Disappearance of Chinese officials: common Party disciplinary practices

The UN has a dual role in this scenario. Good guard on one side, bad cop on the other.

Human rights procedures and United Nations treaty bodies have repeatedly denounced the system of Liuzhi amounting to enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. In a General allegation letter from earlier this yearthe Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has also expressed specific concerns to the Chinese authorities concerning an alarming number of extraterritorial abductions and transnational transfers (involving arbitrary deprivation of liberty and rendition) from the Mekong region and neighboring countries of people who find themselves in secret detention or other forms of deprivation of liberty . Furthermore, information shared with the Working Group demonstrates a systemic pattern in which such practices aim to pressure and control dissident groups seeking protection abroad, including persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, dissidents politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, refugees. and asylum seekers.

To our knowledge, COREP has not responded to the working groups' questions.

For further details on the multitude of international human rights provisions violated in practice and the positions taken by relevant UN procedures, please see our latest communication on the use of Liuzhi.

At the same time, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) accepted the PRC's designation of the NCS as its focal point for all work carried out under the Convention Against Corruption, while engaging in technical cooperation with the body under the Memorandum of Understanding signed in October 2019.

You read that right.

UNODC continues to cooperate with an entity that, by its own admission, has engaged in mass enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture of 71 people every day of 2023.

UNODC continues to cooperate with an entity that, according to its own written legal interpretation, engages in or encourages covert means of forcibly returning individuals to China, in flagrant violation of the territorial sovereignty of other countries and the Convention against corruption.

UNODC continues to cooperate despite obligations Human Rights Due Diligence Policy on UN Support to Non-UN Security Forceswhich prescribes that if the UN receives reliable information that provides substantial grounds to believe that a recipient of its support is committing serious violations of international humanitarian, human rights or refugee law, the UN entity providing that support must intercede with the relevant authorities to put an end to these violations. If, despite this intercession, the situation persists, the United Nations must suspend its support to the guilty elements.

To learn more about UNODC's apparent violation of UN policies and the contents of its Memorandum of Understanding with the CCDI (NCS), please read our April 2024 report Chasing Fox Hunt.

In conclusion: corruption within the meaning of the Anti-Corruption Convention is a real and even endemic problem in the PRC. But combating it is certainly not always the primary concern of mandated agencies.

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Extract from the Irish Times of May 1, 2020:

A Chinese journalist and anti-corruption blogger has been jailed for 15 years after being accused of criticizing the Communist Party through comments and investigative reports posted on social media platforms.

Chen Jieren has been detained since 2018 after publishing two blog posts denouncing corruption by Hunan party officials. After his detention, Chinese state media said Mr. Chen's online reporting had “sabotaged the reputation of the party and government and damaged the government's credibility.”

The court in Guiyang County, Hunan Province, announced Thursday that it had finally convicted Mr. Chen for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a charge that is often shorthand for criticizing or challenging the party. .

The court also found him guilty of “illegal business activity”, extortion, blackmail and bribery, and fined him 7 million yuan (900,000). His brother, Chen Weiren, was imprisoned for four years on the same charges. The court said the two men had posted “false and negative” information online “to hype relevant cases”.

Chen Jieren's conviction came nearly two years after his forced disappearance on the instructions of the same local supervisory commission he had accused of corruption.