacraments to a dying Catholic. In Hebei Province, where approximately half of the country's Catholics reside, friction between unofficial Catholics and local authorities continued. Hebei authorities have forced many underground priests and believers to choose between joining the Patriotic Church or facing fines, job losses, periodic detentions, and, in some cases, the removal of their children from school. Some Catholics have been forced into hiding. In July, five underground clergy in Baoding, Hebei Province, reportedly were detained when they attempted to visit a priest recently released from reeducation through labor. Reliable sources also reported that Bishop An Shuxin, Bishop Zhang Weizhu, Father Cui Xing, and Father Wang Quanjun remained detained in Hebei Province. Underground Bishop Su Zhimin, who had been unaccounted for since his reported detention in 1997, was reportedly hospitalized in November for treatment of eye and heart ailments in Baoding, Hebei Province. Reports suggest that he had been held in a form of "house arrest" until his illness required hospitalization. Authorities sometimes used house arrest against religious leaders to avoid going through the official security and justice systems. The Government continued to deny any knowledge of Bishop Su's whereabouts or health condition and claimed that it had not taken any "coercive measures" against him.

Authorities also have destroyed or seized unregistered places of worship. On June 6, a church in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province, was torn down, although local officials maintain the demolition occurred for zoning reasons. On September 10, a church in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, was reportedly torn down because it was used to hold illegal gatherings. Visitors to Xinjiang Autonomous Region also reported that mosques have been destroyed, although some attributed the demolition as much to inter-religious conflict between Hui and Uighur Muslims as to Government antagonism. Leaders of the official Christian church reported mixed success in regaining use of Church property confiscated by the Government shortly after the 1949 Communist revolution.

The Government continued to restore or rebuild some churches, temples, mosques, and monasteries damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and allowed the reopening of some seminaries during the year. The number of restored and rebuilt temples, churches, and mosques remained inadequate to accommodate the recent increase in religious believers. The difficulty in registering new places of worship led to serious overcrowding in existing places of worship in some areas. Some observers cited the lack of adequate meeting space in registered churches to explain the rapid rise in attendance at house churches and "underground" churches.

The law does not prohibit religious believers from holding public office; however, most influential positions in government were reserved for Party members, and Party officials stated that Party membership and religious belief are incompatible. Party membership also was required for almost all high-level positions in government and in state-owned businesses and organizations. The Party reportedly issued circulars ordering Party members not to adhere to religious beliefs. The Routine Service Regulations of the People's Liberation Army state explicitly that servicemen "may not take part in religious or superstitious activities." Party and PLA personnel have been expelled for adhering to Falun Gong beliefs. In November, an international company that employs over 100,000 women in the country reported that it had revised its Chinese sales force agreement to remove an explicit ban on Falun Gong members.

Despite official regulations encouraging officials to be atheists, in some localities as many as 25 percent of Party officials engaged in some kind of religious activity. Most of these officials practiced Buddhism or a folk religion. The National People's Congress (NPC) included several religious representatives. Two of the NPC Standing Committee's vice chairmen are Fu Tieshan, a bishop and vice-chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and Pagbalha Geleg Namgyai, a Tibetan "reincarnate lama." Religious groups also were represented in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory forum for "multiparty" cooperation and consultation led by the CCP, and in local and provincial governments. During the year, Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs Ye Xiaowen publicly emphasized that the guiding "Three Represents" ideology includes serving the interests of "the more than 100 million persons with religious beliefs." In a widely reported July speech, he stated that "upholding the propaganda and education on atheism and upholding the policy on freedom of religious belief are both correct and necessary."

The authorities permitted officially sanctioned religious organizations to maintain international contacts that did not involve "foreign control"; what constitutes "control" was not defined. Regulations ban proselytizing by foreigners. For the most part, authorities allowed foreign nationals to preach to foreigners in approved, registered places of worship, bring in religious materials for personal use, and preach to citizens at churches, mosques, and temples at the invitation of registered religious organizations. Collective religious activities of foreigners also were required to take place at officially registered places of worship or approved temporary locations. Foreigners legally were barred from conducting missionary activities, but many foreign Christians teaching English and other subjects on college campuses openly professed their faith with minimum interference from authorities.

