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Chinese authorities had placed six officials from the State Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for issuing production licenses for biological products and supervising drug safety, under shuanggui for allegedly accepting bribes from drug companies.\86\ ``Strike Hard'' and ``Anticrime'' Campaigns With official sources reporting an increase in violent crime and escalating social tensions with high-profile school attacks, Chinese officials launched anticrime campaigns across China during the reporting year.\87\ In June 2010, the Ministry of Public Security announced the launch of the fourth round of its national ``strike hard'' campaign (to take place between July 2010 and February 2011) aimed at violent crime.\88\ In June, the Vice Minister of Public Security Zhang Xinfeng told a national meeting that ``China, during a process of social and economic transformation, is facing emerging social conflicts and new problems in social security.'' \89\ Traditionally, ``strike hard'' campaigns have been intense national crackdowns of fixed duration associated with unusually harsh law enforcement tactics, quick trials, and violations of criminal procedure. In addition to the national ``strike hard'' campaign, provincial, municipal, and lower level governments also undertook anticrime and anticorruption campaigns. In the most high-profile example, the southwestern municipality of Chongqing continued a massive, public ``anticrime'' sweep (known in Chinese as ``striking organized crime and uprooting evil'' [dahei chu'e]) of criminal syndicates and corrupt officials that resulted in thousands of arrests and raised various concerns about judicial independence and procedural rights. Launched in June 2009, the Chongqing anticrime campaign continued to capture national publicity and lead to numerous high-profile trials and arrests. By April 2010, Chongqing authorities had arrested 14 high-ranking officials and more than 3,000 others in the crackdown.\90\ In February 2010, in one of the more publicized cases, the Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Li Zhuang, a prominent Beijing lawyer who represented alleged Chongqing organized crime figure Gong Gangmo, to one year and six months in prison for fabricating evidence and interfering with witness testimony. While officials alleged that Li urged his client to make false claims of torture by police and directed a lawyer to make claims in support of the allegations, various Chinese lawyers have asserted ``that the prosecution of Li is a political vendetta because he, unlike most of the other defense lawyers, fought hard for his client.'' \91\ In May 2010, the Chongqing High People's Court upheld an April death sentence for former Director of the Chongqing Municipal Judicial Bureau Wen Qiang for his role in ``accepting bribes, shielding criminal gangs, rape, and failing to account for his cash and assets.'' \92\ In his May appeal, Wen confessed to ``85 percent'' of the charges, but maintained that the first trial ``inaccurately'' determined certain established crimes, which had led to a ``more severe penalty.'' \93\ At the same time, however, Chinese scholars and lawyers have expressed concern that efforts to satisfy public resentment and meet anticrime targets have led to procedural inconsistencies and wrongful convictions. Jiang Ping, former President of the China University of Politics and Law, strongly criticized the handling of the Li Zhuang case in an essay widely circulated online, stating ``[n]o matter what you think about it, from the most basic level, procedural justice was violated.'' \94\ According to the July 1, 2010, Oriental Outlook article, some Chinese legal scholars have criticized the ``strike hard'' campaigns, whose ``severity and speed'' have led to criminal procedure violations. The article states ``the procedural rights of criminal suspects and defendants to a certain extent are deprived--which is not consistent with the spirit of the rule of law.'' \95\ Medical Parole During this reporting year, Chinese authorities denied medical parole and adequate medical treatment to those within the prison system, particularly human rights advocates. The U.S. State Department observed in its report on China's human rights situation for 2009 that ``adequate, timely medical care for prisoners remained a serious problem, despite official assurances that prisoners have the right to prompt medical treatment.'' \96\ Chinese authorities reportedly denied legal advocate and rights defender Chen Guangcheng adequate medical treatment while he was imprisoned.\97\ [For additional discussion on Chen Guangcheng, see box titled Case Update: Chen Guangcheng--Human Rights Defender in Section II--Population Planning.] In April 2010, imprisoned activist Hu Jia, who had been sentenced to three years and six months in April 2008, was denied early release from prison despite a reportedly rapidly deteriorating medical condition and possible liver cancer.\98\ In June 2010, Chinese authorities released Zhang Jianhong, also known by his pen name Li Hong, who had been serving a six-year sentence and suffers from advanced-stage Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Authorities first diagnosed Zhang with advanced-stage muscular dystrophy in 2007, after determining that he was ``suffering from muscle contractions and spasms of the hands and feet, and gradual weakening of his entire body.'' \99\ Despite the 2007 diagnosis, which qualified him for medical parole, prison authorities rejected ``requests from Zhang's family and lawyers for medical parole.'' \100\ Capital Punishment In March 2010, Supreme People's Court President Wang Shengjun emphasized the state policy of ``strictly controlling and carefully applying the death penalty'' in his annual report to the National People's Congress.\101\ Despite claims that fewer executions occur, however, the Chinese government maintained its policy of not releasing details on the thousands reportedly executed annually and continues to keep information on the death penalty a ``closely guarded state secret,'' according to a March 2010 Amnesty International report.\102\ In August 2010, the National People's Congress reviewed the first draft of the proposed eighth amendment to the Criminal Law, which reportedly calls for reducing the current 68 crimes punishable by death to 55 crimes.\103\ The reduction would signal the first time the Chinese government has reduced the number of crimes subject to the death penalty since the Criminal Law was enacted in 1979. In December 2009, China gained international attention for executing British defendant Akmal Shaikh, the first EU national to be executed in China since 1951, after refusing to allow Shaikh to be examined by a doctor.\104\ Despite multiple appeals by the British government based on Shaikh's ``serious mental health problems,'' China executed Shaikh on December 29, 2009.\105\ According to an international media report, Chinese authorities maintained that evidence of Shaikh's mental illness was ``insufficient,'' and that the case was handled according to Chinese law.\106\ China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu defended the execution, stating, ``The Chinese judiciary's right to treat cases according to the rule of law should be respected and there's nobody who has the right to make improper comments on China's judicial sovereignty.'' \107\ International organizations and critics have claimed the execution contravened the Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty, adopted in 1984 by the UN Economic and Social Council, which states that executions shall not be carried out on persons who suffer from mental illness.\108\ During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, China moved to adopt lethal injection as the primary form of execution. Lethal injection was legalized in China as an alternative to execution by firing squad in the 1996 Criminal Procedure Law. In December 2009, Liaoning province became the first province to adopt lethal injections as the sole form of execution.\109\ In 2010, Beijing municipality also moved to implement lethal injections for all executions.\110\ Freedom of Religion Introduction China's Constitution guarantees ``freedom of religious belief'' but protects only ``normal religious activities,'' and the government's restrictive framework toward religion continued in the past year to prevent Chinese citizens from exercising their right to freedom of religion in line with international human rights standards.\1\ Some Chinese citizens had space to practice their religion, but the Chinese government continued to exert tight control over the affairs of state-sanctioned religious communities and to repress religious and spiritual activities falling outside the scope of Communist Party-sanctioned practice. During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the government maintained requirements that religious organizations register with the government and submit to the leadership of ``patriotic religious associations'' created by the Party to lead China's five recognized religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism, and Taoism. Unregistered groups risked harassment, detention, imprisonment, and other abuses, as did members of registered groups deemed to deviate from state-sanctioned activities. Variations in implementation allowed some unregistered groups to function in China,\2\ but such toleration was arbitrary and did not amount to the full protection of these groups' rights. As leadership in the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) changed in the past year,\3\ authorities continued to affirm policies of control over religion. Despite articulating a ``positive role'' for religious communities in China, officials did not then use the notion of this ``positive role'' to promote religious freedom, but rather used the sentiment to bolster support for state economic and social goals.\4\ According to Wang Zuo'an, the new head of SARA, ``The starting point and stopping point of work on religion is to unite and mobilize, to the greatest degree, the religious masses' zeal, to build socialism with Chinese characteristics.'' \5\ The government continued to use law to control religious practice rather than protect the religious freedom of all Chinese citizens. In April 2010, authorities marked the fifth- year anniversary of implementation of the State Council Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA), which codifies the government's and Party's restrictive framework for religion.\6\ While the RRA also provides some legal protections for registered religious communities, it conditions many activities on government oversight or approval.\7\ The RRA excludes unregistered groups from limited state protections, leaving them especially vulnerable to official harassment.