China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)
Executive Summary
READ SECTION: China (below) | Tibet | Hong Kong | Macau
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the paramount authority. CCP members hold almost all top government and security apparatus positions. Ultimate authority rests with the CCP Central Committee’s 25-member Political Bureau (Politburo) and its seven-member Standing Committee. Xi Jinping continued to hold the three most powerful positions as CCP general secretary, state president, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. At the 19th Communist Party Congress in October, the CCP reaffirmed Xi as the leader of China and the CCP for another five years.
Civilian authorities maintained control of the military and internal security forces.
The most significant human rights issues for which the government was responsible included: arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life and executions without due process; extralegal measures such as forced disappearances, including extraterritorial ones; torture and coerced confessions of prisoners; arbitrary detention, including strict house arrest and administrative detention, and illegal detentions at unofficial holding facilities known as “black jails”; significant restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, and movement (for travel within the country and overseas), including detention and harassment of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others as well as their family members; censorship and tight control of public discourse on the internet, in print, and in other media; refoulement of asylum seekers to North Korea; the inability of citizens to choose their government; corruption; severe repression of organizations and individuals involved in human rights advocacy, as well as in public interest and ethnic minority issues; a coercive birth-limitation policy that in some cases included sterilization or abortions; trafficking in persons; and severe restrictions on labor rights, including a ban on workers organizing or joining unions of their own choosing. Official repression of the freedoms of speech, religion, movement, association, and assembly of Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas and of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) worsened and were more severe than in other areas of the country. In the XUAR officials imposed new regulations, increased severely repressive security measures, and subjected individuals engaged in peaceful expression of political and religious views to arbitrary arrest, detention harassment, and expedited judicial procedures without due process in the name of combatting terrorism and extremism.
Authorities prosecuted a number of abuses of power through the court system, particularly with regard to corruption, but in most cases the CCP first investigated and punished officials using opaque internal party disciplinary procedures. The CCP continued to dominate the judiciary and controlled the appointment of all judges and in certain cases directly dictated the court’s ruling. Authorities harassed, detained, and arrested citizens who promoted independent efforts to combat abuses of power.
Section 6. Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
Women
Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape of women is illegal, and carries a sentence of three years in prison to death. The law does not safeguard same-sex couples or victims of marital rape. In 2015 a separate law on sexual assault was broadened to include male victims, but it has a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Of the reported cases, most allegations of rape were closed through private settlement rather than prosecution. Some persons convicted of rape were executed.
Domestic violence remained a significant problem. The government took a significant step to protect women from domestic abuse through the passage of the Family Violence Law, which took effect in March 2016. NGOs stated that because of the law, more women were willing to report domestic violence incidents to police. Nevertheless, implementation and enforcement of the law remained inconsistent. In February the Washington Post reported that elements of the law, including those related to court protective orders, were not being implemented correctly.
Some scholars said that even under the new law, victims were still encouraged to attempt to resolve domestic violence through mediation. Societal sentiment that domestic violence was a personal, private matter contributed to underreporting and inaction by authorities when women faced violence at home. One government study of divorce records publicized during the year indicated that only 9.5 percent of victims made police reports.
The government supported shelters for victims of domestic violence, and some courts provided protections to victims, including through court protective orders prohibiting a perpetrator of domestic violence from coming near a victim. Nonetheless, official assistance did not always reach victims, and public security forces often ignored domestic violence. Legal aid institutions working to provide counseling and defense to victims of domestic violence were often pressured to suspend public activities and cease all forms of policy advocacy, an area that was reserved only for government-sponsored organizations.
According to women’s rights activists, a recurring problem in the prosecution of domestic violence cases was a failure by authorities to collect evidence–including photographs, hospital records, police records, or children’s testimony. Witnesses seldom testified in court.
Courts’ recognition of domestic violence improved, making spousal abuse a mitigating factor in crimes committed in self-defense.
Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment against women; however, there is no clear definition of sexual harassment under the law. Offenders are subject to a penalty of up to 15 days in detention, according to the Beijing Public Security Bureau. It remained difficult for victims to file a sexual harassment complaint and for judges to reach a ruling on such cases. Many women remained unwilling to report incidents of sexual harassment, believing that the justice system was ineffectual, according to official media. Several prominent media reports of sexual harassment went viral on social media, helping to raise awareness of the problem, particularly in the workplace.
The Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests empowers victims to file a sexual harassment complaint with their employer, authorities, or both. Employers who failed to take effective measures to prevent sexual harassment could be fined.
Some women’s NGOs that sought to increase public awareness of sexual harassment reported harassment by public security and faced challenges executing their programs. In May police searched the houses of feminists suspected of printing clothing with antisexual harassment slogans. In September 2016 women’s rights activist Shan Lihua was found guilty by the Gangzha District People’s Court in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” The indictment specifically cited Shan’s activism on a rape case in Hainan Province as evidence, according to media reports.
Coercion in Population Control: There were reports of coerced abortions and sterilizations, though government statistics on the percentage of abortions that were coerced during the year was not available. The CCP restricts the rights of parents to choose the number of children they have and utilizes family planning units from the provincial to the village level to enforce population limits and distributions. A two-child policy was officially implemented as of January 2016. The Population and Family Planning Law permits married couples to have two children and allows couples to apply for permission to have a third child if they meet conditions stipulated in local and provincial regulations. State media claimed the number of coerced abortions had declined in recent years in the wake of loosened regulations, including the implementation of the two-child policy. Citizens are subject to hefty fines for violating the law, while couples who have only one child receive a certificate entitling them to collect a monthly incentive payment and other benefits that vary by province–from approximately six to 12 yuan (one to two dollars) per month up to 3,000 yuan ($450) for farmers and herders in poor areas. Couples in some provinces are required to seek approval and register before a child is conceived.
Under the law and in practice, there are financial and administrative penalties for births that exceed birth limits or otherwise violate regulations. The National Health and Family Planning Commission announced it would continue to impose fines, called “social compensation fees,” for policy violations. The law, as implemented, requires each woman with an unauthorized pregnancy to abort or pay the social compensation fee, which can reach 10 times a person’s annual disposable income. The exact amount of the fee varied widely from province to province. Those with financial means often paid the fee so that their children born in violation of the birth restrictions would have access to a wide array of government-provided social services and rights. Some parents avoided the fee by hiding children born in violation of the law with friends or relatives. In localities with large populations of migrant workers, officials specifically targeted migrant women to ensure that they did not exceed birth limitations. Minorities in some provinces, however, were entitled to higher limits on their family size.
The law maintains that “citizens have an obligation to practice birth planning in accordance with the law” and also states that “couples of child-bearing age shall voluntarily choose birth planning contraceptive and birth control measures to prevent and reduce unwanted pregnancies.” After the transition to a two-child limit, the available mix of contraceptives shifted from mainly permanent methods like tubal ligation or IUDs toward other reversible methods.
Single women are entitled to reproductive rights, and their children are entitled to the same rights as those born to married parents, according to both the Civil Law and Marriage Law. Since the national family planning law mentions only the rights of married couples, local implementation was inconsistent, and unmarried persons must pay for contraception. Children born to single mothers or unmarried couples are considered “outside of the policy” and subject to the social compensation fee and the denial of legal documents, such as birth documents and the “hukou” residence permit. Single women can avoid those penalties by marrying within 60 days of the baby’s birth.
As in prior years, population control policy continued to rely on social pressure, education, propaganda, and economic penalties, as well as on measures such as mandatory pregnancy examinations and, less frequently, coerced abortions and sterilizations. Officials at all levels could receive rewards or penalties based on whether or not they met the population targets set by their administrative region. With the higher birth limit, and since most persons wanted to have no more than two children, it was easier to achieve population targets, and the pressure on local officials was considerably less than before. Those found to have a pregnancy in violation of the law or those who helped another to evade state controls could face punitive measures, such as onerous fines or job loss.
Regulations requiring women who violate the family planning policy to terminate their pregnancies still exist and were enforced in some provinces, such as Hubei, Hunan, and Liaoning. Other provinces, such as Guizhou, Jiangxi, Qinghai, and Yunnan, maintained provisions that require “remedial measures,” an official euphemism for abortion, to deal with pregnancies that violate the policy.
