During the year, local officials destroyed several unregistered places of worship around the country. In Zhejiang Province, there were continued reports that churches and shrines were closed or destroyed, although less often than in 2003. Zhejiang authorities often claimed that destroyed buildings were not zoned for religious activities, or were unsafe, or both. In February, a fire killed 39 worshippers and destroyed a makeshift temple in Zhejiang's Haining City. Visitors to Xinjiang Autonomous Region reported that mosques also have been destroyed, although some attributed the demolition as much to inter-religious conflict between Hui and Uighur Muslims as to government antagonism. In August, members of the Buddhist Foundation of America reported that a temple they had helped to restore in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, was closed and the rededication ceremony cancelled by local officials. Spiritual leader Dechan Jeren (Yu Tianjian) was detained, and government authorities claimed he had misled followers about his status as a living Buddha.
The Government continued to restore or rebuild some churches, temples, mosques, and monasteries damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and new facilities were constructed during the year. In March, the Government began construction of two new Protestant churches in Beijing, the first new churches to be constructed in the capital since 1949. Similarly, the site of the 135-year-old former Holy Trinity Cathedral in Shanghai was renovated at government expense and reopened as headquarters of the official Protestant China Christian Council and Three-Self Patriotic Movement. The number of restored and rebuilt temples, churches, and mosques remained inadequate to accommodate the increase in religious believers. The difficulty in registering new places of worship led to serious overcrowding in existing places of worship in some areas. Some observers cited the lack of adequate meeting space in registered churches to explain the rapid rise in attendance at house churches and "underground" churches.
The law does not prohibit religious believers from holding public office; however, party membership is required for almost all high-level positions in Government, state-owned businesses, and many official organizations. During the year, Communist Party officials again stated that party membership and religious belief were incompatible. The Routine Service Regulations of the People's Liberation Army state explicitly that service members "may not take part in religious or superstitious activities." Party and PLA personnel have been expelled for adhering to Falun Gong beliefs.
Despite official regulations encouraging officials to be atheists, in some localities as many as 25 percent of Party officials engaged in some kind of religious activity. Most of these officials practiced Buddhism or a folk religion. The National People's Congress (NPC) included several religious representatives. Two of the NPC Standing Committee's vice chairmen are Fu Tieshan, a bishop and vice-chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and Pagbalha Geleg Namgyal, a Tibetan reincarnate lama. Religious groups also were represented in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory forum for "multiparty" cooperation and consultation led by the CCP, and in local and provincial governments.
Official religious organizations administered local religious schools, seminaries, and institutes to train priests, ministers, imams, Islamic scholars, and Buddhist monks. Students who attended these institutes had to demonstrate "political reliability," and all graduates must pass an examination on their political as well as theological knowledge to qualify for the clergy. The Government permitted registered religions to train clergy and allowed limited numbers of Catholic and Protestant seminarians, Muslim clerics, and Buddhist clergy to go abroad for additional religious studies, but some religion students have had difficulty getting passports or obtaining approval to study abroad. In most cases, foreign organizations provided funding for such training programs.
Both official and unofficial Christian churches had problems training adequate numbers of clergy to meet the needs of their growing congregations. Because of restrictions and prohibitions on religion between 1955 and 1985, no priests or other clergy in official churches were ordained during that period. Thus, as senior clerics retire, there were relatively few experienced clerics to replace them. The Government stated that the official Catholic Church had trained more than 900 priests in the past decade.
Traditional folk religions such as Fujian Province's "Mazu cult" were still practiced in some locations. They were tolerated to varying degrees, often seen as loose affiliates of Taoism or as ethnic minority cultural practices. However, at the same time, folk religions were labeled "feudal superstition" and sometimes were repressed because their resurgence was seen as a threat to Party control. In recent years, local authorities have destroyed thousands of shrines; however, there were no reports of widespread destruction during the year.
Buddhists made up the largest body of organized religious believers. The traditional practice of Buddhism continued to expand among citizens in many parts of the country. Tibetan Buddhists in some areas outside of the TAR had growing freedom to practice their faith. However, some government restrictions remained, particularly in cases in which the Government interpreted Buddhist belief as supporting separatism, such as in some Tibetan areas and parts of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Visits by emissaries of the Dalai Lama occurred in 2002, 2003, and September, 2004. Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy, was a member of the September delegation (see Tibet Addendum).
Regulations restricting Muslims' religious activity, teaching, and places of worship continued to be implemented forcefully in Xinjiang. In some areas of Xinjiang where ethnic unrest has occurred, officials restricted the building of mosques and the training of clergy. Authorities reportedly continued to prohibit the teaching of Islam to children under the age of 18 in some areas where ethnic unrest has occurred, although children studied Arabic and the Koran without restriction in many other areas. For example, local officials have stated that persons younger than 18 are forbidden from entering mosques in Xinjiang, but this policy was enforced unevenly. Authorities also reserved the right to censor imams' sermons. In particular, imams were urged to emphasize the damage caused to Islam by terrorist acts in the name of the religion.
Fundamentalist Muslim leaders received particularly harsh treatment. In 2000, the authorities began conducting monthly political study sessions for religious personnel; the program reportedly continued during the year. In August, eight Uighur Muslims in Hotan District were reportedly charged with endangering state security, and scores were detained on charges of engaging in "illegal religious activities." Because of government control of information coming from Xinjiang, such reports were difficult to confirm.