\8\ In late 2009, Hubei and Hainan provinces each implemented new provincial-level legislation that, compared to older legislation they replace, provides more explicit protections for registered religious communities, in line with the RRA, but that also articulates more detailed state oversight of religious activities. Both include, for example, limits on the activities of clergy and other religious workers that were absent from the earlier provincial legal measures they replace.\9\ In January, SARA issued new trial measures on the financial affairs of venues for religious activities,\10\ subjecting the venues to more clearly specified state oversight, as well as specifying some protection for their property and income.\11\ The new measures apply only to registered religious venues, leaving unregistered venues both outside this system of oversight and outside the limited protections afforded by the measures.\12\ The State Administration of Foreign Exchange issued a circular, effective March 1, 2010, concerning foreign exchange donated to or by domestic institutions that imposes unique requirements on religious organizations to receive approval to accept one-time donations over 1 million yuan (US$147,000).\13\ [See Section III--Civil Society for more information.] Buddhism The Chinese government and Communist Party exercise control over the doctrine and religious practices of Han Buddhists in non-Tibetan areas in much the same manner as they do for other religious communities.\14\ During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the government and Party continued to control Buddhist doctrine, as well as monitor and control unregistered Buddhist groups and activities. [For more information on conditions for Tibetan Buddhists, see Section V--Tibet.] CONTROLS OVER BUDDHIST DOCTRINE During this reporting year, the government continued to control the institutions and religious practices of Buddhists in an effort to bring them into conformity with Party goals and policies. The government requires Buddhist groups and religious personnel to register with the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) \15\ in order to practice their religion and hold religious services legally,\16\ and authorities tend to allow a wider scope of activities for Buddhist groups that work more closely with them.\17\ During this reporting year, authorities continued to emphasize the BAC's role in promoting the government's and Party's goals. For example, Wang Zuo'an-- Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA)--said in a February 2010 speech that the BAC ``received the Party and government's approval'' \18\ for, among other things, ``raising high the banner of loving the country and loving religion, as well as the banner of solidarity and progress . . ., spurring economic development, social harmony, ethnic solidarity, [and] unification of the motherland . . . .'' \19\ MONITORING AND CONTROL OF UNREGISTERED BUDDHIST GROUPS AND ACTIVITIES Local authorities continued to monitor and control unregistered Buddhist groups and activities during this reporting year, labeling certain groups ``cult organizations'' and characterizing unapproved religious practices as inconsistent with legal measures. For example, the government continued to enforce a ban against at least one Buddhist group that it has designated a ``cult organization'': a Taiwan-based sect known as the Quan Yin Method (Guanyin Famen).\20\ A 2000 circular from the Ministry of Public Security that explains the background of the Party's ban of the Quan Yin Method cites criticism of the Party by the sect's founder, Supreme Master Ching Hai.\21\ In addition, reports from local governments throughout China in late 2009 and early 2010 focused on the construction of unregistered Buddhist temples or statues,\22\ often characterizing these practices as ``illegal'' \23\ or ``indiscriminate.'' \24\ Echoing the language from these reports, a September 2009 article from the People's Daily cited the ``indiscriminate construction'' of temples and religious statues as a problem.\25\ Some of these government reports claimed that local authorities stopped a ``resurgence of the indiscriminate construction'' of temples during this reporting year.\26\ An October 19, 2009, manual posted on the Web site of the Wuxi City Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau, Jiangsu province offered four methods of dealing with unauthorized temples: ``transform,'' ``demolish,'' ``change,'' or ``co- opt''; demolition and transformation are identified as the primary two methods.\27\ Catholicism During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the Chinese government continued to interfere in the religious activities of Chinese Catholics who did not accept the full authority of the state-controlled church, including members of the state- controlled church community and the unregistered, or ``underground,'' Catholic community. In addition, the government continued to harass or detain some members of both communities, which are estimated to equal between 4 million and 12 million believers.\28\ Authorities also placed restrictions on pilgrimages to the Sheshan Marian shrine during the period surrounding the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. RELATIONS WITH THE HOLY SEE AND INTERFERENCE WITH RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES Chinese authorities continued to restrict the scope of religious activities of some Chinese Catholics, both registered and underground, who did not accept the full authority of China's state- controlled church. For example, since the 1950s, the Chinese Government has denied members of the Chinese official church the freedom to recognize the authority of the Holy See to select Chinese bishops.\29\ The Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA)-- a state-controlled entity that monitors and controls Catholic doctrine, practices, property, and personnel--exercises influence over the ordination of bishops for the registered church in China, including through coercion of bishops to officiate ordinations.\30\ In some cases, the CPA has allowed discreet Holy See approval of some bishops also approved by the CPA,\31\ and the CPA continued this practice during this reporting year.\32\ However, the government continued to insist that the Chinese Catholic church be independent, and the government interfered in the religious activities of Chinese Catholics who did not accept the full authority of the state- controlled church. In January 2010, CPA Vice Chair Liu Bainian called on Chinese Catholics to ``continue to raise high the banner of loving the country and loving religion, [and] insist that the independent, autonomous, self-managing church be unwavering. . . .'' \33\ Various local government reports carried similar language,\34\ while some instructed officials to monitor ``infiltration by'' or ``contact with'' foreign religious groups with reference to Catholics.\35\ In April 2010, the CPA insisted that Bishop Du Jiang of the Bameng diocese in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) attend his official installation ceremony together with Ma Yinglin, whom the state-controlled church ordained in 2006 without approval from the Holy See.\36\ Du stated publicly that he was forced to attend the ceremony with Ma, and authorities subsequently placed Du under home confinement.\37\ During the January 2010 funeral of underground bishop Yao Liang--an octogenarian released from detention less than a year before his death \38\--authorities prevented displays of official bishop's insignia, prohibited the publication of obituaries, and only allowed three bishops to attend.\39\ Authorities had implemented similar restrictions during the October 2009 funeral of underground bishop Lin Xili.\40\ HARASSMENT AND DETENTION During the past year, the government continued to harass and detain arbitrarily Catholics who were not registered with the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), as well as those who were registered but ran afoul of the Party's policies. At least 40 unregistered Chinese bishops are in detention, home confinement, or surveillance, are in hiding, or have disappeared under suspicious circumstances.\41\ Some have been missing for years, such as underground bishops Su Zhimin and Shi Enxiang, whom public security officials took into custody in 1996 and 2001, respectively, and whose whereabouts are unknown.\42\ Authorities targeted other underground bishops more recently, as government and Party documents from late 2009 and early 2010 called on authorities to ``educate and transform'' \43\ underground Catholic communities to maintain ``stability'' \44\ and stop ``illegal religious activities,'' \45\ as well as to ``insist on maintaining secrecy . . . especially with regard to underground Catholic forces . . . .'' \46\ In March 2010, authorities detained underground priests Luo Wen and Liu Maochun after they organized youth camps for university students.\47\ Authorities released Luo on March 18.\48\ The Commission has observed no reports that Liu has been released. After public security officials held underground bishop An Shuxin in custody for 10 years, he joined the CPA in July 2009.\49\ He asserted that he made the decision ``for the good of the diocese and the urgent need to evangelize,'' \50\ despite facing resentment from some members of the underground Catholic church.\51\ Even after An joined the CPA, however, public security officials placed him under surveillance.\52\ Authorities officially installed An on August 7, 2010.\53\ In July 2010, authorities in Hebei province released unregistered Catholic bishop Jia Zhiguo after detaining him in an unknown location for one year and three months.\54\ Jia's detention was reportedly linked to his cooperation with officially recognized bishop Jiang Taoran; local authorities told Jia that the ``unity'' between Jia and Jiang is ``bad because it is desired by a foreign power like the Vatican. If there must be unity, it must come through the government and the [CPA].'' \55\ On June 8, 2010, over 100 public security officials and unidentified persons demolished the only Catholic church in Ordos municipality, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and detained two priests for over 20 hours.\56\ The church was registered,\57\ but according to media reports, the local government intended to build a new road on the land where the church was located.\58\ RESTRICTIONS ON PILGRIMAGES TO THE SHESHAN MARIAN SHRINE Authorities restricted the freedom of Catholics to visit the Sheshan Marian shrine, in Shanghai municipality, during the period surrounding the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.\59\ Large numbers of Catholic pilgrims travel to Marian shrines around the world in the month of May, and the Sheshan Marian shrine has special significance to Catholics in China.