The law mandates that family planning bureaus administer pregnancy tests to married women of childbearing age and provide them with basic knowledge of family planning and prenatal services. Under the law schools are required to provide adolescent and sexual health education at an appropriate level, but in practice information is quite limited. Some provinces fined women who did not undergo periodic state-mandated pregnancy tests.
Family planning officials face criminal charges and administrative sanction if they are found to violate citizens’ human or property rights, abuse their power, accept bribes, misappropriate or embezzle family planning funds, or falsely report family planning statistics in the enforcement of birth limitation policy. Forced abortion is not specifically listed as a prohibited activity. The law also prohibits health-care providers from providing illegal surgeries, ultrasounds to determine the sex of the fetus that are not medically necessary, sex-selective abortions, fake medical identification, and fake birth certificates. By law citizens may submit formal complaints about officials who exceed their authority in implementing birth-planning policy, and complaints are to be investigated and dealt with in a timely manner.
Estimates on maternal mortality and contraceptive prevalence are available at: www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/monitoring/maternal-mortality-2015/en/ .
Discrimination: The constitution states “women enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life.” The law provides for equality in ownership of property, inheritance rights, access to education, and equal pay for equal work. However, women reported that discrimination, unfair dismissal, demotion, and wage discrepancies were significant problems.
On average, women earned 35 percent less than men who did similar work. This wage gap was greater in rural areas. Women also continued to be underrepresented in leadership positions, despite their high rate of participation in the labor force.
Authorities often did not enforce laws protecting the rights of women; according to legal experts, it was difficult to litigate sex discrimination suits because of vague legal definitions. Some observers noted that the agencies tasked with protecting women’s rights tended to focus on maternity-related benefits and wrongful termination during maternity leave rather than on sex discrimination, violence against women, and sexual harassment; others pointed to the active role played by the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF) in passing the new domestic violence legislation.
Women’s rights advocates indicated that in rural areas women often forfeited land and property rights to their husbands in divorce proceedings. Rural contract law and laws protecting women’s rights stipulate that women enjoy equal rights in cases of land management, but experts asserted this was rarely the case due to the complexity of the law and difficulties in its implementation.
Gender-biased Sex Selection: According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the sex ratio at birth was 113 males to 100 females in 2016. Sex identification and sex-selective abortion are prohibited, but the practices continued because of the traditional preference for male children and the birth-limitation policy.
Children
Birth Registration: Citizenship is derived from parents. Parents must register their children in compliance with the national household registration system within one month of birth. Unregistered children could not access public services, including education.
Education: Although the law provides for nine years of compulsory education for children, many children did not attend school for the required period in economically disadvantaged rural areas, and some never attended. Public schools were not allowed to charge tuition, but many schools continued to charge miscellaneous fees because they received insufficient local and central government funding. Such fees and other school-related expenses made it difficult for poorer families and some migrant workers to send their children to school. The gap in education quality for rural and urban youth remained extensive, with many children of migrant workers attending unlicensed and poorly equipped schools.
Child Abuse: The physical abuse of children is ground for criminal prosecution. The Domestic Violence Law also protected children. Sexual abuse of minors, particularly of rural children, was a significant problem. In 2016 the Economistreported that millions of children suffered from sexual abuse. The government increasingly encouraged state media to report on the problem and allowed NGOs to combat child sexual abuse. Pilot programs were underway in three major provinces to develop and implement child protection laws and protocols for protection and treatment, including mandatory reporting.
Early and Forced Marriage: The legal minimum age for marriage is 22 for men and 20 for women. Child marriage was not known to be a problem.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The minimum legal age for consensual sex is 14. Persons who forced girls under the age of 14 into prostitution could be sentenced to 10 years to life in prison in addition to a fine or confiscation of property. In especially serious cases, violators could receive a life sentence or death sentence, in addition to having their property confiscated. Those who visited girls forced into prostitution under age 14 were subject to five years or more in prison in addition to paying a fine.