There were numerous official media reports that the authorities confiscated illegal religious publications in Xinjiang. The Xinjiang People's Publication House was the only publisher allowed to print Muslim literature, and stores reported that those selling literature not included on Government lists of permitted items risked closure. In addition to the restrictions on practicing religion placed on party members and government officials throughout the country, teachers, professors, and university students in Xinjiang were not allowed to practice religion openly. Officials also reportedly restricted mosque building in some areas of Xinjiang, especially where unrest had occurred. However, in other areas, particularly in areas traditionally populated by the non-Central Asian Hui ethnic group, there was substantial religious building construction and renovation. Mosque destruction, which sometimes occurred in Xinjiang, occasionally resulted from intra-religious conflict.
The Government permitted Muslim citizens to make the Hajj to Mecca and in some cases subsidized the journey. A record number of nearly 10,000 Muslims made the Hajj during the year, nearly half of whom went with government-organized delegations. Other Muslims made the trip to Mecca via third countries. According to international Uighur groups, Uighur Muslims had greater difficulty getting permission to make the Hajj than other Muslim groups, such as Hui Muslims, and some Uighurs elected not to attempt to go for fear of repercussions.
The Government and the Holy See had not established diplomatic relations, and there was no Vatican representative on the Mainland. The Government stated that the role of the Pope in selecting bishops, the status of underground Catholic clerics, Vatican recognition of Taiwan, and the canonization of controversial Catholic missionaries on Chinese National Day in 2000 remained obstacles to improved relations. During the year, the Government stated that the political activities of Hong Kong Diocese Bishop Joseph Zen in the Hong Kong SAR had become a further obstacle to normalization of relations with the Vatican. Nonetheless, Bishop Zen paid a public visit to Shanghai in April.
The Government's refusal to allow the official Catholic Church to recognize the authority of the Papacy in many fundamental matters of faith and morals caused many Catholics to reject the official Catholic Church. Most bishops of the official Catholic Church were, in fact, recognized by the Vatican. However, friction between bishops who have been consecrated with Vatican approval and others consecrated without such approval continued, producing leadership conflicts. Foreign media reported that, at the consecration ceremony of some bishops during the year, both government and Vatican approval was stated publicly.
The increase in the number of Christians resulted in a corresponding increase in the demand for Bibles, which were available for purchase at most officially recognized churches and some bookstores. Although the country had only one government-approved publisher of Bibles and distribution had been a problem in the past, the shortage of Bibles in previous years appeared largely to have abated. Members of underground churches complained that the supply and distribution of Bibles in some places, particularly rural locations, was inadequate. Official churches said they discouraged the sale of Bibles outside the church to protect their copyright and financial interests, not to restrict distribution. They emphasized that versions of the Bible are available for less than $1 (RMB 8.3). Individuals could not order Bibles directly from publishing houses, making it difficult for some Christians to buy Bibles in volume. Customs officials continued to monitor for the "smuggling" of Bibles and other religious materials into the country, but there were no new cases of significant punishments for Bible importation. There were credible reports that the authorities sometimes confiscated Bibles and other religious material in raids on house churches.
Regulations enacted in 1994 and expanded in 2000 codified many existing rules involving religious practice by foreigners, including a ban on proselytizing. However, for the most part, the authorities allowed foreign nationals to preach to other foreigners, to bring in religious materials for personal use, and to preach to citizens at churches, mosques, and temples at the invitation of registered religious organizations. Religious worship by foreigners was permitted in unregistered facilities so long as citizens did not attend the services. In a number of major cities, regular worship services for foreigners were held, including Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints services. Foreigners were barred from conducting missionary activities, but some foreign religious groups were involved in education and providing social services.
Some foreign church organizations came under pressure to register with government authorities, and some foreign missionaries whose activities extended to citizens were expelled or asked to leave the country. The Government stated that those asked to leave had violated the law. In addition, the Government banned foreign-produced materials about Christianity in the country, including the documentary film "The Cross" and the book "Jesus in Beijing."
The authorities continued a general crackdown on groups considered to be "cults." Premier Wen Jiabao, in his address to the NPC in March, stressed that government agencies should strengthen their anti-cult work. These "cults" included not only Falun Gong and various traditional Chinese meditation and exercise groups (known collectively as "qigong" groups) but also religious groups that authorities accused of preaching beliefs outside the bounds of officially approved doctrine. Groups that the Government labeled cults included Eastern Lightning, the Servants of Three Classes, the Shouters, the South China Church, the Association of Disciples, the Full Scope Church, the Spirit Sect, the New Testament Church, the Way of the Goddess of Mercy, the Lord God Sect, the Established King Church, the Unification Church, and the Family of Love. Authorities accused some in these groups of lacking proper theological training, preaching the imminent coming of the Apocalypse or holy war, or exploiting the reemergence of religion for personal gain. The Eastern Lightning group was accused by the Government and some other unregistered Christian groups of involvement in violence.