\60\ A 2007 letter from Pope Benedict XVI mentions the shrine specifically: ``[May 24] is dedicated to the liturgical memory of Our Lady, Help of Christians, who is venerated with great devotion at the Marian Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai.'' \61\ In 2010, May 24 fell during the Shanghai Expo, and local governments in the Shanghai municipal area and other localities ordered security forces to ensure ``stability'' in anticipation of Catholic pilgrims traveling to the shrine.\62\ According to media reports, the CPA issued directives during this reporting year instructing Catholics not to travel from other localities to visit the shrine,\63\ and some Catholics in China reported being prevented from traveling to the shrine during the Shanghai Expo.\64\ Falun Gong During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the Communist Party and Chinese government maintained the ``strike hard'' campaign that they have carried out against Falun Gong practitioners for more than a decade.\65\ Falun Gong is a spiritual movement based on the teachings of its founder, Li Hongzhi, and Chinese meditative exercises called qigong.\66\ The Party designated Falun Gong an illegal ``cult organization'' in 1999 following a peaceful demonstration held by its practitioners near the Communist Party leadership compound in Beijing.\67\ It is difficult to ascertain the number of practitioners in China today because the movement has been forced underground, but official Chinese sources and Falun Gong sources estimate that tens of millions of Chinese citizens practiced Falun Gong in the 1990s.\68\ The Shanghai 2010 World Expo, held from May to October 2010, became the latest in a series of events that the Chinese government has seized upon as justification for ongoing ``security'' crackdowns that aim to ferret out and punish Falun Gong practitioners. In the lead up to and during the Shanghai Expo, authorities conducted propaganda campaigns deriding Falun Gong, carried out strict surveillance of practitioners, detained and imprisoned large numbers of practitioners, and subjected some who refused to disavow Falun Gong to torture and other abuses in prison and reeducation through labor facilities.\69\ In May 2010, Falun Gong sources based in the United States published information on 127 documented cases of Chinese authorities detaining practitioners in the Shanghai area in connection with the pre-Shanghai Expo crackdown; 26 of the 127 are known to be serving sentences in prison or reeducation through labor facilities.\70\ Authorities also continued to arbitrarily imprison Falun Gong practitioners in cases unrelated to the Shanghai Expo. In January 2010, after Zhang Binglan had reportedly given Falun Gong fliers to her daughter, the Tancheng County People's Court in Linyi city, Shandong province sentenced Zhang and her husband Sun Dejian to eight years and six months in prison and three years in prison, respectively, for ``using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law.'' \71\ Other Falun Gong political prisoners remain in prison on similar charges, such as artist Xu Na, whom the Beijing Chongwen District People's Court sentenced to three years in prison in 2008.\72\ The government has not ceased its harassment and intimidation of lawyers who defend Falun Gong clients in the Chinese judicial system, which the Commission first reported in its 2009 report.\73\ In November 2009, the Shahekou District People's Court in Dalian city, Liaoning province, sentenced human rights lawyer Wang Yonghang, who had defended several Falun Gong clients over a three-year period, to seven years in prison on the charge that is most commonly leveled against Falun Gong practitioners: ``using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law.'' \74\ In May 2010, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice permanently revoked the licenses of attorneys Tang Jitian and Liu Wei, which Tang believed was retaliation for their defense of Yang Ming, a Falun Gong practitioner in Sichuan province.\75\ Chinese security forces continue to detain Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human rights lawyer whom the government targeted in part because of his work on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners.\76\ Gao was forcibly ``disappeared'' from February 2009 until late March 2010, at which time he briefly reappeared before vanishing again at the end of April.\77\ SHANGHAI 2010 WORLD EXPO Local governments throughout the Shanghai municipal area reported mobilizing security forces to target Falun Gong practitioners in preparation for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. In January 2010, residential committees in Shanghai's Pudong district conducted ``one-by-one inspections of unstable elements'' in which officials were told to report swiftly Falun Gong ``reactionary posters and other activities'' to higher authorities and warned that they ``absolutely must not allow Falun Gong to take root, germinate, and spread.'' \78\ In February, Xu Lin, the Pudong Party Secretary, warned security forces that they must ``adopt necessary management and control measures'' and ``must absolutely never lose control [of Falun Gong].'' \79\ Shanghai Expo-related propaganda campaigns in the greater Shanghai area portrayed ``cults'' like Falun Gong as ``dangers'' to society that ``wreck families'' and ``poison the minds of youth'' and stressed the need to ``transform'' practitioners.\80\ Party authorities made clear that participation in ``anti-cult'' propaganda campaigns was mandatory, and insisted that local officials utilize these campaigns to organize residents to ``vigorously struggle'' and ``win the tough battle against cults.'' \81\ At least four Shanghai Expo-related government reports stressed the importance of ``transformation through reeducation,'' a coercive process carried out during detention that has been used to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs.\82\ The crackdown against Falun Gong carried out in the name of providing security for the Shanghai Expo extended well beyond the Shanghai municipal area into surrounding provinces hundreds of miles away from the Expo site. In April 2010, officials in Fuzhou city, the capital of Fujian province, announced a ``large dragnet investigation'' during the period of the Shanghai Expo that would ``strengthen monitoring and control of Falun Gong practitioners'' and ``ensure that they do not have contact with people from the outside.'' \83\ In March 2010, Shicheng county authorities in Jiangxi province--approximately 700 miles from Shanghai--announced measures to ``guard against'' possible ``interference and sabotage'' of the Shanghai Expo by Falun Gong.\84\ THE 6-10 OFFICE The 6-10 Office--an extralegal, Party-run security apparatus created in June 1999 to implement the ban against Falun Gong--spearheaded the Shanghai Expo crackdown against Falun Gong.\85\ In February 2010, 6-10 Office agents visited village and residential committees in Shanghai's Minhang district to persuade community leaders to sign ``special 610 work responsibility agreements.'' \86\ In its 2010 work plan for ``comprehensive management of social order,'' a township in Pudong district designated ``perfecting the 610 prevention and control system'' as a priority for its security services and required specific measures to be taken such as ``24-hour monitoring and control'' of Falun Gong practitioners during ``sensitive periods'' to ``ensure that there is no danger of anything going wrong.'' \87\ Beyond the Shanghai Expo crackdown, government reports from elsewhere in China indicate that the 6-10 Office continues to expand its activities to punish Falun Gong practitioners, whom authorities sometimes describe as ``diehard'' \88\ or ``obsessed,'' \89\ and close potential openings for the movement to grow. The Ministry of Commerce reported in November 2009 that a county-level commerce bureau in Hunan province had established an internal ``610 work leading group'' that feeds intelligence reports to the 6-10 Office and ``stability maintenance office'' (weiwenban).\90\ Assessing the results of 10 years of the ``strike hard'' campaign against Falun Gong, a December 2009 report from the director of a district-level 6-10 Office in Beijing listed the decline in ``registered'' Falun Gong practitioners living in the district from a number in the thousands (the actual number was removed) in 1999 to a number in the hundreds in 2009 as a factor in the office's ``significant victory'' over Falun Gong.\91\ Islam Chinese authorities maintained tight controls over Islam in China. Authorities across the country used the specter of ``extremism'' to bolster state interference in how Muslims interpreted and practiced their religion. The state-controlled Islamic Association of China (IAC) continued to align aspects of Islamic practice with government and Party policy through its work to train religious leaders, interpret theology, draft sermons, and lead overseas pilgrimages. During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the IAC published its fourth collection of sermons as part of an ongoing project that one government official described as putting forth ``authentic interpretations'' of Islam that placed Muslims on the ``road to adapting to socialism'' and led them to uphold the state- defined goals of ``unification of the country, ethnic unity, and social stability.'' \92\ One sermon published in the past year called on Muslims to ``unite love of country with love of Islam'' and ``believe in the Communist Party and government'' instead of ``rumors'' deemed to spark unrest.\93\ Throughout the year, government officials in some localities reported strengthening oversight of Muslim communities and blocking religious activities, groups, and venues they deemed ``illegal.'' Various government sources described steps to stop religious ``infiltration'' and ``illegal'' outreach and preaching activities.\94\ A report from the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region also described ``improving and rectifying'' Arabic schools and scripture classes, as part of steps to ``resist religious infiltration.'' A Communist Party report from Wulan county in Qinghai province noted the county had strengthened steps to deal with illegal sites of worship in recent years and had banned two privately established mosques.\95\ ISLAM IN THE XINJIANG UYGHUR AUTONOMOUS REGION Conditions for religious freedom for Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued to worsen. XUAR authorities increased repressive security campaigns in the region in the aftermath of demonstrations and riots in July 2009 and continued to identify ``religious extremism'' as one source of the unrest, as well as an ongoing threat to the region's stability.