Pornography of any kind, including child pornography, is illegal. Under the criminal code, those producing, reproducing, publishing, selling, or disseminating obscene materials with the purpose of making a profit could be sentenced to up to three years in prison or put under criminal detention or surveillance in addition to paying a fine. Offenders in serious cases could receive prison sentences of three to 10 years in addition to paying a fine.
The law provides that persons broadcasting or showing obscene materials to minors under the age of 18 are to be “severely punished.”
Infanticide or Infanticide of Children with Disabilities: The law forbids infanticide and it was unknown if the practice continued. Parents of children with disabilities frequently left infants at hospitals, primarily because of the cost of medical care. Gender-biased abortions and the abandonment and neglect of baby girls were believed to be in decline, but continued to be a problem in some circumstances due to the traditional preference for sons and the birth-limitation policy.
Displaced Children: The number of street children was unknown (estimates as high as 1.5 million), but governmental efforts to identify and provide care for these children greatly intensified. In 2013 the ACWF estimated that more than 61 million children under the age of 17 were left behind by their migrant-worker parents in rural areas. The most recent government census found approximately nine million rural children who were left behind by both parents who migrated to urban areas for work.
Institutionalized Children: The law forbids the mistreatment or abandonment of children. According to some sources, by the end of 2015, the country had 502,000 orphans, of which 92,000 were up for adoption. The vast majority of children in orphanages were girls, many of whom were abandoned. Boys in orphanages usually had disabilities or were in poor health. The government denied that children in orphanages were mistreated or refused medical care but acknowledged that the system often was unable to provide adequately for some children, particularly those with serious medical problems. Adopted children were counted under the birth-limitation regulations in most locations. As a result couples who adopted abandoned infant girls were sometimes barred from having additional children. The law allowed children who are rescued to be made available for adoption within one year if their family is not identified.
International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at travel.state.gov/content/childabduction/en/legal/compliance.html.
Anti-Semitism
The government does not recognize Judaism as an ethnicity or religion. According to information from the Jewish Virtual Library, the country’s Jewish population was 2,600 in 2016. In September 2016 the New York Times reported that members of the Kaifeng Jewish community in Henan Province came under pressure from authorities. Approximately 1,000 Kaifeng citizens claimed Jewish ancestry. Media reports stated that authorities forced the only Jewish learning center in the community to shut down, blocked the community’s ritual bath, and barred foreign tour groups from visiting.
Trafficking in Persons
See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/.
Persons with Disabilities
The law protects the rights of persons with disabilities and prohibits discrimination, but in many instances conditions for such persons lagged behind legal requirements and the government failed to provide persons with disabilities access to programs intended to assist them. The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China Disabled Persons Federation (CDPF), a government-organized civil association, are the main entities responsible for persons with disabilities.
According to the law, persons with disabilities “are entitled to enjoyment of equal rights as other citizens in political, economic, cultural, and social fields, in family life, and in other aspects.” Discrimination against, insult of, and infringement upon persons with disabilities is prohibited. The law prohibits discrimination against minors with disabilities and codifies a variety of judicial protections for juveniles.
The Ministry of Education reported there were more than 2,000 separate education schools for children with disabilities, but NGOs reported that only 2 percent of the 20 million children with disabilities had access to education that met their needs.
Individuals with disabilities faced difficulties accessing higher education. The law permits universities to exclude candidates with disabilities who would otherwise be qualified. A regulation mandates accommodations for students with disabilities when taking the national university entrance exam.
In May the government revised the 20-year-old law covering access to education for persons with disabilities. The revisions reaffirmed a commitment to ensure education for children with disabilities, broadened vocational education for persons with disabilities, and aimed to prevent discrimination in school admissions. The updated law encourages schools to accept more students, and places the responsibility to expand school access at the county level, calling on local governments to prioritize establishing special education resources in mainstream schools.
Some observers said the law was aspirational and vague, but still an improvement over prior regulations. Others noted that parents too often were forced to resort to bribing school officials to have their child with a disability accepted into mainstream schools.
Nearly 100,000 organizations existed, mostly in urban areas, to serve those with disabilities and protect their legal rights. The government, at times in conjunction with NGOs, sponsored programs to integrate persons with disabilities into society.
