Amnesty International, in a report released on Wednesday, revealed that Chinese courts are utilizing ambiguous laws to crack down on civilians’ freedoms of speech and association, subjecting individuals to arbitrary arrests and violations of fair trial rights.
The report, titled “How Could This Verdict be ‘Legal’?”, analyzes more than 100 “official indictments and verdicts from 68 cases” over the past decade. Amnesty’s findings conclude that every case reviewed in the research report “was tainted by violations of fair trial rights”. This rights organization found evidence of arbitrary detentions, allegations of torture, prolonged pre-trial detentions, and “forced residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)”. Amnesty International outlined that RSDL amounts to forced disappearance.
Amnesty International’s China Director, Sarah Brooks, called for the unconditional and immediate release of all activists and civilians imprisoned for “exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, or assembly.” Brooks stated, “Chinese courts operate as instruments of repression rather than justice when handling politically sensitive cases”.
The report finds evidence to suggest that Chinese judiciaries are “rubber-stamping” convictions against civilians based on their views, words, and associations. According to the report, the majority of arrests involve human rights activists, journalists, and lawyers who “engage with the outside world” or speak out. The recent Chinese crackdown against lawyers is also hindering the fundamental role of the legal profession in ensuring human rights.
The arrests and charges, according to Amnesty International, are being made under vague national security and public order provisions, such as “subversion of state power”, “inciting subversion”, and “picking quarrels”. Amnesty International highlighted that online expression, such as engaging with online blog posts or sharing human rights articles, is being treated as instances of “subversion”.
The report also highlighted human rights violations at the trial level. It reports secrecy around trials, which are often closed to families and the media “under the guise of state secrets”, regardless of whether the charges pertained to classified information. There are also reports of additional sentences of “deprivation of political rights”, as a means of preventing activists from dissenting post custodial release.
Fundamental rights are protected under international law. The right to a fair trial is protected under Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The rights to freedom of expression and association are protected under Articles 19 and 22 of the ICCPR.