\96\ As in the past, authorities singled out aspects of Islam in particular in campaigns targeting ``religious extremism'' and ``illegal religious activities.'' They defined such terms to encompass religious practices, group affiliations, and viewpoints protected under international human rights guarantees for freedom of religion, expression, and association that the Chinese government is bound to uphold.\97\ In the aftermath of the demonstrations and riots, XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri called for strengthening management of religion and ``bringing into full play the special role of patriotic religious figures in maintaining ethnic unity.'' \98\ Authorities carried out a new cycle of training for religious leaders in the past year, calling on them to raise their ``consciousness and firmness'' in the ``battle against extremism.'' \99\ The region's 2009 work report called for strengthening management of religion through measures including preventing ``religious forces'' from ``infiltrating schools,'' punishing underground religious schools, and increasing management of pilgrimages.\100\ Authorities in the XUAR implemented various campaigns in the past year to restrict religious practice, singling out aspects of Islam and tightening controls in some cases. The Party-controlled XUAR Women's Federation carried out a wide- scale campaign in 2009 to ``weaken religious consciousness'' among women \101\ and campaigns to dissuade Muslim women from wearing veils.\102\ One Women's Federation report described veiling as a form of ``extreme religion'' and ``an expression of a type of ignorant and backward way of thinking.'' \103\ Following a proposal in early 2009 to draw Muslim women religious specialists known as buwi under government and Party management,\104\ the XUAR Women's Federation also reported increasing oversight of these women.\105\ The XUAR government targeted ``illegal religious materials'' in 2009 censorship campaigns and reportedly issued multiple directives singling out ``illegal'' religious and political materials.\106\ In March 2010, state media reported confiscating 13 tons of ``illegally printed religious books'' and detaining a Uyghur man who had received the shipment of books from another province.\107\ Local governments at the prefectural level and below reported taking a range of steps to restrict religious freedom. The Aqsu municipal government, Aqsu district, reported in January on strengthening implementation of and refining its ``two systems'' program of maintaining regular government contact with mosques and religious figures. Steps taken include formulating measures to preexamine sermons and monitoring conditions at religious venues daily.\108\ The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture government formulated a set of measures to manage Muslim women religious specialists (buwi).\109\ A Communist Party office in Kashgar district reported it would increase oversight of groups including buwi, people who have gone on unauthorized pilgrimages, and people dismissed from their posts as religious personnel, as part of work to ``safeguard stability.'' \110\ In line with XUAR government direction, various local authorities pledged to continue curbing unauthorized religious pilgrimages.\111\ Government offices in Turpan district and Shule (Qeshqer Yengisheher) county, Kashgar district, posted job advertisements that required that candidates ``not believe in a religion'' or ``participate in religious activities.'' \112\ Government authorities in the XUAR continued to restrict children's freedom of religion. Authorities adopted a new regulation on the protection of minors, effective December 2009, that restricts children's religious activities.\113\ While the regulation excludes a previously codified ban (now void) on parents ``permitting children to engage in religious activities,'' \114\ it broadens an earlier provision to prohibit people from ``luring or forcing minors to participate in religious activities.'' \115\ The regulation lacks criteria for determining what acts constitute ``luring'' or ``forcing,'' leaving wide latitude to interpret the terms in a manner that constrains children's exercise of freedom of religion and parents' right to impart a religious education. The provisions on children's religious activities appear to remain the most detailed in China and to lack a clear basis in Chinese law.\116\ Authorities in Nilka county, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, launched a campaign in March to spread government policies including the ``six forbiddens'': forbidding students from believing in religion, participating in religious activities, fasting, wearing clothes with a ``religious hue,'' viewing or listening to audio-video products with ``reactionary content,'' and disseminating ``separatist thought.'' \117\ Amid government calls to curb ``illegal'' religious activities, overseas media reported in the past year on cases of Muslims detained for practicing their religion. Radio Free Asia reported in May on a series of religion-related detentions in July 2009 in one township in Yining (Ghulja) county, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, involving 10 people in two sets of cases. According to sources cited in the RFA reports, the people were detained for teaching unauthorized classes on religion and reading certain religious publications.\118\ Most of those detained reportedly remained in detention, with details of charges against them unknown.\119\ Authorities reportedly detained 32 women in a Quran study group in Bachu (Maralbeshi) county, Kashgar district, around early June. Authorities said the women were engaged in illegal religious activities and formally detained two of them, releasing the others after levying fines.\120\ Protestantism The Chinese government and Communist Party continued to restrict the religious activities and doctrine of Chinese Protestants who worship in the state-controlled church, a network of at least 20 million citizens and 50,000 churches.\121\ In addition, they continued to arbitrarily harass, intimidate, detain, or imprison some of the estimated 50 to 70 million Chinese Protestants who worship in China's unregistered congregations (house churches),\122\ communities that have been growing larger and more conspicuous over the past few decades.\123\ The government made strong efforts to interfere with the internal affairs of some unregistered congregations through such means as the arbitrary detention of religious leaders, violent raids, destruction of worship sites, attempts to prevent members from gathering, and the labeling of some Protestant organizations as ``cults.'' PATRIOTIC RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AND THEOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION China's state-controlled Protestant church continued to dictate the terms by which it allowed Protestants to interpret doctrine and theology, in an effort to eliminate elements of the Christian faith that the Party regards as incompatible with its goals and ideology. The government and Party call this process ``theological reconstruction.'' \124\ The Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC) are the official organizations that manage registered Protestants,\125\ and government and Party officials continued to emphasize the role of those organizations in promoting Party policies. For example, during an early February 2010 meeting with the TSPM and CCC, top Party and government leaders commended the two organizations for their ``positive function in safeguarding social harmony and stability while maintaining smooth, relatively rapid economic development''; \126\ for ``resolutely resisting various forms of foreign religious infiltration activities''; \127\ and for ``achieving positive results through continuing to promote theological reconstruction, strengthening the building of their organizations, and vigorously launching trainings [for pastors].'' \128\ In February 2010, Jia Qinglin, the fourth- highest ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, called on the patriotic religious organizations to ``diligently train a corps of qualified religious personnel who are politically reliable . . . .'' \129\ In line with these sentiments, government entities from localities across the country stressed the importance of theological reconstruction and political training for pastors in various government meetings and work reports.\130\ MAJOR CASES OF HARASSMENT, DETENTION, AND INTERFERENCE WITH PLACES OF WORSHIP During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, authorities continued to harass and detain arbitrarily members of house churches throughout China and interfere with their places of worship.\131\ Local government reports throughout China called on authorities to monitor and control house churches,\132\ and authorities targeted several prominent house church leaders and large house church congregations that had already lost their indoor meeting spaces, which some reports suggest may have been a result of government pressure on their landlords.\133\ For example, on November 8, 2009, authorities prevented pastor Jin Tianming of the Shouwang Church in Beijing from leaving his home to attend worship and then prevented the congregation from gathering in a park to worship.\134\ On November 22, 2009, authorities detained four members of the clergy and two other members of the Wanbang Church in Shanghai \135\ as members of the congregation were planning to meet outdoors to worship.\136\ Wanbang pastor Cui Quan said that police accused the church of being ``illegal,'' questioned those detained about its operations, and then released all six later that day.\137\ On May 8, 2010, authorities put pastor Wang Dao--a participant in the 1989 Tiananmen protests and leader of the Liangren Church in Guangzhou--under criminal detention and dispersed the congregation as they attempted to worship in a park.\138\ Wang was released on bail on June 13 to await his trial.\139\ On August 13, authorities in Guangzhou summoned him to a police station in Panyu district in Guangzhou, attempted to pressure him to join the state-controlled church, and released him on the same day.\140\ On June 13, authorities detained pastor Zhang Mingxuan and his wife in a hotel in Zhengzhou city, Henan province for two days. Authorities questioned them about their connection with a U.S. citizen who is a Christian in Beijing and a church in Yancheng city, Jiangsu province that local authorities had scheduled for demolition.\141\ In some cases, authorities levied criminal penalties or used violence against members of house churches. In the early morning hours of September 13, 2009, over 400 public security officers conducted a violent raid against the Linfen-Fushan Church, an unregistered Protestant church in Fushan county, Linfen municipality, Shanxi province.