* 10-year anniversary of ‘deadly reprisals’ against Chinese activist Cao Shunli
On the 10-year anniversary of `deadly reprisals’ against Chinese activist Cao Shunli (March 14) as many as 31 rights groups from all over the world paid tributes to her and all human rights defenders targeted by the Chinese government for their commitment to uphold the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
They said that she has inspired countless human rights defenders in China and abroad. They urge UN Member States to call for a full, independent, impartial investigation into her death. They reaffirmed that no perpetrator of reprisals, no matter how powerful, is above scrutiny, and that reprisals are fundamentally incompatible with the values of the United Nations and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Cao Shunli was a brave Chinese woman human rights defender and lawyer. Working with fellow activists, Cao documented abuses, including the now-abolished ‘Re-education through Labour’ extrajudicial detention system, which she was also subjected to as a result of her human rights work.
She campaigned for independent civil society to be meaningfully consulted and to be able to contribute to the Chinese government’s national reports to its first and second Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR). In an attempt to speak with government officials about the UPR, Cao courageously organised peaceful sit-ins with other concerned citizens outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs despite great risks.
She also submitted information on extralegal detention and torture in China to the UN and expressed the hope that ‘if we could get even 100 words’ into a UN report, ‘many of our problems could start to get addressed.’
On 14 September 2013, Chinese authorities detained Cao at the Beijing Capital International Airport as she was traveling to Geneva to participate in a human rights training, one month before China’s second UPR. Cao was forcibly disappeared for five weeks, until she resurfaced in criminal detention and was charged with ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’.
By October 2013, it was clear that Cao Shunli was experiencing serious medical issues while in detention. After months of denial of adequate medical treatment, rejected appeals by her lawyers for bail on humanitarian grounds, and despite multiple calls from the international community for her urgent release, Cao died of multiple organ failure on 14 March 2014 in a hospital under heavy police guard to keep out her lawyers and friends.
Cao was one of the 2014 finalists of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. To this day, there has been no accountability for Cao Shunli’s death. Her case is one of the longest-standing unresolved cases in the UN Secretary-General’s annual reports on reprisals against civil society actors for engaging with the United Nations.
Cao is not alone: her courage, but also the abuses she endured, are unfortunately those of other human rights defenders who paid a high cost for cooperating with the UN. Her close colleague, Chen Jianfang was forcibly disappeared under Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL) from 19-20 March 2019 after paying tribute to Cao Shunli on the 5th anniversary of her death.
Li Qiaochu, Xu Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi, Yu Wensheng, Xu Yan, Huang Xueqin, Li Yuhan, Chang Weiping: many other Chinese human rights defenders are today detained, disappeared, and at grave risk, for upholding the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Cao Shunli said before her death: ‘Our impact may be large, may be small, and may be nothing. But we must try. It is our duty to the dispossessed and it is the right of civil society.’ Rights groups who paid tributes to her include ARTICLE 19, FORUM- ASIA, CIVICUS, Front Line Defenders,FIDS and Human Rights in China.