Many Christian groups throughout the country have developed close ties with local officials, in some cases running schools to help educate children who otherwise would receive a substandard education and operating homes for the care of the aged. Likewise, Buddhist-run private schools and orphanages in the central part of the country not only educated children but also offered vocational training courses to teenagers and young adults.

Official religious organizations administered local religious schools, seminaries, and institutes to train priests, ministers, imams, Islamic scholars, and Buddhist monks. Students who attended these institutes had to demonstrate "political reliability," and all graduates must pass an examination on their political as well as theological knowledge to qualify for the clergy. The Government permitted limited numbers of Catholic and Protestant seminarians, Muslim clerics, and Buddhist clergy to go abroad for additional religious studies. In most cases, funding for these training programs was provided by foreign organizations.

Both official and unofficial Christian churches had problems training adequate numbers of clergy to meet the needs of their growing congregations. No priests or other clergy in the official churches were ordained between 1955 and 1985, creating a severe shortfall in certain age groups. Due to government prohibitions, unofficial churches had particularly significant problems training clergy or sending students to study overseas, and many clergy received only limited and inadequate preparation. Members of the underground Catholic Church, particularly clergy wishing to further their studies abroad, found it difficult to obtain passports and other necessary travel documents (see Section 2.d.). Some Catholic clerics also complained that they were forced to bribe local RAB officials before being allowed to enter seminaries.

Traditional folk religions, such as the "Mazu cult" in Fujian Province, which is based on a legend, were still practiced in some locations. They were tolerated to varying degrees, often seen as loose affiliates of Taoism or as ethnic minority cultural practices. However, at the same time, folk religions have been labeled as "feudal superstition" and sometimes were repressed because their resurgence was seen as a threat to Party control. In recent years, local authorities have destroyed thousands of shrines; however, there were no reports of such destruction during the year.

Buddhists made up the largest body of organized religious believers. The traditional practice of Buddhism continued to expand among citizens in many parts of the country. Tibetan Buddhists in some areas outside of the TAR had growing freedom to practice their faith. However, some Government restrictions remained, particularly in cases in which the Government interpreted Buddhist belief as supporting separatism, such as in some Tibetan areas and parts of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Visits by official emissaries of the Dalai Lama and also by his brother, which occurred in July and September 2002, continued when Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Dalai Lama's representatives to the United States and Europe, respectively, made a second trip to the country in June. They met with officials and visited Shanghai, Beijing, and Tibetan areas in Yunnan Province (see Tibet Addendum).

Regulations restricting Muslims' religious activity, teaching, and places of worship continued to be implemented forcefully in Xinjiang. Authorities reportedly continued to prohibit the teaching of Islam to children under the age of 18 in areas where ethnic unrest has occurred and reserved the right to censor imams' sermons, particularly during sensitive religious holidays. For example, an independent imam in Kunming, Yunnan Province, was forced by the local patriotic association to stop preaching after he began to draw large crowds. Authorities believed his sermons were too fundamentalist in tone. In Xinjiang, authorities also treated fundamentalist Muslim leaders particularly harshly. In 2000, the authorities began conducting monthly political study sessions for religious personnel; the program reportedly continued during the year. The authorities also continued in some areas to discourage overt religious attire such as veils and to discourage religious marriage ceremonies. In addition, in some areas, fasting reportedly was prohibited or made difficult during Ramadan. There were numerous official media reports that the authorities confiscated illegal religious publications in Xinjiang. The Xinjiang People's Publication House was the only publisher allowed to print Muslim literature in Xinjiang, and stores reported that those selling literature not included on Government lists of permitted items risked closure.

In some areas where ethnic unrest has occurred, particularly among Central Asian Muslims (and especially the Uighurs) in Xinjiang, officials continued to restrict the building of mosques. However, in other areas, particularly in areas traditionally populated by the non-Central Asian Hui ethnic group, there was substantial religious building construction and renovation. Mosque destruction, which sometimes occurred in Xinjiang, occasionally resulted from intra-religious conflict.