Actions against such groups continued during the year. In April, over 100 members of the evangelical group the "Servants of Three Classes" were detained in Harbin, Heliongjiang Province. Most were released, but Gu Xianggao died in custody, allegedly as a result of beatings by police (see Section 1.c.) Police also continued their efforts to close down an underground evangelical group called the "Shouters," an offshoot of a pre-1949 indigenous Protestant group. In 2001, Gong Shengliang, founder of the South China Church, was sentenced to death on criminal charges including rape, arson, and assault. In 2002, an appeals court overturned his death sentence, and Gong was sentenced to life in prison. In the retrial, four women from his congregation claimed that, prior to the first trial, police had tortured them into signing statements accusing Gong of raping them. The four women, who were found not guilty of "cultist activity" in the retrial, were nonetheless immediately sent to reeducation-through-labor camps. In the retrial, the court also dropped all "evil cult" charges against the South China Church. During the year, elderly church member Chen Jingmao reportedly was abused in prison for attempting to convert inmates to Christianity.
The extent of public Falun Gong activity in the country continued to decline considerably, and practitioners based abroad reported that the Government抯 crackdown against the group continued. Since the Government banned the Falun Gong in 1999, the mere belief in the discipline (even without any public manifestation of its tenets) was sufficient grounds for practitioners to receive punishments ranging from loss of employment to imprisonment. Although the vast majority of the tens of thousands of practitioners detained since 1999 have been released, many were detained again after release (see Section 1.e.), and thousands reportedly remained in reeducation-through-labor camps. Those identified by the Government as "core leaders" have been singled out for particularly harsh treatment. More than a dozen Falun Gong members have been sentenced to prison for the crime of "endangering state security," but the great majority of Falun Gong members convicted by the courts since 1999 have been sentenced to prison for "organizing or using a sect to undermine the implementation of the law," a less serious offense. Most practitioners, however, were punished administratively. In addition to being sentenced to reeducation through labor, some Falun Gong members were sent to detention facilities specifically established to "rehabilitate" practitioners who refused to recant their belief voluntarily after release from reeducation-through-labor camps. In addition, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners have been confined to mental hospitals (see Section 1.d.).

Police in the past often used excessive force when detaining peaceful Falun Gong protesters. During the year, allegations of abuse of Falun Gong practitioners by the police and other security personnel continued. According to the foreign-based Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners, 1,047 Falun Gong practitioners, including children and the elderly, have died since 1997 as a result of official persecution (see Section 1.c.). Other groups based abroad estimated that as many as 2,000 practitioners have died in custody.
During the 2003 SARS epidemic, the Government launched new accusations that Falun Gong practitioners were disrupting SARS-prevention efforts. State-run media claimed that, beginning in April, Falun Gong followers "incited public panic" and otherwise "sabotaged" anti-SARS efforts in many provinces by preaching that belief in Falun Gong will prevent persons from contracting SARS. Authorities detained hundreds of Falun Gong adherents on such charges, including 69 in Jiangsu Province during May 2003 and 180 in Hebei Province during June 2003, according to state-run media. At year抯 end, their whereabouts remained unknown.
As recently as 2003, the Government continued its effort to round up practitioners not already in custody and sanctioned the use of high-pressure tactics and mandatory anti-Falun Gong study sessions to force practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. Even practitioners who had not protested or made other public demonstrations of belief reportedly were forced to attend anti-Falun Gong classes or were sent directly to reeducation-through-labor camps, where in some cases, beatings and torture reportedly were used to force them to recant. These tactics reportedly resulted in large numbers of practitioners signing pledges to renounce the movement.
The Government taught atheism in schools. While the Government claimed that there were no national-level regulations barring children from receiving religious instruction, in some regions local authorities barred persons under 18 from attending services at mosques, temples, or churches.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2004 International Religious Freedom Report.
d. Freedom of Movement within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration and Repatriation
Although the Government maintained restrictions on the freedom to change one's workplace or residence, the national household registration and identification card system continued to erode, and the ability of most citizens to move within the country to work and live continued to expand. However, the Government retained the ability to restrict freedom of movement through other mechanisms. Authorities heightened restrictions periodically during the year, particularly before politically sensitive anniversaries and to forestall demonstrations.
The Government's "hukou" system of national household registration underwent further liberalization during the year, as the country responded to economic demands for a more mobile labor force. Nonetheless, many persons could not officially change their residence or workplace within the country. Government and work unit permission were often required before moving from city to city. It was particularly difficult for peasants from rural areas to obtain household registration in some economically more developed urban areas. There remained a "floating population" of between 100 and 150 million economic migrants who lacked official residence status in cities. Without official residence status, it was difficult or impossible to gain full access to social services, including education. Further, migrant workers were generally limited to types of work considered least desirable by local residents, and they had little recourse when subject to abuse by employers and officials. In some major cities, access to education for children of migrant workers continued to improve during the year, and some cities began to offer migrants some other social services free of charge. Many cities and provinces continued experiments aimed at abolishing the distinction between urban and rural residents in household registration documents, including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui, Hebei, Hubei, and Sichuan Provinces. However, other localities, including Zhengzhou in Henan Province, re-established registration requirements during the year to halt the drain on public resources that had resulted from an influx of migrants. In June 2003, the administrative detention system of custody and repatriation applied to migrants was abolished and replaced by a network of aid shelters offering services to migrants, but it remained unclear at year抯 end how these reforms would be implemented (see Section 1.d.).