\142\ Two bulldozers reduced the building to rubble,\143\ and public security officers wounded at least 100 church members,\144\ striking some with blunt objects such as bricks, iron bars, and garden hoes.\145\ The congregation site was located inside a shoe and clothing factory,\146\ and Linfen municipal officials characterized the raid as an effort to ``ban illegal buildings.'' \147\ Two official reports posted in August 2009 on the Web site of the Linfen Municipal People's Government foreshadowed the crackdown against unregistered churches, as the reports featured statements from top Communist Party leaders calling for tighter control of religious activities. According to one of the reports, dated August 18, Ding Wenlu, the local head of the Party's United Front Work Department, inspected the municipality's religious affairs work on June 16 and urged officials to recognize the ``high degree of political sensitivity'' surrounding their work.\148\ Ding issued a ``clear demand'' that officials must ``pay close attention to . . . and promptly dispose of . . . illegal religious activities according to the law.'' \149\ At a government meeting on ``safeguarding stability'' held in Linfen on June 25, reported in an August 18 article, Xie Hai, the Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, emphasized the need to ``strengthen management of religious and ethnic affairs work,'' which he characterized as ``having extraordinarily important significance for safeguarding the overall stability of the entire city.'' \150\ Xie called for officials to ``go a step further to strengthen punishment of illegal religious activities and strike hard against those who wear the cloak of religion and use religion to conduct various divisive sabotage activities.'' \151\ On September 25, 2009, authorities detained Linfen pastors Wang Xiaoguang and Yang Rongli, along with three other church leaders, as they attempted to petition central government authorities for redress.\152\ On October 11, public security officials also detained an additional 10 Linfen-Fushan Church members \153\ and, on November 30, ordered five church members to serve two years of reeducation through labor.\154\ On November 25, the Yaodu District People's Court variously convicted the five church leaders of ``illegally occupying farm land'' and ``gathering a crowd to disturb transportation order'' \155\ in a trial that was reportedly marked by procedural irregularities that restricted the defense counsel's access to evidence.\156\ Yang received the longest prison sentence: seven years.\157\ Authorities also interfered with the efforts of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) researcher Fan Yafeng and Beijing lawyer Zhang Kai to provide legal assistance to members of the church. In November 2009, after Fan attempted to provide legal assistance to the church, the Party Secretary at CASS reportedly told Fan that he would not be permitted to continue working at CASS.\158\ In July 2010, police barred Zhang from entering a Linfen court as he attempted to file an administrative lawsuit on behalf of the convicted church leaders.\159\ [See Section III--Access to Justice for more information.] Alimjan Yimit (Himit)--a Protestant house church leader in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) whom the Kashgar Intermediate People's Court convicted of ``leaking state secrets to overseas organizations'' in October 2009 \160\--was moved from the Kashgar Municipal Detention Center to a prison in Urumqi after the XUAR People's High Court upheld his 15-year sentence on appeal on March 16, 2010.\161\ According to his lawyer, Li Baiguang, the charges against Alimjan Yimit stemmed from his talking with visiting Christians from the United States,\162\ and Li reported that, in his view, the court's decision did not successfully prove that Alimjan Yimit supplied state secrets to people overseas.\163\ Alimjan Yimit had previously worked for a foreign-owned company that was shut down for ``illegal religious infiltration activities'' \164\ after public security officials accused the company of preaching Christianity to Uyghurs in 2007.\165\ BANNED PROTESTANT GROUPS AND THE DESIGNATION OF GROUPS AS ``CULTS'' The government and Party continued to prohibit categorically some Protestant groups from exercising religious freedom by criminalizing their communities as ``cult organizations.'' \166\ The government has banned at least 18 Protestant groups with adherents in multiple provinces, as well as many more congregations and movements that are active in only one province.\167\ Examples of groups that have been banned in previous years include the South China Church (SCC); \168\ the Local Church, a group that officials refer to as the ``Shouters''; \169\ and the Disciples Association.\170\ Two weeks after the September 13, 2009, raid on the Shanxi Linfen- Fushan Christian Church,\171\ officials met to discuss whether or not to classify the Linfen-Fushan Church as a ``cult'' organization.\172\ According to a ChinaAid report, the officials decided not to label the church a ``cult'' organization but resolved not to allow what they characterized as the ``abuses and legal violations of Pastor Yang Rongli and her `foolish and misguided followers.' '' \173\ In another case, after a November 18, 2009, raid on a Protestant house church congregation in Shuozhou city, Shanxi province, authorities detained six church members,\174\ five of whom were formally arrested on charges of ``cult'' involvement.\175\ On August 2, 2010, the Weidu District Court of Xuchang city, Henan province reportedly refused to hear an administrative lawsuit filed by Gao Jianli and Liu Yunhua, two members of a Henan house church that authorities in Shangqiu municipality had deemed a ``cult'' on the basis of an internal document, thereby effectively upholding an administrative punishment of one year of reeducation through labor (RTL) for each of the two men.\176\ The court had previously upheld the RTL order in July on the basis of a prior administrative lawsuit that Gao and Liu filed against the Shangqiu Municipal Reeducation Through Labor Committee.\177\ Taoism During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the Chinese government and Communist Party continued to exercise control over the scope of Taoist \178\ religious activities in much the same way that they do for other religious communities in China. The government requires Taoist groups and religious personnel to register with the state-controlled Chinese Taoist Association (CTA) in order to legally perform ritual services and hold Taoist ceremonies,\179\ and authorities tend to allow a wider scope of activities for Taoist groups that work more closely with them.\180\ Authorities also continued to exercise control over the scope of religious freedom for Taoists by emphasizing the role of the CTA in promoting government and Party policy. For example, the CTA's official Web site described the theme of the June 21, 2010, Eighth National Conference of the CTA in the following way: [R]aising high the banner of loving the country and loving religion, as well as the banner of solidarity and progress, deeply implementing the scientific development concept, implementing the Party's basic policy on religious work, vigorously strengthening self-construction, [and] making efforts to play a positive role in advancing social harmony and economic and social development . . . .\181\ In addition, various government reports throughout China called on local officials to monitor and control the ``indiscriminate'' construction of temples and statues,\182\ as well as ``feudal, superstitious'' Taoist activities.\183\ One April 2010 report from the Wuxi Municipal Park Administration specifically called on local authorities to strengthen the management of Taoist sites and prevent Taoists from engaging in various forms of fortunetelling and other ``feudal, superstitious'' activities during the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.\184\ Other Religious Communities The Chinese government maintained its framework for recognizing only select religious communities and did not enlarge this framework to recognize additional groups. Legal regulations allowed foreign religious communities, including communities not recognized as domestic religions by the government, to hold services for expatriates, but forbade Chinese citizens from participating.\185\ In August, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported holding meetings with a high-level Chinese official and said church leaders ``established a relationship'' that they ``expect will lead to regularizing the activities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in China.'' \186\ Some local governments recognized the Orthodox church within local legislation.\187\ Chinese citizens reportedly were unable to attend Orthodox services in Beijing, however, because the services were set up for foreigners, and seminary graduates reportedly have been unable to work as religious leaders.\188\ The State Administration for Religious Affairs has engaged in talks with officials from the Orthodox church in recent years and met with Russian Orthodox Church officials in November 2009.\189\ In recent years, some local governments have issued measures to register venues for folk belief activities.\190\ No national legal measures govern folk belief activities in China. Ethnic Minority Rights Chinese law provides for a system of ``regional ethnic autonomy'' in designated areas with ethnic minority populations,\1\ but shortcomings in the substance and implementation of this system have prevented these groups from enjoying meaningful autonomy in practice. The Chinese government maintained policies during the Commission's 2010 reporting year that prevented ethnic minorities from ``administering their internal affairs'' as guaranteed in Chinese law \2\ and from enjoying their rights in line with international human rights standards.\3\ International human rights standards stipulate that ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities within a state ``shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.'' \4\ While the government maintained some protections in law and practice for minority rights, it continued to impose the fundamental terms upon which Chinese citizens could express their ethnicity and to prevent ethnic minorities from enjoying their cultures, religions, and languages free from state interference.