The Government permitted Muslim citizens to make the Hajj to Mecca and in some cases subsidized the journey. In 2002, approximately 2,000 persons were permitted to make the Hajj with government-organized delegations, while up to an additional 2,000 privately organized Hajjis went on their own after securing government approval. Other Muslims made the trip to Mecca via third countries. Uighur Muslims reportedly had greater difficulty getting permission to make the Hajj than other Muslim groups, such as Hui Muslims. Factors limiting Chinese Muslims' participation in the Hajj included costs and controls on passport issuance.

There were no diplomatic relations between the Government and the Holy See, although foreign Catholic officials visited during the year. While both Government and Vatican authorities stated that they would welcome an agreement to normalize relations, issues concerning the role of the Pope in selecting bishops and the status of underground Catholic clerics have frustrated efforts to reach this goal. Some bishops in the official Catholic Church were not openly recognized by the Holy See, although many have been recognized privately. Frequently, bishops were first consecrated and later sought Papal approval of their consecrations, sometimes secretly, causing tensions between the Government and the Vatican. Newly nominated bishops seeking unofficial Papal approval frequently found themselves at odds with other church leaders, who were sympathetic to the Central Government and who insisted that consecrations of new bishops be conducted by more senior bishops not recognized by the Vatican. Catholic priests in the official church also faced dilemmas when asked by parishioners whether they should follow Church doctrine or government policy restricting the number of children per family. This dilemma was particularly acute when discussing abortion.

Government relations with the unofficial Catholic Church worsened somewhat. After the July 1 demonstration in Hong Kong against legislation on Article 23 of the Basic Law, the Government was stricter toward the underground Catholic Church, in part because the Government accused Hong Kong Catholic leader Bishop Joseph Zen of having a negative influence on his mainland coreligionists. The Government's refusal to allow the official Catholic Church to recognize the authority of the Papacy in matters such as the ordination of bishops led many Catholics to refuse to join the official Catholic Church on the grounds that this refusal denies one of the fundamental tenets of their faith.

There were no new reports of Nanjing Seminary professors or Protestant preachers purged for theological perspectives different from those held by Bishop Ding Guangxun, national leader of the official Protestant church. Foreign teachers were officially invited to teach at both Catholic and Protestant seminaries during the year.

The increase in the number of Christians resulted in a corresponding increase in the demand for Bibles, which were available for purchase at most officially recognized churches. Although the country had only one government-approved publisher of Bibles and distribution had been a problem, the shortage of Bibles in previous years appeared largely to have abated. Customs officials continued to monitor for the "smuggling" of Bibles and other religious materials into the country, but there were no new cases of significant punishments for Bible importation. There were credible reports that the authorities sometimes confiscated Bibles and other religious material in raids on house churches.

Weekly services of the foreign Jewish community in Beijing have been held uninterrupted since 1995, and High Holy Day observances have been allowed for more than 15 years. The Shanghai Jewish community was allowed to hold services in an historic Shanghai synagogue, which has been restored as a museum. Local authorities indicated that the community could use the synagogue in the future for special occasions on a case-by-case basis.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints meets regularly in a number of cities, but its membership was strictly limited to the expatriate community.

Requests by expatriate Protestant churches for permission to allow local Chinese to attend their services were rejected by the Government. Foreign Protestant missionaries, including several in Guangzhou, were expelled during the year. The Government claimed that those expelled had violated Chinese law.

Authorities singled out groups they considered to be "cults" for particularly severe treatment. These "cults" included not only Falun Gong and various traditional Chinese meditation and exercise groups (known collectively as "qigong" groups), but also religious groups that authorities accused of preaching beliefs outside the bounds of officially approved doctrine. For example, police continued their efforts to close down an underground evangelical group called the "Shouters," an offshoot of a pre-1949 indigenous Protestant group. The Government continued a general crackdown on such groups, including Eastern Lightning, the Association of Disciples, the Full Scope Church, the Spirit Sect, the New Testament Church, the Way of the Goddess of Mercy, the Lord God Sect, the Established King Church, the Unification Church, and the Family of Love. Authorities accused some in these groups of lacking proper theological training, preaching the imminent coming of the Apocalypse or holy war, or exploiting the reemergence of religion for personal gain.