Prior to sensitive anniversaries, authorities in urban areas rounded up and detained some "undesirables," including the homeless, the unemployed, migrant workers, those without proper residence or work permits, petty criminals, prostitutes, and the mentally ill or disabled. Dissidents reported that the authorities restricted their freedom of movement during politically sensitive periods and visits by foreign dignitaries, including on some occasions removing suspected dissidents from Beijing.
Under the "staying at prison employment" system applicable to recidivists incarcerated in reeducation-through-labor camps, authorities have denied certain persons permission to return to their homes after serving their sentences. Some released or paroled prisoners returned home but were not permitted freedom of movement. Former senior leaders Zhao Ziyang and Bao Tong remained under house arrest in Beijing for their role in the 1989 Tiananmen protests, and security around them routinely was tightened during sensitive periods.
The Government permitted legal emigration and foreign travel for most citizens. Passports were increasingly easy to obtain in most places, although those whom the Government deemed to be threats, including religious leaders, political dissidents, and some ethnic minority members continued to have difficulty obtaining passports (see Tibet Addendum). According to media reports, more than 2.6 million mainland tourists have traveled to Hong Kong since the Government relaxed restrictions on such travel.
There were reports that some academics faced travel restrictions around the year's sensitive anniversaries, particularly the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and there were instances in which the authorities refused to issue passports or visas on apparent political grounds. Members of underground churches sometimes were refused passports and other necessary travel documents. Some Falun Gong members also had difficulty in obtaining passports. On June 1, Dr. Jiang Yanyong and his wife were detained while en route to pick up a visa to travel abroad to visit their daughter. They were held for 7 and 2 weeks, respectively, because he wrote to government leaders requesting an official reassessment of the Tiananmen massacre. He was released in July, but remained in a form of house arrest. Dr. Jiang also was pressured not to accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service and was not permitted to travel to a September awards ceremony in the Philippines.

Similarly, visas to enter the country were sometimes denied for political reasons. For example, some foreign academics who had been critical of the country continued to be denied visas. Some others who intended to discuss human rights or rule of law issues also were denied visas. For foreigners whose business did not raise political sensitivities, the Government introduced a long-term residence permit during the year.
The law neither provides for a citizen's right to repatriate nor otherwise addresses exile. The Government continued to refuse reentry to numerous citizens whom it considered to be dissidents, Falun Gong activists, or troublemakers. Although some dissidents living abroad have been allowed to return, dissidents released on medical parole and allowed to leave the country often were effectively exiled. Activists resident abroad have sometimes been imprisoned upon their return to the country.
The Government's refusal to permit some former reeducation-through-labor camp inmates to return to their homes constituted a form of internal exile.
Although a signatory of the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the country has no laws or regulations that authorize the authorities to grant refugee status. The Government largely cooperated with the UNHCR when dealing with the resettlement of ethnic Han Chinese or ethnic minorities from Vietnam and Laos resident in the country. During the year, the Government and UNHCR continued ongoing discussions concerning the granting of citizenship to these residents. Since the late 1980s, the Government has adopted a de facto policy of tolerance toward the small number of persons, fewer than 100 annually, from other nations who registered with the Beijing office of the UNHCR as asylum seekers. The Government permitted these persons to remain in the country while the UNHCR made determinations as to their status and, if the UNHCR determined that they were bona fide refugees, while they awaited resettlement in third countries. However, the Government continued to deny the UNHCR permission to operate along its northeastern border with North Korea, arguing that North Koreans who crossed the border were illegal economic migrants, not refugees.
During the year, several thousand North Koreans were reportedly detained and forcibly returned to North Korea, where many faced persecution and some of whom may have been executed upon their return, as provided in North Korean law. Several hundred North Koreans were permitted to travel to Seoul after they had entered diplomatic compounds or international schools in China, and approximately 1,900 arrived in South Korea via third countries such as Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, most after transiting through China. There were numerous credible reports of harassment and detention of North Koreans in the country. The Government also arrested and detained foreign journalists, missionaries and activists, as well as some Chinese citizens, for providing food, shelter, transportation, and other assistance to North Koreans. According to NGOs, the Government reportedly allowed North Korean security forces to enter China to forcibly repatriate North Korean citizens during the year.
While UNHCR reported that more than 2,000 Tibetans each year continued to cross into Nepal, the Government continued to try to prevent many Tibetans from leaving (see Tibet Addendum).
In October 2003, the Government executed Uighur Shaheer Ali after he and another Uighur were forcibly returned to China in 2002 from Nepal, where they had been granted refugee status by UNHCR (see Section 5).
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
Citizens lack the right to change their government peacefully and cannot freely choose or change the laws and officials that govern them. While recent reforms allow citizens to elect members of village committees, which are not considered to be government bodies, and representatives to local people's congresses, the Communist Party continued to control appointments to positions of political power.
According to the Constitution, the National People's Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power. Formally, it elects the President and Vice President, selects the Premier and Vice Premiers, and elects the Chairman of the State Central Military Commission. In practice, the NPC Standing Committee oversees these elections and determines the agenda and procedure for the NPC under the direct authority of the CCP's Politburo Standing Committee. The NPC does not have the power to set policy or remove Government or Party leaders.
