van Boven, is heading to China, amid fresh reports that Christians are suffering abuse in jails and prison camps.
China Aid Association (CAA), a religious rights watchdog, said it had learned that 72-year old Mr. Chen Jingmao, a South China Church leader from Yunyang County, Chongqing City, was recently beaten and crippled in his prison as a punishment "for leading 50 prison inmates to the Christian Faith."
Citing an unidentified "reliable source in the prison" the organization claimed that on February 6, 2004 Chena’s legs were broken "in a beating he received by the prison guards." CAA said that Chen must now "be carried by fellow believers to go to the toilet, and to eat." The source was quoted as saying that during Chena’s beating the guards said that "this action, of bringing others to Christianity, had brought shame upon the Communist Party."
Organizations including The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) have also reported similar incidents involving persecuted Christians, most of whom belong to the rapidly spreading house church movement and other unofficial groups and churches.
Chen was arrested on July 9, 2001, and sentenced to four years by the People’s Court of Yunyang County, Chongqing City, on May 14, 2002 on charges of "using an "evil cul" to obstruct the law," an apparent reference to his association to the South China Church. Nine other House Church leaders from the South China Church involved in Sunday School teacher’s training were sentenced along with Chen on similar charges and received three to eight year prison terms.
"NEWS HEARTBREAKING"
"This news is heartbreaking," said CAA President Bob Fu in a statement seen by ANS about the reported violence. "The sentence was unjustified, and the brutal beating illegal, and inhumane, especially to a 72 year old man." CAA has urged the international community "to raise the issue of violation of various International Human Rights Laws; including the International Covenant for Children’s Rights, passed in 1989 by the United Nations, and signed by China in 1990."
It was not clear if UN Rapporteur Van Boven would investigate the plight of persecuted and tortured Christians. However his conditions, to which China had agreed, included unannounced visits to places of detention and guarantees that there would be no reprisals against anybody who spoke to him, the Reuters news agency reported.
Beijing has previously accepted investigations by rapporteurs from the commission, which monitors respect for human rights around the world, on religious freedom and the right to education, as a well as a visit from its working party on arbitrary detention, Reuters said.
ANNUAL REPORT
The United States, urged on by Western rights groups reportedly plans to put forward a resolution criticizing Beijing’s record at the commission’s annual session, which runs until April 23. Van Boven announced the China visit while presenting his annual report, a 420-page compendium of all the reports of torture and mistreatment received over the past year, with an entry for virtually every country in the world.
The section on China was one of the longest, running to over 100 cases of purported mistreatment, mostly of members of the banned religious group Falun Gong, Reuters said. But the report also contained incidents from International Human Rights Laws; including the International Covenant for Children’s Rights, passed in 1989 by the United Nations, and signed by China in 1990." both of which hold suspected Islamic militants from the Al Qaeda group and Afghanistan’s former ruling Taliban.
Reuters quoted the envoy as saying that he made his request to visit Guantanamo jointly with the UN special investigator into the right to health two months ago, but that so far they had heard nothing.
SIMILAR VISITS
He has also has similar requests to visit a number of other countries, including the troubled Russian region of Chechnya, Egypt and Turkmenistan, where Christian human rights groups have also expressed concern about wide spread human rights abuses.
As the UN official prepared to arrive in China, the CAA said it wanted to "encourage people of conscience" to write to Chena’s prison authority to show concern for his well being and that of other religious prisoners in this prison.
The address was identified as: Section 3, Sanxia (Three-Gorge) Prison, Wanzhou, Chongqing City, 404023. A letter of encouragement could also be send to relatives, CAA reported. His hometown address is: Group 9, Gaofeng Village, Longjao Town, Yunyang County, Chongqing City, China.
