Freedom of peaceful assembly at high risk!

As the Guizhou Human Rights Symposium is planning to hold a meeting on June 4, 2010, to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Government crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement, many of its members have been lately detained by the police, summoned for questioning, or have suffered ill-treatment during their detention in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, before being subsequently released. For instance, on May 28, a large number of police officers prevented the group's weekly meeting, scheduled to take place at Hebin Park. A few days before, on May 24, the police had detained Mr. Mo Jiangang, Mr. Xu Guoqing and Mr. Du Heping for 72 hours. Several members of the group were also summoned by the Public Security Bureau. On May 9, the police had already prevented a meeting of the Guizhou Human Rights Symposium, stopping the participants in front of their homes and arresting some of them, among which Mr. Mo Jiangang, who was severely beaten while in detention at the police station.

“These hindrances to the preparation of the Tian'an Men Square massacre memorial day represents a blatant restriction on the right of peaceful assembly, and constitutes another evidence of the Chinese authorities' determination to strike down all dissenting and critical voices”, said FIDH President Ms. Souhayr Belhassen.

“The fact that twenty years after the bloody events of the Tian'an Men Square the Chinese authorities take such measures shows that the movement for the respect of democracy, human rights and freedom remains strongly ingrained in Chinese people and that authorities still do not know how to reply to it”, added OMCT Secretary General Mr. Eric Sottas.

The Observatory denounces these acts of harassment and the arbitrary arrests of the members of the Guizhou Human Rights Forum, which seem merely aimed at preventing their human rights activities in view of the commemoration of the 21st anniversary of the Government crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement, and urges the Chinese authorities to put an immediate end to all acts of harassment against them and all human rights defenders in China.

The Observatory further calls upon the Chinese authorities to guarantee the free and full exercise of the rights to freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression, as well as to comply with international human rights standards, in particular the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998.

For further information, please contact:

• FIDH: Karine Appy / Fabien Maître: + 33 1 43 55 25 18
• OMCT: Delphine Reculeau: + 41 22 809 49 39