Actions against such groups continued during the year. For example, police in January reportedly arrested over 100 members of the All-Scope Church in Henan Province and accused them of being a "doomsday cult." In February 2002, three members of the Blood and Water Holy Spirit Full Gospel Preaching Team were sentenced to 7 years in prison for "using a cult organization to violate the law" in Xiamen, Fujian Province. In December 2001, Gong Shengliang, founder of the South China Church, was sentenced to death on criminal charges including rape, arson, and assault. In 2002, an appeals court overturned his death sentence, and Gong was sentenced to life in prison. In the retrial, four women from his congregation claimed that, prior to the first trial, police had tortured them into signing statements accusing Gong of raping them. The four women, who were found not guilty of "cultist activity" in the retrial, were nonetheless immediately sent to reeducation-through-labor camps. In the retrial, the court also dropped all "evil cult" charges against the South China Church.

During the year, the Government continued its harsh and comprehensive campaign against the Falun Gong. There were allegations that hundreds of individuals received criminal, administrative, and extrajudicial punishment for practicing Falun Gong, admitting that they believed in Falun Gong, or simply refusing to denounce the organization or its founder. While the campaign against Falun Gong appeared to have abated somewhat in eastern and southern China, it continued in other provinces. During the SARS epidemic, the Government launched new accusations that Falun Gong practitioners were disrupting SARS-prevention efforts. State-run media claimed that, beginning in April, Falun Gong followers "incited public panic" and otherwise "sabotaged" anti-SARS efforts in many provinces by preaching that belief in Falun Gong will prevent persons from contracting SARS. Authorities detained hundreds of Falun Gong adherents on such charges, including 69 in Jiangsu Province during May and 180 in Hebei Province during June.

Since the Government banned the Falun Gong in 1999, the mere belief in the discipline (even without any public manifestation of its tenets) has been sufficient grounds for practitioners to receive punishments ranging from loss of employment to imprisonment. Although the vast majority of the tens of thousands of practitioners detained since 2000 have been released, thousands reportedly remained in reeducation-through-labor camps. Those identified by the Government as "core leaders" have been singled out for particularly harsh treatment. More than a dozen Falun Gong members have been sentenced to prison for the crime of "endangering state security," but the great majority of Falun Gong members convicted by the courts since 1999 have been sentenced to prison for "organizing or using a sect to undermine the implementation of the law," a less serious offense. Most practitioners, however, were punished administratively. In addition to being sentenced to reeducation through labor, some Falun Gong members were sent to detention facilities specifically established to "rehabilitate" practitioners who refused to recant their belief voluntarily. In addition, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners have been confined to mental hospitals (see Section 1.d).

Police often used excessive force when detaining peaceful Falun Gong protesters, including some who were elderly or who were accompanied by small children. During the year, there were further allegations of abuse of Falun Gong practitioners by the police and other security personnel. Since 1997, at least several hundred Falun Gong adherents reportedly have died while in police custody (see Section 1.a.). In December, Liu Chengjun, sentenced to 19 years in prison in March 2002 for involvement in illegal Falun Gong television broadcasts, was reportedly beaten to death by police in Jilin City Prison. In February 2002, Chengdu University Associate Professor Zhang Chuansheng died in prison after being arrested for his involvement with Falun Gong. Prison authorities claimed he died of a heart attack, but witnesses who saw his body claimed he had been severely beaten.

Falun Gong practitioners continued their efforts to overcome government attempts to restrict their right to free assembly, particularly in Beijing, but the extent of Falun Gong public activity in the country continued to decline considerably (see Section 2.b.). The Government initiated a comprehensive effort to round up practitioners not already in custody and sanctioned the use of high-pressure tactics and mandatory anti-Falun Gong study sessions to force practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. Even practitioners who had not protested or made other public demonstrations of belief reportedly were forced to attend anti-Falun Gong classes or were sent directly to reeducation-through-labor camps, where in some cases, beatings and torture reportedly were used to force them to recant. These tactics reportedly resulted in large numbers of practitioners signing pledges to renounce the movement.