Misdiagnosis, inadequate medical care, stigmatization, and abandonment remained common problems. Parents who chose to keep children with disabilities at home generally faced difficulty finding adequate medical care, day care, and education for their children. According to the government, many persons with disabilities lacked adequate rehabilitation services.
Unemployment among adults with disabilities, in part due to discrimination, remained a serious problem. The law requires local governments to offer incentives to enterprises that hire persons with disabilities. Regulations in some parts of the country also require employers to pay into a national fund for persons with disabilities when employees with disabilities do not make up a statutory minimum percentage of the total workforce.
Standards adopted for making roads and buildings accessible to persons with disabilities are subject to the Law on the Handicapped, which calls for their “gradual” implementation; compliance was limited.
The law forbids the marriage of persons with certain mental disabilities, such as schizophrenia. If doctors find a couple is at risk of transmitting congenital disabilities to their children, the couple may marry only if they agree to use birth control or undergo sterilization. In some instances officials continued to require couples to abort pregnancies when doctors discovered possible disabilities during prenatal examinations. The law stipulates that local governments must employ such practices to raise the percentage of births of children without disabilities.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Government policy called for members of recognized minorities to receive preferential treatment in birth planning, university admission, access to loans, and employment. A government white paper about development in Xinjiang published in June asserted that cultural and religious rights were provided for, including the use of minority languages and the protection of cultural heritage and religious practice. The substance and implementation of ethnic minority policies nonetheless remained poor, and discrimination against minorities remained widespread. Xi Jinping directed the Communist state to “sinicize” the country’s ethnic and religious minorities: ethnically based restrictions on movement curtailed the ability of ethnic Uighurs to travel freely or obtain travel documents; authorities in Xinjiang increased surveillance and the presence of armed police; and new legislation restricted cultural and religious practices.
Minority groups in border and other regions had less access to education than their Han Chinese counterparts, faced job discrimination in favor of Han Chinese migrants, and earned incomes well below those in other parts of the country. Some claims cited the banning of minority language education, including the Uighur language in the XUAR, as signs of progress in the provision of basic education for some ethnic groups involved. Government development programs and job provisions disrupted traditional living patterns of minority groups and in some cases included the forced relocation of persons and the forced settlement of nomads. Han Chinese benefited disproportionately from government programs and economic growth in minority areas. As part of its emphasis on building a “harmonious society” and maintaining social stability, the government downplayed racism and institutional discrimination against minorities, which remained the source of deep resentment in the XUAR, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the TAR, and other Tibetan areas.
The government’s policy to encourage Han Chinese migration into minority areas significantly increased the population of Han in the XUAR. Han Chinese officials continued to hold the majority of the most powerful CCP and many government positions in minority autonomous regions, particularly the XUAR. The rapid influx of Han Chinese into the XUAR in recent decades has provoked Uighur resentment.
According to a 2015 government census, 9.5 million, or 40 percent, of the XUAR’s official residents were Han Chinese. Uighur, Hui, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other ethnic minorities constituted 14.1 million XUAR residents, or 60 percent of the total population. Official statistics understated the Han Chinese population because they did not count the more than 2.7 million Han residents on paramilitary compounds (bingtuan) and those who were long-term “temporary workers,” an increase of 1.2 percent over the previous year, according to a 2015 government of Xinjiang report. As the government continued to promote Han migration into the XUAR and filled local jobs with domestic migrant labor, local officials coerced young Uighur men and women to participate in a government-sponsored labor transfer program to cities outside the XUAR, according to overseas human rights organizations.
The law states that “schools (classes and grades) and other institutions of education where most of the students come from minority nationalities shall, whenever possible, use textbooks in their own languages and use their languages as the medium of instruction.” Despite provisions to ensure cultural and linguistic rights, in June state media reported that the Department of Education in Hotan, a Uighur-majority prefecture, issued a directive requiring full instruction in Mandarin beginning in preschool and banning the use of Uighur in all educational activities and management. Similar measures were implemented throughout the XUAR, according to international media. There were reports private Uighur-language schools were shut by authorities without any transparent investigation under the pretense that they promoted radical ideologies.
