China Desperately Trying to Cover the Torture of Rights Activists

ICC Note:

China is working hard to cover up the torture of human rights activist Xie Yang who has defended Christians. A recent report by Xie’s lawyer on his torture resulted in Chinese authorities preventing the lawyer from seeing him again. They forced the lawyer to confess to making up the torture. Chinese authorities then send another lawyer to talk to Xie to try to convince him to choose another lawyer, one more in line with state values. China has been detaining and torturing Christians and those who defend them in a massive crackdown on religion and human rights activists.

4/16/2017 China (China Aid) – Since February 27, four weeks after the much-reported torture of Chinese human rights lawyer Xie Yang (谢阳). who has been imprisoned since July 2015, the two family-appointed lawyers of Xie have repeatedly been denied meetings with him. The last time they saw him was February 6. According to Chinese law, lawyers are free to meet their clients any time during the trial stage. Rattled by the coverage of torture and responses by international legal professionals as well as foreign governments, China took extraordinary steps in early March to deny the torture and attempt to discredit the report, in an all-out propaganda assault. They forced lawyer Jiang Tianyong to confess to the “fabrication” on national television, and threatened Xie Yang’s lawyer Chen Jiangang (陈建刚), responsible for publishing his transcript of meetings with Xie Yang as the latter recounted the torture he was put through in heart wrenching detail. Recently, without the family’s knowledge or consent, a lawyer named He Xiaodian (贺小电) visited Xie Yang in custody at least once, apparently at the bidding of the authorities, in an attempt to get Xie to appoint lawyers who will cooperate with the government. Xie Yang’s wife Chen Guiqiu (陈桂秋), a professor of environmental science at Hunan University, wrote the following letter to Mr. He Xiaodian. This is an important development in the Xie Yang story, and China Change here offers an unauthorized translation of the letter. — The Editors

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