Authorities also detained foreign Falun Gong practitioners. For example, in January, two Australian citizens were deported for engaging in Falun Gong activities in Sichuan Province. In November 2001, more than 30 foreigners and citizens resident abroad were detained in Beijing as they demonstrated in support of the Falun Gong. They were expelled from the country; some credibly reported being mistreated while in custody.

During the year, the authorities also continued a general crackdown on other groups considered to be "cults," often using the 1999 decision to ban cults under Article 300 of the Criminal Law. Regulations require all qigong groups to register with the Government. Those that did not were declared illegal. The Zhong Gong qigong group, which reportedly had a following rivaling that of Falun Gong, was banned in 2000. This created an atmosphere of uncertainty for many qigong practitioners, and there were reports that some qigong practitioners feared practicing or teaching openly. In February 2001, Zhang Xinying, vice chairman of the Chinese Society of Religious Studies, said that the rise of "cults" was due to frequent abuse of the concept of "religious freedom" by "some persons with ulterior motives." Other senior leaders made similar comments in the context of criticizing Falun Gong.

The Government taught atheism in schools. While the Government claimed that there were no national-level regulations barring children from receiving religious instruction, in some regions local authorities barred persons under 18 from attending services at mosques, temples, or churches.

For a more detailed discussion, see the 2003 International Religious Freedom Report.

d. Freedom of Movement within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration and Repatriation

Although the Government maintained restrictions on the freedom to change one's workplace or residence, the national household registration and identification card system continued to erode, and the ability of most citizens to move within the country to work and live continued to expand. However, the Government retained the ability to restrict freedom of movement through other mechanisms. Authorities heightened restrictions periodically during the year, particularly before politically sensitive anniversaries and to forestall demonstrations.

The Government's "hukou" system of national household registration underwent some liberalization during the year, as the country responded to economic demands for a more mobile labor force. Nonetheless, many Chinese could not officially change their residence or workplace within the country. Government and work unit permission were often required before moving from city to city. It was particularly difficult for peasants from rural areas to obtain household registration in economically more developed urban areas. This produced a "floating population" of between 100 and 150 million economic migrants who lacked official residence status in cities. Without official residence status, it was difficult or impossible to gain full access to social services, including education. Further, migrant workers were generally limited to types of work considered least desirable by local residents, and they had little recourse when subject to abuse by employers and officials. In some major cities, access to education for children of migrant workers continued to improve during the year, and some cities began to offer migrants some other social services free of charge. In September, Jiangsu Province became the first province to abolish the distinction between urban and rural residents in its household registration documents. In July, the city of Chengdu further liberalized its registration system, allowing up to half of the city's 1.5 million migrants to qualify for temporary residence permits. In June, the administrative detention system of custody and repatriation applied to migrants was abolished (see Section 1.d.). Authorities announced that custody and repatriation centers would be replaced by a network of aid shelters offering services to migrants, but it was unclear at year's end how these reforms would be implemented.

Prior to sensitive anniversaries, authorities in urban areas rounded up and detained some "undesirables," including the homeless, the unemployed, migrant workers, those without proper residence or work permits, petty criminals, prostitutes, and the mentally ill or disabled. Dissidents reported that the authorities restricted their freedom of movement during politically sensitive periods and while foreign dignitaries visited the country.

Under the "staying at prison employment" system applicable to recidivists incarcerated in reeducation-through-labor camps, authorities have denied certain persons permission to return to their homes after serving their sentences. Those persons sentenced to a total of more than 5 years in reeducation-through-labor camps on separate occasions also could lose their legal right to return to their home area. For those assigned to camps far from their residences, this practice constituted a form of internal exile. The number of prisoners subject to this restriction was unknown. Authorities reportedly forced other recently released prisoners to accept jobs in state enterprises where they could be closely monitored. Other released or paroled prisoners returned home but were not permitted freedom of movement. Former senior leaders Zhao Ziyang and Bao Tong remained under house arrest in Beijing, and security around them routinely was tightened during sensitive periods.