Officials in the XUAR intensified efforts to crack down on the government-designated “three evil forces” of religious extremism, ethnic separatism, and violent terrorism, including a concentrated re-education campaign to combat what it deemed to be separatism. XUAR Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo, former Communist leader in the TAR, replicated in the XUAR policies similar to those credited with reducing opposition to CCP rule in Tibet, increasing the security budget by more than 300 percent and advertising more than 90,800 security-related jobs. Authorities cited the 2016 XUAR guidelines for the implementation of the national Counterterrorism Law and a “people’s war on terrorism” in its increased surveillance efforts and enhanced restrictions on movement and ethnic and religious practices.
In April the XUAR government also implemented new “Deradicalization Regulations,” codifying efforts to “contain and eradicate extremism,” according to Xinhua. The broad definition of extremism resulted in the disappearance, jailing, or forced attendance at re-education classes of tens of thousands of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, according to international media. This included many of those ordered to return to China from studying abroad. The regulations prohibit “abnormal” beards, the wearing of veils in public places, and the refusal to watch state television, among other behaviors. The regulations banned the use of some Islamic names when naming children and set punishments for the teaching of religion to children. Authorities also conducted daily house-to-house checks to distribute a list of banned books to local residents in Karamay City while confiscating the actual books, overseas Uighur media reported in May. In March, Radio Free Asia reported that Uighurs in Hotan were required to turn in to authorities “unsanctioned” religious publications, items with the Islamic star and crescent logo, and religious attire, such as burkas. Authorities searched Uighur homes and punished those still in possession of items on a list of “illegal items,” according to the report. Banned items include any Quran published before 2012.
Some security raids, arbitrary detentions, and judicial punishments, ostensibly directed at individuals or organizations suspected of promoting the “three evil forces,” appeared to target groups or individuals peacefully seeking to express their political or religious views. Detention and punishment extended to expression on the internet and social media, including the browsing, downloading, and transmitting of banned content. Authorities arrested a woman in May for posting Quranic verses to a chat site; local officials confirmed it was illegal to post to the internet anything from the Quran or mentioning Allah. Officials continued to use the threat of violence as justification for extreme security measures directed at the local population, journalists, and visiting foreigners. According to Xinhua news, officials used surveillance and facial recognition software, biodata collection, and big data technology to create a database of Uighurs in Xinjiang for the purpose of conducting “social-instability forecasting, prevention, and containment.” Security forces frequently staged large-scale parades involving thousands of armed police in cities across the XUAR, according to state media.
Uighurs and other religious minorities continued to be sentenced to long prison terms and in some cases executed without due process on charges of separatism and endangering state security. The government constructed new prisons in Xinjiang in order to alleviate the overcapacity of existing facilities, according to credible sources. Hundreds of police recruits were hired to staff the new prisons, according to government reports. Economist Ilham Tohti remained in prison, where he was serving a life sentence after his conviction on separatism-related charges in 2014.
The law criminalizes discussion of “separatism” on the internet and prohibits use of the internet in any way that undermines national unity. It further bans inciting ethnic separatism or “harming social stability” and requires internet service providers and network operators to set up monitoring systems to detect, report, and delete religious content or to strengthen existing systems and report violations of the law. Authorities reportedly searched cell phones at checkpoints and during random inspections of Uighur households, and those in possession of alleged terrorist material, including digital pictures of the East Turkistan flag, could be arrested and charged with crimes.
Authorities increased surveillance and the collection of personal information as part of overall security measures in the XUAR. The government enhanced efforts to build archives of voiceprint information, facial recognition, fingerprints, blood samples, and DNA samples, according to Xinhua news and overseas media. Monitoring of social media and the internet increased, and officials described their use of “big data” to forecast, prevent, and contain social instability in Xinjiang. In July, Xinjiang residents were ordered to install on mobile phones a surveillance application to report the viewing of “terrorist information” and prevent them from accessing it, according to the Hong Kong Free Press. The application monitors “illegal religious” activity and “harmful information,” according to authorities.
