Liu Jie
When they unshackled me from the chair, my legs had turned black with bruises
Liu Jie is a human rights defender from Heilongjiang province. She has been calling on the Chinese government to introduce legal and political reforms for two decades and has assisted marginalised groups in their efforts to seek justice when their rights have been abused. She has organised and educated groups of people petitioning the government for redress and has lobbied on behalf of migrant workers. She has also initiated petitions and sent them to the central government in advance of annual meetings calling for greater political liberalisation and legal reform. She campaigned extensively for the abolition of the re-education through labour system, which allowed for people to be sent to such camps for three years without a trial, and has been detained and ill treated numerous times as a result of her advocacy.
Prior to her first prolonged detention in 2007, Liu and other organisers spent two months surveying petitioners and collecting signatures for an open letter addressed to CCP top leaders: “Constitutional Democracy: the Foundation for Addressing Social Grievances.” They collected 12,150 signatures by petitioners from many provinces, who had been to Beijing to file complaints about their mistreatments by local officials, many of whom suffered official harassment and police brutality. She was sentenced to 18 months re-education through labour in November 2007, for “instigating trouble” and “disturbing social order”. Liu Jie reported being tortured at the camp. In 2008, she was hogtied to a chair for a week, a dreaded punishment known as the “tiger bench.” She was deprived of food and water for several days and she repeatedly lost consciousness. In December 2013 she was once again sentenced to 18 months in prison having continued her rights work after her release. During this spell she was diagnosed with cancer but refused medical parole.
Human rights defenders in China work in an extremely hostile environment and under President Xi Jinping they have seen the space in which to operate further restricted. Chinese HRDs are active in many spheres, and they include lawyers, journalists, academics, transparency campaigners, housing and land rights activists, bloggers, writers, HIV/AIDS activists and those promoting the rights of ethnic minorities. Regardless of the issues they work on, HRDs who highlight abuses, challenge the authorities or network to support detained colleagues all face reprisals from the government. These range from almost daily harassment and intimidation of family members to detentions, disappearances, torture and imprisonment.