The Government permitted legal emigration and foreign travel for most citizens. Passports were increasingly easy to obtain in most places, although those whom the Government deemed to be threats, including religious leaders, political dissidents, and some ethnic minority members continued to have difficulty obtaining passports (see Tibet Addendum). During the year, the Government expanded from 25 to 100 the number of cities in which residents can apply for a passport. Many local governments abolished regulations requiring residents to obtain written permission from police and employers before applying for a passport. The Government continued to use political attitudes as criteria for selecting persons for government-sponsored study abroad; however, the Government did not control privately sponsored students, who constituted the majority of citizens studying abroad. Business travelers who wished to go abroad could obtain passports relatively easily.

There were reports that some academics faced travel restrictions around the year's sensitive anniversaries, particularly the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and there were instances in which the authorities refused to issue passports or visas on apparent political grounds. Members of the underground Catholic Church, particularly clergy wishing to further their studies abroad, found it difficult to obtain passports and other necessary travel documents. Some Falun Gong members also reportedly had difficulty in obtaining passports during the year. In May 2001, the Government prevented Dr. Gao Yaojie, who had exposed the transmission of HIV through blood collection in villages in Henan Province, from traveling abroad to receive an award. Similarly, visas to enter the country also were denied. For example, some foreign academics who had been critical of the country continued to be denied visas.

Although a signatory of the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the country has no law or regulations that authorize the authorities to grant refugee status. The Government cooperated with the UNHCR when dealing with the resettlement of ethnic Han Chinese or ethnic minorities from Vietnam and Laos resident in the country. Since the late 1980s, the Government has adopted a de facto policy of tolerance toward the small number of persons, fewer than 100 annually, from other nations who registered with the Beijing office of the UNHCR as asylum seekers. The Government permitted these persons to remain in the country while the UNHCR made determinations as to their status and, if the UNHCR determined that they were bona fide refugees, while they awaited resettlement in third countries. However, the Government continued to deny the UNHCR permission to operate along its northeastern border with North Korea, arguing that North Koreans who crossed the border were illegal economic migrants, not refugees.

During the year, several thousand North Koreans were reportedly seized, detained, and forcibly returned to their homeland, where many faced persecution. In recent years, crackdowns on prostitution and forced marriages have resulted in increased deportations of North Korean women. During the year, the Government did permit approximately 300 North Koreans to travel to Seoul after they had entered diplomatic compounds or international schools in China, and hundreds more arrived in South Korea via third countries such as Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia after transiting through China. There were numerous credible reports of harassment, detention, and abuse of North Koreans in the country, including the July 27 detention of four persons at the Beijing train station and the August 7 detention of eight persons in Shanghai who allegedly attempted to enter the Japanese school. The Government also arrested and detained foreign journalists, missionaries and activists, as well as some Chinese citizens, for providing food, shelter, transportation, and other assistance to North Koreans. For example, South Korean photojournalist Seok Jae Hyun was imprisoned in January while photographing North Korean refugees trying to board boats headed for South Korea and Japan (see Section 2.a.). In August, two South Korean journalists were detained and later expelled for allegedly assisting North Koreans attempting to enter an international school in order to transit to South Korea. In December, an employee of a Japanese NGO was detained for trying to assist North Koreans in China.

While UNHCR reported that more than 2,000 Tibetans each year continued to cross into Nepal, the Government continued to try to prevent many Tibetans from leaving. In a case that raised serious international concerns, on May 31, the Government pressured Nepalese authorities to repatriate forcibly 18 Tibetans, including several minors. The 18 were denied access to the UNHCR, forced onto a bus and taken back across the border to China, where they were held, first at a border post and later at a prison in Shigatse. According to NGO reports, the detainees were tortured, and most also were pressured for bribes. At year's end, NGOs could not confirm that all 18 individuals had been released (see Tibet Addendum).

