By John-Henry Westen
SHANGHAI, April 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Human Rights in China (HRIC), an international Chinese human rights group focused on China, has learned that veteran Shanghai human rights campaigner Mao Hengfeng was subjected to physical and mental abuse while detained for more than a month for her participation in a hunger strike in mid-February in support of another human rights advocate. Hengfeng, was previously detained and tortured by authorities after protesting a forced abortion which occurred 16 years ago.Â
On the evening of February 13, HRIC reports, police officers from Shanghai’s Yangpu District Daqiao dispatch station placed Mao under residential surveillance on suspicion of “causing a disturbance in a public place.” Mao was finally released on March 29.
In comments to HRIC Mao explained “I was kept confined to one of two rooms, and even had to ask permission to go to the bathroom. Apart from the psychological torment, they also physically abused me. They beat me on several occasions, and a police officer surnamed Bai with badge number 039351 knelt on my chest and grabbed me around the neck, saying he would cause the blood to flood my brain so that cause of death could not be determined.”
Mao’s husband, concerned for her health, asked Mao’s lawyer, Wu Guoce, to visit her in detention on February 20. Wu was reportedly refused access to Mao on ‘state secrets’ grounds.
Sources in China told HRIC that a number of other petitioners detained around the time of the National People’s Congress session in February remain in custody. HRIC reports that the elderly parents of three detainees went to the Shanghai office of the official Xinhua News Agency in order to ask Xinhua to produce an ‘internal’ report for central government officials on the unlawful detention of petitioners in Shanghai. However, HRIC reports, the Shanghai police deployed dozens of police officers to block access to the Xinhua office, and the parents, all aged in their 70s and 80s, were not allowed to talk with Xinhua officials.
HRIC is deeply concerned over the allegations of physical abuse and other violations committed against Mao Hengfeng in custody, which include her being denied access to legal counsel. “Mao’s ill-treatment is especially egregious given that her case is identified in the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture following his inspection visit to China late last year,” said HRIC. (see related coverage: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/oct/041008b.html )
The Amnesty International 2005 report said of Hengfeng that she “was sent to a labour camp for 18 months’ ‘Re-education through Labour’ in April for persistently petitioning the authorities over a forced abortion 15 years earlier when she became pregnant in violation of China’s family planning policy. She was reportedly tied up, suspended from the ceiling and severely beaten in the labour camp. She had been detained several times in the past in psychiatric units where she had been forced to undergo shock therapy.” (see coverage: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05052706.html )