[ 时间:2014-03-15 14:29:38 | 作者:Malcolm Moore | 来源:六四天网转载 ]
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
File photo of friends of human right activist Cao standing in front of an intensive care unit where Cao was hospitalized Photo: REUTERS
A 52-year-old woman who fought for China to be more transparent before the United Nations has died after falling into a coma while in police custody.
In what has been described as one of the most egregious abuses of human rights since China’s president, Xi Jinping, launched a campaign to silence dissent, Cao Shunli died of apparent organ failure after being seized by police last September.
“The authorities today have blood on their hands,” said Anu Kultalahti at Amnesty International.
In September, police seized Mrs Cao as she arrived at Beijing airport to fly to Geneva to attend a human rights workshop.
She was detained with no explanation for a month and then charged in October with “picking quarrels”.
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In detention she was denied medication for her tuberculosis and liver disease until eventually, at the end of February, she fell into a coma and was admitted to hospital. Her lawyer Wang Yu blamed her imprisonment for her condition.
“The denial of medical treatment for activists in detention is common in order to weaken or punish them,” said Ms Kultalahti.
Her condition had seemed to be improving, and she was taken off her ventilator earlier in the week, but on Friday afternoon her younger brother Cao Yunli received a call from the hospital asking him to visit.
His sister was already dead by the time he arrived in the early evening.
“Her body was very skinny, she no longer looked human, she was blue and purple all over,” he said. “The doctor said it was because of her internal organ failure.”
Mrs Cao’s death came five months after China won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, the very body that she had argued China should take more seriously.
Mrs Cao spent years campaigning for the public to be allowed to contribute to the report that China submits to the Human Rights Council. On her aborted trip to Geneva, she intended to witness China’s submissions to this year’s UN Periodic Review of its human rights situation.
“China was elected to the Human Rights Council on voluntary pledges that it will protect its citizen’s rights, especially the right to supervise, criticise and participate in the human rights process.
That is exactly what she wanted,” said Ye Shiwei, a senior programme officer at Human Rights in China (HRIC), a Chinese non-governmental organisation.
“She was using existing legal channels. And they put her in jail without medical care,” he added.
Meanwhile, another prominent human rights advocate, the blogger Huang Qi, was taken in by police in Chengdu on Thursday and had his computer and mobile phone confiscated.
Mr Huang is the founder of 64tianwang.com, a website that highlights government abuses and supports the tens if not hundreds of thousands of Chinese who petition the government to right the wrongs they claim to have suffered.
Mr Huang has already served two prison terms totalling eight years, but appears to have fallen foul of Beijing police after his website published what it said were photographs of a woman trying to burn herself to death in Tiananmen Square last week.
He has been asked to come to Beijing and is currently being allowed to remain at home. However, police have also detained at least three people who contribute to his website on charges of “picking quarrels”, according to Amnesty.
The authorities, having already silenced China’s version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, now also appear to be launching a campaign to restrict the popular mobile phone service Weixin, or WeChat.
On Thursday, dozens of its popular public accounts were shut down, many of them set up by journalists and commentators.
Additional reporting by Adam Wu
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