\5\ Among the 55 groups designated as minority ``nationalities'' or ``ethnicities'' (shaoshu minzu \6\), state repression was harshest toward groups deemed to challenge state authority, especially in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan autonomous areas. State Policies and Ethnic Unity Campaigns The Chinese government continued in the past year to assert the effectiveness of state laws and policies in upholding the rights of ethnic minorities, following domestic protests and international criticism of the government's treatment of ethnic minorities. A September 2009 State Council Information Office white paper on the topic described state policy as the ``correct'' approach ``in keeping with . . . the common interests of all ethnic groups'' and guiding Chinese citizens to ``[safeguard] national unification, social stability and ethnic unity.'' \7\ Authorities defended state policy in the aftermath of demonstrations and riots in Tibetan areas in 2008 and in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 2009 that highlighted deep tensions in ethnic minority areas and citizen grievances toward government policy. Authorities denied the events had domestic political roots and instead attributed conflict to factors such as interference from outside forces and ``contradictions'' among the people.\8\ Some academics affiliated with state universities or think tanks, along with some lower level officials, openly criticized government policy toward ethnic issues in the past year.\9\ Although the ultimate impact of such criticism is unknown, it may signal growing room for debate and reconsideration of aspects of government policy in this area. The government and Communist Party strengthened ``ethnic unity'' campaigns as a vehicle for spreading state ethnic policy throughout Chinese society and for imposing state- defined interpretations of the history, relations, and current conditions of ethnic groups in China. The State Council Information Office white paper stressed the importance of ethnic unity in meeting state political goals such as social stability and development, and described ``ethnic unity education'' as part of ``the whole process of socialist cultural and ideological construction.'' \10\ Following steps in 2008 and 2009 to strengthen ethnic unity education,\11\ central government and Party offices issued plans in the past year to expand the reach of ethnic unity education.\12\ Provincial and local governments also reported strengthening ethnic unity campaigns.\13\ 2009-2010 National Human Rights Action Plan Chinese leaders pledged to refine laws and improve conditions for ethnic minorities, within the parameters of existing Party policy, issuing some policy documents in the past year which may bring mixed results in the protection of ethnic minorities' rights. The government's 2009-2010 National Human Rights Action Plan (HRAP) issued in April 2009 outlined measures to support legislation, governance, education, personnel training and employment, language use, and cultural and economic development among ethnic minorities.\14\ The government's December 2009 review of the HRAP provided limited information on the plan's progress, noting work in the areas of cultural and economic development.\15\ Following that date, government offices issued an opinion in May and a plan in July that state more support for ethnic minority languages and for education among ethnic minorities, respectively, including support in both documents for ``bilingual education.'' \16\ The two documents also state support for ethnic minorities' right to use their own languages,\17\ but ``bilingual education'' as implemented in some parts of China has marginalized the role of ethnic minority languages, in contravention of Chinese law.\18\ Economic Development The government maintained economic development policies that prioritize state economic goals over the protection of ethnic minorities' rights. Despite bringing some benefits to ethnic minority areas and residents, such policies also have conflicted with ethnic minorities' rights to maintain traditional livelihoods, spurred migration to ethnic minority regions, promoted unequal allocation of resources favoring Han Chinese, intensified linguistic and assimilation pressures on local communities, and resulted in environmental damage.\19\ In the past year, the government marked the 10th anniversary of the Great Western Development project--which is directed at a number of provinces and regions with large populations of non-Han ethnic groups--and announced plans to continue western development in the coming decade.\20\ Authorities also stressed enhancing development work in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibetan areas of China, where development initiatives have been closely tied to central government-led political controls and campaigns to ``uphold stability'' and suppress dissent. [See Section IV--Xinjiang and Section V--Tibet.] Human Rights in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Authorities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) continued in the past year to restrict independent expressions of ethnic identity among Mongols and to interfere with traditional livelihoods, while enforcing campaigns to promote stability and ethnic unity. In a December 2009 interview, the head of the IMAR Public Security Department likened the region's public security situation to that in the autonomous Tibetan areas of China and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, stating ``enemy forces'' from Western countries aimed to split the region.\21\ In September 2009, the IMAR Department of Education issued a detailed plan for strengthening ethnic unity education in IMAR schools.\22\ Authorities strengthened ``ecological migration'' policies that have required herders to resettle from pasture land and abandon traditional livelihoods,\23\ while outside observers and some domestic scholars have questioned the effectiveness of these government policies in ameliorating environmental degradation.\24\ Mongols continued to face the risk of repercussions for peacefully defending their rights or aiming to preserve their culture. In a case also illustrating China's influence outside its borders and contravention of protections for asylum seekers, on October 3, 2009, Chinese security officials inside the country of Mongolia reportedly joined Mongolian security officials in detaining Batzangaa, an ethnic Mongol from China. The detention occurred outside the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office in Ulaanbaatar, where Batzangaa had applied for refugee status. Authorities returned him to China and held him in detention. Batzangaa ran a traditional Mongolian medicine school in Ordos municipality, IMAR, that reportedly had come under official scrutiny for its popularity and activities with Mongols and Tibetans, and he was also involved in a land dispute with local authorities.\25\ On April 18, 2010, officials at the Beijing Capital International Airport detained rights advocate Sodmongol as he was waiting to board a flight to the United States to attend the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Sodmongol had organized events and led two Web sites--now shut down--that promoted the protection of Mongols' rights. His current whereabouts remain unknown.\26\ Population Planning Introduction During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, central and local authorities continued to interfere with and control the reproductive lives of Chinese women through an all-encompassing system of population planning regulations. Population planning policies limit most women in urban areas to bearing one child, while permitting slightly more than half of Chinese women-- located in many rural areas--to bear a second child if their first child is female.\1\ The Commission notes the emergence of a growing debate in the Chinese media about possible reform of these policies, but has not yet seen government action to introduce national reform measures.\2\ Local officials continue to monitor the reproductive cycles of Chinese women in order to prevent unauthorized births.\3\ The Chinese government requires married couples to obtain a birth permit before they can lawfully bear a child and forces them to employ contraceptive methods at other times.\4\ Although Chinese law prohibits officials from infringing upon the rights and interests of citizens while promoting compliance with population planning policies,\5\ reports from recent years indicate that abuses continue. Violators of the policy are routinely punished with fines, and in some cases, subjected to forced sterilization, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and torture.\6\ In some cases surgical sterilization may be required of Chinese women following the birth of their second child.\7\ Mandatory abortion, which is often referred to as ``remedial measures'' (bujiu cuoshi) in government reports, is endorsed explicitly as an official policy instrument in the regulations of 18 of China's 31 provincial-level jurisdictions.\8\ In 2010, the Commission found that local officials continued to coerce women with unauthorized pregnancies to undergo abortions in both urban and rural areas across China's major regions.\9\ China's population planning policies in both their nature and implementation violate international human rights standards. Although implementation tends to vary across localities, the government's population planning law and regulations contravene international human rights standards by limiting the number of children that women may bear and by coercing compliance with population targets through heavy fines.\10\ For example, China's Population and Family Planning Law is not consistent with the standards set by the 1995 Beijing Declaration and the 1994 Programme of Action of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.\11\ Controls imposed on Chinese women and their families and additional abuses engendered by the system, from forced abortion to discriminatory policies against ``out-of-plan'' children, also violate standards in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,\12\ the Convention on the Rights of the Child,\13\ and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.\14\ China is a state party to these treaties and is bound to uphold their terms. Coercive Abortion and Fines China's 2002 Population and Family Planning Law (PFPL) states in Article 4 that officials ``shall perform their administrative duties strictly in accordance with the law, and enforce the law in a civil manner, and they may not infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of citizens.'' \15\ The PFPL also states in Article 39 that ``any functionary of a State organ who commits one of the following acts in the work of family planning, if the act constitutes a crime, shall be investigated for criminal liability in accordance with the law; if it does not constitute a crime, he shall be given an administrative sanction with law; his unlawful gains, if any, shall be confiscated: (1) infringing on a citizen's personal rights, property rights, or other legitimate rights and interests; (2) abusing his power, neglecting his duty, or engaging in malpractices for personal gain . . . .'' \16\ Despite these provisions, abuses continue. The Commission has reported on a number of cases of violence against women in connection with officials' enforcement of population planning policies.