Chinese Human rights defender Yin Xu’an’s health has deteriorated after suffering a stroke in February 2022 in the Daye Detention Centre in eastern Hubei province, where he is awaiting transfer to a prison to serve a four-and-a-half-year sentence. On March 2, his family asked the Daye Detention Centre for updates about his latest whereabouts, health conditions, and the medical treatment he is receiving, but the authorities refused to disclose any information and also denied their request to meet or video-call him.
Yin Xu’an suffers from multiple health conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes. He is a petitioner and a human rights defender from Daye city in Hubei province. He has campaigned on human rights issues, including wrongful convictions, the “re-education through labour” system, extralegal detention, unlawful State exappropriation of land, and judicial harassment against human rights defenders and political activists.
He has also advocated for the Chinese government to ratify international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Due to his human rights advocacy, Yin Xu’an had been repeatedly detained or imprisoned since 2007.
Yin Xu’an was arrested in July 2015 shortly after participating in an offline and online campaign for the release of a human rights defender, and was later sentenced in May 2017 to three-and-a-half years.
On February 14, a police officer informed Yin Xu’an’s family that he had suffered a stroke in the Daye Detention Centre and was transferred to the Daye Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Daye City for treatment.
In short video-calls the family was allowed to have with the Yin Xu’an in February, the human rights defender looked very frail and his speech was slurred. He was not able to eat and drink on his own and had to be fed.
Yin Xu’an was detained in May 2019 and indicted in October 2019 for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. On 19 January 2020, his trial began at the Daye Municipal Court, but was immediately postponed on the basis that the prosecutors requested more time for supplementary investigation.
On 21 July 2021, the Daye Court sentenced him to four years and six months. On 28 January 2022, the Huangshi Intermediate Court, in southeastern Hubei province, upheld the sentence on appeal.
Front Line Defenders (FLD) believes Yin Xu’an is being targeted solely for his work in defence of human rights. Before the stroke in February 2022, Yin Xu’an had already been in poor health and had to be transferred from the detention centre to a hospital for emergency treatment several times.
FLD urges the relevant authorities in China to immediately and unconditionally release Yin Xu’an and quash his conviction. Pending his release, it asked to immediately and promptly disclose to his family and lawyers the human rights defender’s whereabouts, transfer between facilities, health conditions, and the types of medical treatment he is receiving;
Pending his release, FLD seeks to ensure that Yin Xu’an urgently receives adequate medical care of his choice and that he is not subject to any torture or ill-treatment, in strict adherence to the conditions set out in the ‘Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment’, adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 43/173 of 9 December 1988;
