China: Detention of Shanghai-based human rights defender Ms Mao Hengfeng

Posted on | oktober 7, 2012 | No Comments

President Hu Jintao, The State Council General Office, People’s Republic of China

Your Excellency,

I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com.

I came to know about the situation from Front Line Defenders.

On 30 September 2012 Shanghai-based human rights defender Ms Mao Hengfeng was detained while petitioning in Beijing. She was apprehended by non-uniformed men and forcibly sent back to Shanghai, where she is being held on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disturb public order”. Mao Hengfeng is a veteran rights defender and petitioner who has spent periods of time in re-education through labour, prison, psychiatric hospitals and under house arrest as a result of her activism.

According to her husband, Mr Wu Xuewei, at approximately 2pm on 30 September, Mao Hengfeng observed that she was under surveillance by two plainclothes men as she waited for a bus at a Beijing bus station. Shortly thereafter, Wu Xuewei told Chinese Human Rights Defenders that he had lost contact with his wife and repeated attempts to contact her by mobile phone were unsuccessful. Previous to this, Mao Hengfeng had been in regular contact with her family to assure them of her well-being, and four days earlier had noticed that she was being followed. On 2 October Wu Xuewei reportedly received the criminal detention notice concerning his wife which informed him that she is being detained on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disturb public order”.

Wu Xuewei believes the charges against Mao Hengfeng relate to activities carried out by her in January 2012 to commemorate the death of a petitioner who died in a black jail in 2008. It is further believed that she is only now being targeted in an effort to ensure that she will not be in Beijing at the time of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party, which will convene on 8 November 2012. This event will see the changeover of power at the top of the Communist Party. In advance of this, human rights defenders are being arbitrarily subjected to increased restrictions including detention, house arrest and forced travel.

Mao Hengfeng is a long-term human rights defender who has a history of drawing attention to forced abortions and forced evictions. Following earlier stints in jail and psychiatric hospitals because of her activities, she was sentenced to 18 months re-education through labour in March 2010 for “disturbing public order”. This charge related to a protest she held outside a courthouse in support of fellow human rights defender and Nobel laureate Mr Liu Xiaobo when he was being sentenced to 11 years imprisonment on 25 December 2009. Mao Hengfeng has been repeatedly subjected to abuse while in detention.

I believe that the detention of Mao Hengfeng is directly related to her work in defence of human rights. Given her previous history of abuse while in detention, I am seriously concerned for her physical and psychological integrity.

I urge the authorities in China to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Mao Hengfeng as I believe that she is being held solely as a result of her legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights;

2. Immediately take all necessary measure to guarantee the physical and psychological safety and integrity of Mao Hengfeng while in detention;

3. Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in China are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions, including judicial harassment.

AUTHOR: William Nicholas Gomes
URL: www.williamgomes.org
E-MAIL: williamgomes.org [at] gmail.com