\17\ During this reporting year, the use of violence to coerce compliance with the PFPL was illustrated by family planning officials in Changfeng county, Anhui province. According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), on July 15, 2010, Changfeng family planning officials kidnapped 23-year-old Li Hongmei and her three-week-old daughter and took them to a local hospital where they reportedly held Li's baby hostage until she signed her consent to undergo sterilization. According to CHRD, Li remained hospitalized for at least a month after the procedure due to illness.\18\ In 2010, authorities across a wide range of Chinese localities launched population planning enforcement campaigns-- often dubbed ``spring family planning service activities'' (chunji jisheng fuwu xingdong) \19\--that employed coercive measures to terminate ``out-of-plan'' pregnancies. In February, the Jiangxi provincial government reported that one such campaign had commenced in Anyi county where officials vowed to engage in a ``100-day battle'' in which they would ``insist without wavering on the principle of IUD [intrauterine device] insertion after the first child, surgical sterilization after the second child, and abortion of out-of-plan pregnancies.'' \20\ In March 2010, a local official in Ezhou city, Hubei province, instructed cadres preparing for a spring campaign to ``immediately adopt remedial measures against those with out- of-plan pregnancies, follow procedures to terminate the pregnancy . . . and forcefully ensure implementation in order to reduce the birth rate.'' \21\ Regulations published in 2009 in Zhanjiang city in Guangdong province spell out penalties for violators of the policy and explicitly call for officials to ``force'' (qiangxing) abortion of ``extra births'': Strictly prohibit out-of-plan second births or multiple births; those who have out-of-plan pregnancies must adopt abortion measures, force those who exceed birth limits to have an abortion. Out-of-plan children will not be allowed to enjoy benefits for villagers; for a period of 15 years, parents of out-of-plan children will not be allowed to enjoy benefits for villagers, gain employment at a village-run enterprise, or be granted documents.\22\ In 2010, the Commission analyzed government reports from nine provinces that used the phrase ``by all means necessary'' (qian fang bai ji) to signify intensified enforcement measures and less restraint on officials who oversee coerced abortions.\23\ Between January and March 2010, city and county governments in at least four provinces (Henan, Hubei, Guangdong, and Jiangsu) and at least one provincial-level government (Jiangxi) vowed to ``by all means necessary, stabilize the low birth level.'' \24\ In March, Panjin municipal authorities in Liaoning province expressed their resolve to crack down on population planning violations ``in order to stabilize a low birth rate . . . continuously strengthen measures . . . [and] by all means necessary, drive population and family planning work into the `fast lane.' '' \25\ In addition to mandating abortion of pregnancies that exceed fertility limits, all pregnancies that occur without an official permit, including first pregnancies, are regarded by the government as ``out-of-plan'' and subject to ``remedial measures.'' In Jiangxi province, a Xingzi county official highlighted this point in responding to an anonymous citizen's online inquiry in March 2010. Noting that there are 10 circumstances in which a couple may apply for a permit to have a second child in Jiangxi, the official told the citizen that ``even if you conform to some of the stipulated conditions, you must first obtain a `repeat birth permit,' then you may remove the IUD and become pregnant; otherwise, it would be considered an out-of-plan pregnancy.'' \26\ For women who give birth to an out-of-plan child before authorities discover the pregnancy, the government imposes penalties known as ``social compensation fees'' (shehui fuyang fei). For certain couples, these fines pose a dilemma between undergoing an unwanted abortion and incurring potentially overwhelming financial costs.\27\ In some cases, authorities not only levy fines against violators, but also punish them through job dismissal and other penalties.\28\ Some children may go without household registration (hukou) in China because they are born out of plan and their parents do not pay the necessary fines.\29\ Lack of a valid hukou raises barriers to access to social benefits typically linked to the hukou, including subsidized healthcare and public education.\30\ [For additional discussion of China's hukou system, see Section II--Freedom of Residence and Movement.] The U.S. State Department, reporting on China's ``high female suicide rate'' in its 2009 Human Rights Report noted that ``(m)any observers believed that violence against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, the traditional preference for male children, birth-limitation policies, and other societal factors contributed to the high female suicide rate. Women in rural areas, where the suicide rate for women was three to four times higher than for men, were especially vulnerable.'' \31\ Targeting Migrant Workers The Commission observed during its 2010 reporting year a greater number of reports confirming its 2009 finding that some local governments are specifically targeting migrant workers for forced abortions.\32\ [For more information on discrimination against migrant workers, see Section II--Freedom of Residence and Movement.] In April 2010, the National Population and Family Planning Commission released an ``implementation plan'' for enforcing population planning regulations for migrant workers within a 10-province region called the Bohai Rim.\33\ This plan calls for governments where migrant workers reside to ``persuade and educate'' those with out-of-plan pregnancies to ``promptly adopt remedial measures.'' If a migrant worker refuses, local authorities are instructed to coordinate with the migrant's home government (place of household registration) to ``launch unified enforcement work.'' \34\ Strengthening family planning enforcement through coordination between governments where migrants work and where their households are registered, as described in the Bohai plan, was also the chief goal behind a cooperation agreement that 10 district and county-level governments in Shanghai and Fuzhou municipalities signed in March 2010.\35\ In the migrant-rich factory city of Kunshan on the outskirts of Shanghai, the government launched a ``special rectification operation'' for the ``floating population'' in December 2009 that set ``raising the implementation rate of remedial measures for out-of-plan pregnancies'' as one of its primary objectives.\36\ Anhui provincial family planning measures for migrant workers require officials to ``mobilize pregnant migrant workers without a birth permit to adopt remedial measures.'' \37\ Those who initially refuse are fined repeatedly until they terminate the pregnancy, or if they fail to abort within a designated period of time, officials are required to ``order them to adopt remedial measures on the spot.'' \38\ Coercive Sterilization When women reach the state-imposed limit on number of births, local authorities often mandate surgical sterilization to prevent ``out-of-plan'' pregnancies. In February 2010, the Qiaojia county government in Yunnan province issued a directive that urged officials to ``by all means necessary, raise the rate of surgical sterilization after the second birth and IUD insertion after the first birth.'' \39\ The directive also warns that the government will ``stop salary payments without exception'' for government workers who fail to adopt contraception measures within a specified time period.\40\ In March 2010, the Qianxi county government in Guizhou province issued a similar directive authorizing ``special rectification activities'' to sterilize women with two children.\41\ Qianxi officials face a penalty of 1,000 yuan (US$147) for each woman with two children that they fail to sterilize, and conversely, they are promised a reward of the same amount for each tubal ligation that they see through to completion.\42\ In some areas, coerced sterilization is accomplished through punitive action taken against the family members of targeted women, which can include extended periods of detention. In April 2010, the Puning city government in Guangdong province launched a ``special operation to sterilize women with two children'' in which officials were authorized to ``adopt measures that exceed conventional practices.'' \43\ The impetus for the operation came from Guangdong provincial authorities who identified Puning as a problematic area that ``lagged behind'' other localities in meeting population planning goals.\44\ Puning authorities indicated that the operation's initial sweep, conducted from April 7 to April 26, resulted in 5,601 surgical sterilizations.\45\ The government reportedly set 9,559 tubal ligations as its target to achieve before the end of April.\46\ As of April 12, Puning authorities had detained 1,377 people--many of whom were elderly relatives of unsterilized women--in extralegal ``study classes'' in order to force women who had left Puning for work purposes to return and undergo sterilization.\47\ In addition to detentions, Puning authorities employed a series of other ``measures that exceed conventional practice'' such as nullification of household registration (hukou) for unsterilized women, refusal to grant household registration to their children, and punitive actions taken against their relatives such as cancellation of state benefits and permits.\48\ As of April 12, 63 officials who failed to adopt these measures were reportedly subjected to disciplinary action, including one township Communist Party secretary who was suspended.\49\ Puning is not exceptional in its use of coercive ``measures that exceed conventional practices,'' as the Commission analyzed official government reports containing the same phrase in provinces such as Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Gansu, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.\50\ Prospects for Policy Reform Growing awareness of the demographic and social consequences of China's population planning policy is giving rise to public discussion of the need for policy reform. In 2010, Chinese experts and officials engaged in a relatively open exchange in the state-run media about how to address demographic trends that are expected to detrimentally impact China's future development.