Under the 1987 Organic Law of Village Committees and its 1998 amendments, all of the country's approximately 1 million villages were expected to hold competitive, direct elections for subgovernmental village committees. Beginning in 1987, rural citizens voted directly for their local village committees, which were not considered government bodies. Most provinces already have held four or five rounds of village committee elections, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Foreign observers who have monitored local village committee elections judged the elections they observed, on the whole, to have been fair. However, the Government estimated that one-third of all elections had serious procedural flaws. Corruption and interference by township level and Party officials continued to be a problem in some cases.
The 1979 Election Law governs elections of legislative bodies at all levels. Under this law, citizens have the opportunity to vote for local people's congress representatives at the county level and below, although in most cases the nomination of candidates in those elections was strictly controlled. People's congress delegates above the county level are selected by legislators at the level below. For example, provincial-level people's congresses select delegates to the NPC. Beginning in late 2002, a practice began of naming local Communist Party secretaries to concurrently serve as the head of the local people's congress. This move dramatically strengthened Party control over these legislatures.
Although the Party controls appointments of officials to government and Party positions at all levels, some township, county, and provincial elections featured experiments with increased competition, including self-nomination of candidates, campaign speeches by candidates, public vetting of nominees, and a two-tiered indirect election system. In October, the Election Law was amended to permit preliminary elections to establish the list of candidates for direct elections in certain, limited situations.
The CCP retained a monopoly on political power and forbade the creation of new political parties. The Government continued efforts to suppress the China Democracy Party (CDP), an opposition party that had attracted hundreds of members nationwide within a few months of its founding in 1998. Public security forces had previously arrested nearly all of the CDP's leaders: Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai, and Qin Yongmin were sentenced in 1998 to prison terms of 13, 12, and 11 years, respectively. Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai were released on medical parole to the United States in December 2002 and March 2004, respectively, but Qin remained in prison. At the time of the 16th Party Congress in 2002, authorities targeted many remaining activists for signing an open letter calling for political reform and a reappraisal of the official verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre (see Section 1.d.). More than 40 current or former CDP members remained imprisoned or held in reeducation-through-labor camps during the year, including Zhao Changqing, Sang Jiancheng, He Depu, Yao Zhenxiang, Han Lifa, Dai Xuezhong, and Jiang Lijun. In December, Zhejiang and Jiangsu Province activists were interrogated and a few, including Yang Tianshui and Wang Rongqing, were detained after they publicly proposed that the NPC draft a political party law.

Freedom of information regulations were enacted in many locations during the year, aimed at improving the public's communication with and supervision over local government initiatives. In Wuhan, freedom of information regulations were used in August to force a state-owned enterprise (SOE) to provide a laid-off worker with information about SOE restructuring. In July, a lawsuit was filed in Shanghai to force a local land office to comply with a citizen's request for information. The Government experimented with other forms of public oversight of government, including telephone hotlines and complaint centers, administrative hearings, increased opportunity for citizen observation of government proceedings, and other forms of citizen input in the local legislative process, such as hearings to discuss draft legislation. For example, citizen feedback was an important factor in selecting the site for a new airport in Hubei Province. Most major cities have introduced at least one of these mechanisms for citizens to provide input and feedback on government performance. The experiments have been generally well-received by the public.
Corruption remained an endemic problem. According to the Auditor General, embezzlement and misuse of public funds affected 75 percent of commissions and ministries under the State Council and accounted for approximately $170 million (RMB 1.4 billion) missing from the Central Government's 2003 budget. Transparency International continued to rank China among the worst countries in the world for bribery. Economists estimated that the cost of corruption may exceed 14 percent of gross domestic product.
The courts and Party agencies took disciplinary action against some public and Party officials during the year. According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), prosecutors at all levels in 2003 investigated 39,562 cases of abuse of official power involving 43,490 individuals. They prosecuted 22,761 cases involving 26,124 individuals. From January to November, prosecutors investigated 42,258 officials, up one percent from 2003. During the 5-year period ending in 2002, 83,308 public officials were convicted for graft or bribery, a 65 percent increase over the previous 5-year period, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPC). In April 2003, the Minister of Supervision reported that 860,000 corruption cases were filed against Party members from 1997 to 2002, resulting in more than 137,000 expulsions and disciplinary action in more than 98 percent of cases. The Party's Central Discipline and Inspection Commission (CDIC) reported that 174,580 officials at various levels were disciplined for breaking laws and Party discipline in the period from December 2003 to November 2004. Of those, 8,691 lost Party membership and were prosecuted, according to state media reports. In some cases, the CDIC reportedly acted as a substitute for sanctions by the courts and other legal agencies.
During the year, citizens seeking to petition the Central Government for redress of grievances faced harassment, detention, and incarceration. Tens of thousands of citizens sought to redress grievances through petitions to the Central Government. Among them, Mao Hengfeng, a Shanghai housing activist and organizer, was sentenced in April to 18 months in a reeducation-through-labor facility for staging "disorderly visits" to government offices in support of her petition efforts. In August, two women were sentenced to 3 years reeducation after they and four others climbed atop a building near the central Zhongnanhai compound and threatened to commit suicide to protest the Government's neglect of their petitions. In August, Beijing-based petitioner leader Ye Guozhu was arrested for planning to hold a rally to protest forced evictions. He was tried in November, but the outcome of the trial was not available by year's end.
