The case of Chen Kegui (陈可贵), the nephew of activist Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), has been sent to a procuratorate in Shandong Province on the charge of “intentional injury,” and not the more serious charge of “intentional homicide” for which he was initially arrested. Also, Chen Guangfu (陈光福), Chen Kegui’s father, has filed a petition seeking public disclosure of the legal basis and other information related to the April invasion and search of their home. In other news, two artists in Beijing were recently detained on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt the social order” after holding a demonstration in which they called for the end to Re-education through Labor (RTL) and the release of a fellow artist sent to RTL.

An 80-year-old Jiangsu man is still being held more than three years after his procedurally flawed trial for homicide in 2009 ended without a conviction, and more than four years after he was first detained. Also, police throughout China have aggressively targeted dissidents, activists and petitioners for harassment and control in response to the anti-Japan protests over the Diaoyu Islands and the anniversary of the Mukden Incident, and in advance of the “sensitive period” of the 18th Communist Party Congress. Among other news, the Supreme People’s Court recently released a “guiding case” that provides direction to lower courts on limiting sentence reductions for convicted criminals who have received suspended death sentences.

On September 16, 2012, He Zhihua (何志华), a villager from Hunan Province, was crushed to death under a road leveling machine while protesting a land seizure and home demolition project done to build a highway. CHRD has reported on this news in China Human Rights Briefing (9/21-27, 2012), and also posted video clips and images of the horrific aftermath—the reactions of distraught family members and villagers, including the man’s young daughter, and their efforts to express outrage over the incident.

CHRD has submitted allegations of human rights violations to Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of Wang Yonghang (王永航), a former lawyer and outspoken advocate for Falun Gong practitioners. Wang is serving a seven-year prison sentence in Liaoning Province. Detained in July 2009, Wang was tried that October on a charge of “using a cult to undermine implementation of the law” and sentenced the next month. During his detention, Wang has been repeatedly subjected to violent, inhumane treatment, and since early 2012 his situation has grown even worse, as he has been tortured and his health has seriously declined. While held in pre-trial detention, Wang's lawyer and family members were not allowed to meet him, as police claimed the case involved “state secrets.”

CHRD have submitted allegations of human rights violations to Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of petitioners believed to be currently held against their will in psychiatric institutions. Most of the seven individuals have also been forcibly medicated or subjected to other cruel and inhuman treatment. Without access to legal recourse, they have been detained for periods of months up to several years in retaliation for expressing grievances about government misconduct. Psychiatric commitment in China is fraught with concerns; the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s revised draft of its Mental Health Law still allows for detention based on psychosocial disabilities, and fails to provide solid safeguards against the involuntary commitment of individuals who are not mentally ill.