In October, the Government executed Uighur Shaheer Ali after he and another Uighur were forcibly returned to China in 2002 from Nepal, where they had been granted refugee status by UNHCR (see Section 5).

Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government

Citizens lack the right to change their government peacefully and cannot freely choose or change the laws and officials that govern them. Rural citizens voted directly for their local village committees, which were not considered to be government bodies, and, in some areas, for Party-reviewed candidates for positions in township governments and county-level people's congresses. However, people's congress delegates at the provincial level were selected by county-level people's congresses, and, in turn, provincial-level people's congresses selected delegates to the NPC. Although the Party vets candidates for all elections above the village level, many township, county, and provincial elections featured competition, with more candidates than available seats in some races. Many elections, however, remained tightly controlled.

According to the Constitution, the NPC is the highest organ of state power. Formally, it elects the President and Vice President, selects the Premier and Vice Premiers, and elects the Chairman of the State Central Military Commission. In practice, the NPC Standing Committee oversees these elections and determines the agenda and procedure for the NPC under the direct authority of the CCP's Politburo Standing Committee. The NPC does not have the power to set policy or remove Government or Party leaders. In general, the election and agenda of people's congresses at all levels remained under the firm control of the CCP, the paramount source of political authority. By year's end, 23 provincial Party leaders had been named to head concurrently provincial people's congresses in order to strengthen Party control over the legislatures.

The CCP retained a tight rein on political decision-making and forbade the creation of new political parties. The Government continued efforts to suppress the CDP, an opposition party that had attracted hundreds of members nationwide within a few months of its founding in 1998. Public security forces had previously arrested nearly all of the CDP's leaders: Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai, and Qin Yongmin were sentenced in 1998 to prison terms of 13, 12, and 11 years respectively. Xu Wenli was released on medical parole to the United States in December 2002, but Wang and Qin remained in prison. At the time of the 16th Party Congress in November 2002, authorities targeted many remaining activists for signing an open letter calling for political reform and a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre (see Section 1.d.).

Under the Organic Law of the Village Committees, all of the country's approximately 1 million villages were expected to hold competitive, direct elections for subgovernmental village committees. A 1998 revision to the law called for improvements in the nominating process and improved transparency in village committee administration. The revised law also explicitly transferred the power to nominate candidates to the villagers themselves, as opposed to village groups or Party branches. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the majority of provinces have carried out at least four or five rounds of village elections. Foreign observers who monitored local village committee elections judged the elections they observed, on the whole, to have been fair. However, the Government estimated that one-third of all elections had serious procedural flaws. Corruption and interference by township level officials continued to be a problem in some cases.

Since 1998, there has been experimentation at the township level designed to expand the role of township residents in the selection of their leaders. The country's Constitution forbids direct election of officials above the village level, and a 2001 NPC directive emphasized that direct election of township-level officials was forbidden. In August, Wei Shengduo, a Party official in Chongqing municipality reportedly was detained for 2 weeks for trying to organize a direct election for the head of township government. Nonetheless, experimentation with indirect township-level elections continued during the year, and results of such elections were allowed to stand. Most such "elections" involved open nomination of candidates by township residents and pro forma confirmation by the township people's congress, selected either directly by residents or indirectly by "residents' representatives."

Candidates favored by local authorities have been defeated in some elections, although, in general, the CCP dominated the local electoral process. Approximately 60 percent of the members elected to the village committees were Party members. National-level election procedures mandate secret ballots and require villagers to be given ballots with space for write-in candidates, and these requirements were implemented in most cases. In elections for district level people's congresses, independent candidates were elected in Guangdong Province in May and in Beijing in December.

During the year, the Government also experimented with other forms of public oversight of government, including telephone hotline and complaint centers, administrative hearings, increased opportunity for citizen observation of government proceedings, and other forms of citizen input in the local legislative process, such as hearings to discuss draft legislation, which have been introduced on a limited basis in some areas.