During the year, Central Government officials stated that provincial cadres would be evaluated, in part, on the number of petitions to Beijing coming from their provinces. This initiative aimed to improve accountability by provincial officials and to encourage them to resolve those complaints deemed legitimate. While a few cases were favorably resolved, most petitions languished. In some cases, provincial officials of "Letters and Visits" offices and local police pursued petitioners to Beijing and forcibly returned them to their home provinces. Such detentions often went unrecorded. In November 2003 and March 2004, Jiang Meili, the wife of imprisoned Shanghai housing attorney Zheng Enchong, was pursued to Beijing, abducted, and forced back to Shanghai by local "Letters and Visits" officials. She was seeking legal opinions from Beijing scholars and attorneys to support her husband's appeal of a 2003 conviction for "disclosing state secrets" in Shanghai housing disputes. In Hebei Province's Tangshan County, over 11,000 people signed a petition protesting corruption over land distribution and demanding recall of the local party secretary. When petition leader Zhang Youren carried the petition to Beijing in March, he was detained and forced back to Tangshan, where he was released. In July, Zhang was detained again. In the period before a key Party meeting in September, authorities rounded up thousands of the approximately 50,000 homeless petitioners living in temporary shanties known as Beijing's "petitioners village." Many were forcibly returned to their home provinces. In December, Liaoning Province resident Qu Huiqian was detained at the State Council complaints office in Beijing while petitioning for her father's right to free housing as a retired military official. According to published reports, she was beaten unconscious by local officials from Liaoning Province and left in a ditch in Beijing. Hundreds of petitioners were also reportedly detained in sports stadiums or forced back to their home provinces at the time of the March NPC session. Some were reportedly sent to psychiatric facilities.
The Government placed no special restrictions on the participation of women or minority groups in the political process. However, women still held few positions of significant influence at the highest rungs of the Party or government structure. There was one woman on the 24-member Politburo; she concurrently held the only ministerial post (out of 28) occupied by a woman. There was also one woman among the five State Councilors. The head of a key Communist Party organization, the United Front Work Department, was a woman. In the country's 28 ministries, only 14 women served at the level of vice minister or higher. Women freely exercised their right to vote in village committee elections, but only a small fraction of elected members were women. As of the end of 2003, there were 12.3 million female Party members, making up over 18 percent of the 66.4 million members of the Communist Party. Women constituted 20.2 percent of the NPC and 13.2 percent of the NPC Standing Committee. The 16th Party Congress in 2002 elected 27 women to serve as members or alternates on the 198 person Central Committee, a slight increase over the total of the previous committee.
Minorities constituted 14 percent of the NPC, although they made up approximately 9 percent of the population. All of the country's 55 officially recognized minority groups were represented in the NPC membership. The 16th Party Congress elected 35 members of ethnic minorities to serve as members or alternates on the Central Committee and one ministerial-level post was held by an ethnic minority. However, minorities held few senior Party or government positions of significant influence.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
The Government did not permit independent domestic NGOs to monitor openly or to comment on human rights conditions. It was difficult to establish an NGO, and the Government tended to be suspicious of independent organizations; most existing NGOs were quasi-governmental in nature and were closely controlled by government agencies (see Section 2.b.). However, an informal network of dissidents in cities around the country has become a credible source of information about government actions taken against activists. The information was disseminated outside of the country through organizations such as the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China and the New York-based Human Rights in China.

The press regularly printed articles about officials who exceeded their authority and infringed on citizens' rights. However, the Government remained reluctant to accept criticism of its human rights record by other nations or international organizations and criticized reports by international human rights monitoring groups, claiming that such reports were inaccurate and interfered with the country's internal affairs. Individuals were charged with and often convicted of "disclosing state secrets" during the year after passing information to human rights NGOs based abroad (see Sections 1.c. and 2.a.). The Government maintained that there were legitimate, differing approaches to human rights based on each country's particular history, culture, social situation, and level of economic development. The Government established the China Society for Human Rights, a "nongovernmental" organization whose mandate was not to monitor human rights conditions, but to defend the Government's views and human rights record.
The Government had active human rights dialogues with Australia, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. In March, the Government announced that it was suspending its human rights dialogue with the United States in reaction to the U.S. decision to table a resolution critical of the country's human rights record at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights 2004 session. The U.S. did not agree to schedule a new round of dialogue with China because of the lack of sufficient concrete results from the last round, held in December 2002. The Government also terminated some legal reform cooperation with the United States and U.S.-supported organizations.
The Government continued its unofficial dialogue on human rights and prisoner issues with a San Francisco-based human rights group. Visits by the group's exective director, including a prison visit, occurred during the year.
In September, members of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited Beijing, Sichuan Province, and the TAR (see Section 1.d.). The Government agreed to invite the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, but those visits did not take place by year's end. The Government also extended an invitation to the leaders of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, but the visit did not occur due to restrictive conditions that the Government placed on the visit.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuse, and Trafficking in Persons
There were laws designed to protect women, children, persons with disabilities, and minorities. However, in practice, some societal discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, and disability persisted.