\51\ The Beijing News reported in January that the municipal government would soon allow all couples to have two children, but within hours, the Beijing Population and Family Planning Commission denied the earlier report.\52\ The central government reportedly commissioned feasibility studies in 2009 to assess the possible effects of a change in policy.\53\ Top Party and government leaders, however, continue to publicly defend the policy and rule out reform in the near-term.\54\ Demographic Consequences Chinese society is aging at a rapid pace and is expected to undergo a challenging demographic transformation in the next two decades. In 2008, China had 169 million citizens over the age of 60, constituting 13 percent of the total population and surpassing the UN's threshold for classification as an ``aging society.'' \55\ By 2030, some Western demographers estimate that the number of elderly Chinese could soar to as high as 350 million and account for 25 percent of the population.\56\ An economist with the Asian Development Bank projects that one in five urban Chinese will be over 65 years of age by 2025.\57\ China's total fertility rate has dropped from 6.1 births per woman in 1949 to an estimated 1.5 births per woman in 2010.\58\ Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice Premier Li Keqiang called on separate occasions in 2010 for officials to maintain China's low birth rate for the foreseeable future.\59\ Cai Fang, the Director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), characterizes this decline in the working-age population as the ``greatest threat to China's economic prosperity'' and predicts labor shortages in China as soon as 2013.\60\ An imbalanced sex ratio remains one of China's major demographic challenges and recent data indicate that it is worsening. In response to government-imposed birth limits and in keeping with a traditional cultural bias for sons, Chinese parents often engage in sex-selective abortion, especially rural couples whose first child is a girl.\61\ In January 2010, CASS published a comprehensive study that placed the male-to- female sex ratio for the infant-to-four-year-old age group in China at 123.26 males for every 100 females.\62\ Some provinces have ratios exceeding 130.\63\ This is far above the global norm of roughly 103 to 105 males for every 100 females and represents growth of nearly two and a half points from the 2000 census ratio.\64\ CASS estimates that, by 2020, the number of Chinese males of marriageable age will exceed the number of Chinese females of marriageable age by 30 to 40 million.\65\ [For additional discussion of China's imbalanced sex ratio, see Section II--Status of Women.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Case Update: Chen Guangcheng--Human Rights Defender ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authorities in Linyi city, Shandong province, released rights defender Chen Guangcheng from prison on September 9, 2010, after he completed a four-year, three-month sentence for exposing widespread abuses by local officials responsible for implementing China's one-child policy.\66\ During the period of his imprisonment, authorities reportedly denied Chen Guangcheng, who is blind, adequate medical treatment despite his reported deteriorating health.\67\ Authorities also repeatedly denied requests filed by both Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, on his behalf for his medical parole.\68\ According to several media and non-governmental organization reports, Chen returned home under police escort on the morning of September 9, 2010, to heightened police surveillance, including a number of plainclothes and uniformed guards around Chen's home and at the entrance to his village,\69\ disconnection of the family's telephone and cell phone service,\70\ and newly installed 24-hour closed-circuit surveillance cameras by which security agents monitor his and his family's activities.\71\ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Case Update: Chen Guangcheng--Human Rights Defender-- Continued ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1996, Mr. Chen began defending the rights of disabled peasants and providing legal advice as a self-trained legal advocate focusing on antidiscrimination.\72\ Over the next decade, his legal advocacy was recognized in China and internationally.\73\ In 2005, Mr. Chen's rights defense work drew international news media attention to population planning abuses in Linyi city, Shandong province.\74\ Local authorities placed Chen under house arrest in September 2005 and formally arrested him on June 21, 2006.\75\ On the eve of his August 18, 2006, trial, three of his defense lawyers were taken into custody.\76\ The Yinan County People's Court first tried and sentenced Chen on August 24, 2006, to four years and three months in prison for ``intentional destruction of property'' and ``organizing a group of people to disturb traffic order.'' \77\ Li Jinsong, lead counsel on Chen's criminal defense team, filed an appeal in September 2006 arguing that at trial, the court had illegally deprived Chen of the right to be represented by criminal defense lawyers of his own choosing.\78\ On October 31, 2006, the Linyi Intermediate People's Court vacated the original trial court judgment and remanded the case for a retrial.\79\ The retrial took place on November 27, 2006,\80\ and on December 1, 2006, the Yinan court handed down the same judgment as before,\81\ which the appeals court affirmed on January 12, 2007.\82\ Chen's retrial prompted repeated criticism for its criminal procedure violations.\83\ In June 2007, Chen reportedly informed his wife and brother that he had been beaten by fellow inmates.\84\ In August 2007, Chen received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for ``his irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law.'' \85\ His wife, Yuan Weijing, attempted to travel to the Philippines to accept the award on behalf of Chen, but Chinese authorities intercepted her before leaving the country and reportedly forcibly returned her to her village.\86\ At other times during Chen's imprisonment, authorities also repeatedly subjected Yuan and their two children to harassment, home confinement, surveillance, and other abuses,\87\ including reportedly preventing the children from enrolling in school.\88\ The Commission will continue to monitor and report on the conditions surrounding Chen Guangcheng and his family in the coming year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Freedom of Residence and Movement Freedom of Residence The Chinese government continued to enforce the household registration (hukou) system it first established in the 1950s.\1\ Hukou regulations limit the right of Chinese citizens formally to establish their permanent place of residence. Initially used to control migration of the rural population to China's cities, ``[t]oday it is one of the most important mechanisms determining entitlement to public welfare, urban services and, more broadly, full citizenship.'' \2\ The hukou regulations classify Chinese citizens as either rural or urban hukou holders and local governments restrict access to some social services based on the classification. The implementation of these regulations discriminates against rural hukou holders who migrate to urban areas by imposing significant constraints on rural hukou holders' ability to obtain healthcare benefits, education, and other social services in urban locations where they reside but lack legal residency status. The hukou regulations appear to contradict the freedoms guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which include ``the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence.'' \3\ The discriminatory effect is especially prominent in the area of education. In many cases, migrant children, who live in urban areas but lack urban hukous, cannot attend local public schools. The estimated number of migrant children affected by hukou regulations ranges from 14 million to 19 million.\4\ Chinese law and regulations call for nine years of compulsory education and equal treatment of all children.\5\ In practice, however, many migrant children are systematically excluded from urban public schools, where resources are more abundant than in urban private schools or rural schools.\6\ Many resort to substandard, often unlicensed but relatively affordable urban private schools, those with more means offer a special ``donation'' to public schools in order to gain access, and some send their children back to their place of rural hukou, relying on relatives to raise their children.\7\ Some migrant children who have gained access to urban public school systems report unequal treatment. According to a 16-year-old middle school graduate, migrant and local students ``from the two sides of the school never communicate . . . . Class starting time, lunch time and dismissal time are different for students of the two parts. The eastern part's [local] students are going to visit the expo site, but the western part [migrant students] doesn't have the chance.'' \8\ Most migrant students are ``housed in a separate school building, wear an alternative uniform and have different teachers and textbooks.'' \9\ School teachers tell the local children to ``stay clear of the migrant children'' because they are ``wild, lacking in manners and poor.'' \10\ In addition, migrant children cannot attend high school or sit for the crucial college entrance exam in the cities where they reside, but in which they do not possess a valid hukou.\11\ Instead, they generally are required to return to their hukou locations where they may experience significant alienation or have little knowledge of the local academic culture.\12\ In recent years, local governments have instituted a series of policies intended to reform the hukou system. While details vary by location, the key provisions of these reforms allow people to transfer hukou from rural to urban status based on certain criteria.\13\ These criteria usually include income, education, and special skills aimed at attracting elite rural hukou holders with wealth and education.\14\ The vast majority of China's over 200 million migrant workers fall outside the scope of these reforms.\15\ Because the problems the hukou system creates are complex, any large-scale reform likely will carry sweeping implications.\16\ Hukou transfer is managed at the local level, and typically each local government sets its own standard of admission for rural-to-urban hukou transfers.\17\ Furthermore, rural hukou holders confront disparate interests. For example, those with easy access to urban centers may actually prefer rural hukous over urban hukous due to benefits tied to land ownership and a higher birth allowance rate.\18\ In addition, hukou reforms often lack support from the urban hukou class as the current status quo tips in its favor.\19\