Corruption remained an endemic problem. The courts and Party agencies took disciplinary action against some public and Party officials during the year. According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate, prosecutors at all levels investigated 207,103 cases of embezzlement, bribery, and other functionary crimes during the 1997-2002 period. During that period, 83,308 public officials were convicted for graft or bribery, a 65 percent increase over the previous 5-year period, according to the Supreme People's Court. In April, the Minister of Supervision reported that 860,000 corruption cases were filed against Party members from 1997 to 2002, resulting in over 137,000 expulsions and disciplinary action in over 98 percent of cases. The Party's Central Discipline and Inspection Commission also played an important role in investigating corruption and official malfeasance but published no statistics and, in some cases, reportedly acted as a substitute for sanctions by the courts and other legal agencies.

During the year, citizens seeking to petition the Central Government for redress of grievances faced harassment, detention, and incarceration. In several cases, Shanghai police officers and officials from the Shanghai Office of the Bureau for Handling Letters and Visits traveled to Beijing to prevent Shanghai residents from raising grievances with Central Government officials. On November 18, such a team of Shanghai officials detained Jiang Meili, the wife of convicted Shanghai housing advocate Zheng Enchong, and her sister and forced them to return to Shanghai. Jiang was in Beijing to consult her husband's attorney. Other citizens expressing grievances involving housing and salary have faced similar harassment. For example, Hong Kong resident Shen Ting was harassed by non-Beijing police and detained in October for traveling to Beijing to protest housing issues in Shanghai (see Section 1.f.). On December 2, Shanghai residents Gong Haoming and Chen Enjuan were sentenced to 30 and 21 months' reeducation through labor for "disturbing public order" after attempting to petition Beijing authorities. Other activists also were reportedly sentenced to reeducation through labor on the same charges.

The Government placed no special restrictions on the participation of women or minority groups in the political process. However, women still held few positions of significant influence at the highest rungs of the Party or government structure. There was one woman on the 24-member Politburo; she concurrently held the only ministerial post (out of 28) occupied by a woman. There was also one woman among the five State Councilors. In the country's 28 ministries, only 14 women served at the level of vice minister or higher. Women freely exercised their right to vote in village committee elections, but only a small fraction of elected members were women. The Government and Party organizations included approximately 12 million female officials out of 67 million Party members. Women constituted 20.2 percent of the NPC and 13.2 percent of the NPC Standing Committee. The 16th Party Congress in November 2002 elected 27 women to serve as members or alternates on the 198-person Central Committee, a slight increase over the total of the previous committee.

Minorities constituted 14 percent of the NPC, although they made up approximately 9 percent of the population. All of the country's 56 nationalities were represented in the NPC membership. The 16th Party Congress elected 35 members of ethnic minorities to serve as members or alternates on the Central Committee; however, minorities held few senior Party or government positions of significant influence.

Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of  Human Rights

The Government did not permit independent domestic NGOs to monitor openly or to comment on human rights conditions. It was difficult to establish an NGO, and the Government tended to be suspicious of independent organizations; most existing NGOs were quasi-governmental in nature and were closely controlled by government agencies (see Section 2.b.). However, an informal network of dissidents in cities around the country has become a credible source of information about government actions taken against activists. The information was disseminated outside of the country through organizations such as the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China and the New York-based Human Rights in China.

The press regularly printed articles about officials who exceeded their authority and infringed on citizens' rights. However, the Government remained reluctant to accept criticism of its human rights record by other nations or international organizations and criticized reports by international human rights monitoring groups, claiming that such reports were inaccurate and interfered with the country's internal affairs. Individuals, including Zheng Enchong of Shanghai and Liu Fenggang of Beijing, were charged or convicted of "disclosing state secrets" during the year after passing information to human rights NGOs based abroad. The Government maintained that there are legitimate, differing approaches to human rights based on each country's particular history, culture, social situation, and level of economic development. The Government established the China Society for Human Rights, a "nongovernmental" organization whose mandate was not to monitor human rights conditions, but to defend the Government's views and human rights record.

The Government had active human rights dialogues with many countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as with the European Union.