Women
Violence against women was a significant problem. There was no national law criminalizing domestic violence, but Articles 43 and 45 of the Marriage Law provide for mediation and administrative penalties in cases of domestic violence. Over 30 provinces, cities, or local jurisdictions have passed legislation specifically to address domestic violence. According to a survey by the All-China Women's Federation, 16 percent of women had been beaten by their husbands. In 2002, women's federations at all levels received 36,600 complaints about family violence, up nearly 40 percent over the previous year, while the number of letters received complaining of family violence was nearly 30,000, up nearly 30 percent. Two-thirds of children were victims of family violence during their lives, according to the China Society for Human Rights. Actual figures were believed to be higher because spousal abuse still went largely unreported. According to experts, domestic abuse was more common in rural areas than in urban centers. In response to increased awareness of the problem of domestic violence, there were a growing number of shelters for victims. Rape is illegal, and some persons convicted of rape were executed. The law does not expressly recognize or exclude spousal rape.
The Central Government prohibits the use of physical coercion to compel persons to submit to abortion or sterilization. However, intense pressure to meet birth limitation targets set by government regulations (see Section 1.f.) has resulted in instances of local birth planning officials reportedly using physical coercion to meet government goals. In addition, women faced a disproportionate burden due to the government's enforcement of its birth limitation laws and practices, which require the use of birth control methods (particularly IUDs and female sterilization, which according to government statistics accounted for over 80 percent of birth control methods employed) and the abortion of certain pregnancies.
According to expert estimates, there were 1.7 to 5 million commercial sex workers in the country. The increased commercialization of sex and related trafficking in women trapped thousands of women in a cycle of crime and exploitation and left them vulnerable to disease and abuse. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, one in five massage parlors in the country was involved in prostitution, with the percentage higher in cities. A 2004 Guangdong Province survey found that 74.2 percent of massage parlor workers were involved in prostitution. Unsafe working conditions were rampant among the saunas, massage parlors, clubs, and hostess bars that have sprung up in large cities. Research indicated that up to 80 percent of prostitutes in some areas had hepatitis. In light of this and, in particular, of the growing threat of AIDS among sex workers, the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women Committee in 1998 recommended that due attention be paid to health services for female prostitutes.
Although the Central Government and various provincial and local governments have attempted to crack down on the sex trade, there have been numerous credible reports in the media of complicity in prostitution by local officials. Actions to crack down on this lucrative business, which involved organized crime groups and businesspersons as well as the police and the military, had limited results. In August, an investigation of prostitution at entertainment facilities in Guangdong Province led to the permanent closure of 15 percent and temporary closure of another 40 percent of the facilities investigated, according to state-run media. There have been instances in which persons involved in organizing and procuring prostitutes have been prosecuted.
No statute outlaws sexual harassment in the workplace, and the law does not specifically define sexual harassment. In 2003, Beijing courts accepted and issued judgments in their first sexual harassment cases. There was no reliable data about the extent of sexual harassment, and the law did not specifically define sexual harassment. Experts suggested that many victims of sexual harassment did not report it out of fear of losing their jobs, but awareness was growing. State media reported that a television series on sexual harassment aired on many channels.
The Government has made gender equality a policy objective since 1949. The Constitution states that "women enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life." The Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests provides for equality in ownership of property, inheritance rights, and access to education. Policies that once allotted work unit housing only to the husband in a couple have become gender-neutral, and an April Supreme Court interpretation emphasized that housing rights are shared equally, even in cases of divorce. Nonetheless, many activists and observers increasingly were concerned that the progress that has been made by women over the past 50 years was being eroded. They asserted that the Government appeared to have made the pursuit of gender equality a secondary priority as it focused on economic reform and political stability.

The Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests was designed to assist in curbing gender-based discrimination. However, women continued to report that discrimination, sexual harassment, unfair dismissal, demotion, and wage discrepancies were significant problems. Efforts have been made by social organizations as well as by the Government to educate women about their legal rights, and there was anecdotal evidence that women increasingly were using laws to protect their rights.
Women's networks, involving lawyers, activists, and the press, were active in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities, highlighting problems and calling for solutions to gender-based discrimination.
Nevertheless, women frequently encountered serious obstacles to the enforcement of laws. According to legal experts, it was very hard to litigate a sex discrimination suit because the vague legal definition made it difficult to quantify damages. As a result, very few cases were brought to court. Some observers also 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.
The All China Women's Federation reported that 47 percent of laid-off workers were women, a percentage significantly higher than their representation in the labor force. Many employers preferred to hire men to avoid the expense of maternity leave and childcare, and some even lowered the effective retirement age for female workers to 40 years of age (the official retirement age for men was 60 years and for women 55 years). Lower retirement ages also had the effect of reducing pensions, which generally were based on years worked. Some employers required that women be below the age of 30 to qualify for certain jobs.
The law provides for equal pay for equal work. However, a 1999 Government survey found that urban women were paid only 70.1 percent of what men received for the same work, while women in rural areas received only 59.6 percent of male peasants' incomes. Average incomes of female executives and senior professionals were only 57.9 percent and 68.3 percent of their male colleagues' salaries. Women have borne the brunt of the economic reform of state owned enterprises. Most women employed in industry worked in lower skilled and lower paid jobs and in sectors, such as textiles, which were particularly vulnerable to restructuring and layoffs. Women accounted for 60 percent of those below the poverty line in the country.