Huang Shike, a Hui Muslim living in Xinjiang, was sentenced to two years in prison for discussing Islam on the social media platform Wechat.
Ethnic Kazakh Chinese were also targeted, RFA and other international media reported in August. In August, Kazakh students were arrested in Xinjiang for wearing Islamic clothing and praying at a university. Kazakhs were also prevented from moving freely between China and neighboring Kazakhstan, and some were detained when returning to China.
The government pressured foreign countries to repatriate or deny visas to Uighurs who had left the country, and repatriated Uighurs faced the risk of imprisonment and mistreatment upon return. Some Uighurs who were forcibly repatriated disappeared after arrival. Family members of Uighurs studying overseas were also put under pressure to convince students to return to China, and returning students were detained or forced to attend re-education camps, according to overseas media. In July, Egyptian authorities detained scores of Chinese Uighur students to be interrogated by Chinese security personnel, and some of them were repatriated against their will, according to Uighur activists outside of China. In August state media reported that Hebibulla Tohti, a member of the Chinese Islamic Association, was arrested upon his return from studying at Egypt’s al-Azhar University. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for unauthorized preaching, attending a conference in Saudi Arabia in 2015, giving speeches on the importance of Uighur culture, and failing to endorse the government’s policies in the Uighur region.
Freedom of assembly was severely limited during the year in the XUAR. For information about abuse of religious freedom in Xinjiang, see the Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Report at www.state.gov/religiousfreedomreport/.
For specific information on Tibet, see the Tibet Annex.
Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
No laws criminalize private consensual same-sex activities between adults. Due to societal discrimination and pressure to conform to family expectations, however, most lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons refrained from publicly discussing their sexual orientation or gender identity. Individuals and organizations working on LGBTI issues continued to report discrimination and harassment from authorities similar to that experienced by other organizations that accept funding from overseas.
Despite reports of domestic violence among LGBTI couples, the regulations on domestic violence and the Family Violence Law do not include same-sex partnerships, giving LGBTI victims of domestic violence less legal recourse than heterosexual victims.
A court in Henan Province in July ruled that a mental hospital in Zhumadian City owed a gay man named Wu 5000 yuan ($735) in compensation over being forced against his will in 2015 into “conversion therapy.” Hospital employees forced Wu to take medicine and injections for 19 days after diagnosing him with a “sexual preference disorder.”
NGOs working on LGBTI issues reported that although public advocacy work became more difficult for them in light of the Foreign NGO Management Law and the Domestic Charity Law, they made some progress in advocating for LGBTI rights through specific antidiscrimination cases. In July a court ruled in favor of a transgender man in his suit against his former employer for wrongful termination.
Xi’an police detained nine members of the gay advocacy group Speak Out hours before the conference it was hosting was slated to start.
HIV and AIDS Social Stigma
Discrimination against persons with HIV remained a problem, impacting individuals’ employment, educational, and housing opportunities and impeding access to health care. The law allows employers and schools to bar persons with infectious diseases and does not afford specific protections based on HIV status. During the year state media outlets reported instances of persons with HIV/AIDS who were barred from housing, education, or employment due to their HIV status.
In June a Guangzhou court ruled against a food inspection laboratory for violating the contract of an employee upon learning he was HIV positive by sending him home “to rest” indefinitely. While he was still paid his full salary, he sued, asserting it was not lawful for his employer to prevent him from working. After he sued, his contract expired and was not renewed. The court ruled that the employee did not consent to this change in his contract, making it a violation of the Employment Contract Law. They also ruled that his employer had to allow him to return to work.
Other Societal Violence or Discrimination
The law prohibits discrimination against persons carrying infectious diseases and allows such persons to work as civil servants. The law does not address some common types of discrimination in employment, including discrimination based on height, physical appearance, or ethnic identity.
Despite provisions in the law, discrimination against hepatitis B carriers (including 20 million chronic carriers) remained widespread in many areas, and local governments sometimes tried to suppress their activities.
Despite a 2010 nationwide rule banning mandatory hepatitis B virus tests in job and school admissions applications, many companies continued to use hepatitis B testing as part of their preemployment screening.