UNESCO reported during the year that less than 2 percent of women between the ages of 15-24 were illiterate, adding that 15 percent of women 15 years and older were illiterate. The female illiteracy rate was double that for men. Official government statistics claimed that the illiteracy rate among women ages 15-40 was 4.2 percent.
A high female suicide rate continued to be a serious problem. Many observers believed that violence against women and girls, discrimination in education and employment, the traditional preference for male children, the country's birth limitation policies, and other societal factors contributed to the especially high female suicide rate.
While the gap in the education levels of men and women was narrowing, men continued to constitute a disproportionate number of the relatively small percentage of the population that received a university-level education. According to figures released by the All-China Women's Federation, in 2002 women made up 44.0 percent of university students and 46.7 percent of all high school students. However, women with advanced degrees reported an increase in discrimination in the hiring process as the job distribution system opened up and became more competitive and market driven. According to Government statistics, 98.5 percent of girls nationwide were enrolled in elementary school, but it was widely believed that the proportion of girls attending school in rural and minority areas was far smaller than in cities.
Children
The Constitution prohibits maltreatment of children and provides for compulsory education. The country has outlawed child labor and trafficking in children, but serious problems in those areas persisted.
The Constitution provides for 9 years of compulsory education for children, but in economically disadvantaged rural areas, many children did not attend school for the required period and some never attend. Public schools were not allowed to charge tuition, but after the Central Government largely stopped subsidizing primary education in the early 1990s, many public schools began to charge mandatory fees to meet revenue shortfalls. Such fees made it difficult for poorer families to send their children to school or to send them on a regular basis. Some charitable schools have opened in recent years in rural areas, but not enough to meet demand. Children of migrant workers in urban areas also often had difficulty attending school. For these families, excessive school fees were a significant problem. The Government campaign for universal primary school enrollment by 2000 (which was not met) helped to increase enrollment in some areas. It also reportedly led some school officials to inflate the number of children actually enrolled.
In 2003, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education visited the country. Following the visit, the Special Rapporteur reported that the Government failed to provide education to many children of migrant workers and prohibited children from receiving religious education. The Special Rapporteur expressed serious concern about the recent privatization of the costs of public education, reporting that the Government compels parents to pay nearly half the costs of public education, making education inaccessible to many children. The Special Rapporteur also recommended the immediate prohibition of the practice of children performing manual labor at their schools to raise funds.
An extensive health care delivery system has led to improved child health and a continued decline in infant mortality rates. According to the 2000 Census, the infant mortality rate was 28.4 per 1,000. According to UNICEF statistics, the mortality rate for children under 5 years of age was 37 per 1,000 live births. The Law on the Protection of Juveniles forbids infanticide; however, there was evidence that the practice continued. According to the National Population and Family Planning Commission, only a handful of doctors have been charged with infanticide under this law. The law prohibits discrimination against disabled minors and codifies a variety of judicial protections for juvenile offenders. The physical abuse of children can be grounds for criminal prosecution.
Despite government efforts to prevent kidnapping and the buying and selling of children, these problems persisted in some rural areas, and children also were trafficked for labor purposes (see Section 5, Trafficking).
In 2004, Guangzhou and Chengdu cities established the country's first specialized juvenile courts designed to protect minors' rights and interests. Authorities arrested 69,780 juveniles in 2003 and approximately 19,000 juveniles were incarcerated in formal prisons. Abolition of the system of custody and repatriation in 2003 (see Section 1.c.) reduced the number of children detained administratively. Nonetheless, more than 150,000 homeless "street children" lived in cities, according to state-run media. Many did not live with their parents and survived by begging. Juveniles were required by law to be held separately from adults except when facilities were insufficient. In practice, children sometimes were detained without their parents, held with adults, and required to work (see Sections 1.d. and 6.c.).

In 2003, 3-year-old Li Siyi starved to death at home in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, after police detained her mother for stealing two bottles of shampoo and reportedly ignored the mother's pleas to check on the girl. On August 19, two police officers were convicted of dereliction of duty in the case and sentenced to 2 and 3 years in prison.
Female infanticide, sex-selective abortions, and the abandonment and neglect of baby girls remained problems due to the traditional preference for sons and the birth limitation policy (see Section 1.f.). Many families, particularly in rural areas, used ultrasound to identify female fetuses and terminate pregnancies. An official study in Hainan Province found that 68 percent of abortions were of female fetuses. In a 2002 survey, 35 percent of women in one rural township admitting to having an abortion because of preference for a male child. Official figures from November 2000 put the overall male-female sex ratio at birth at 116.9 to 100 (as compared to the statistical norm of 106 to 100). For second births, the ratio was 151.9 to 100. Female babies also suffered from a higher mortality rate than male babies, contrary to the worldwide trend. State media reported that infant mortality rates in rural areas were 27 percent higher for girls than boys. Neglect of baby girls was one factor in their lower survival rate. One study found the differential mortality rates were highest in areas where women had a lower social status and economic and medical conditions were poor.
The Law on the Protection of Juveniles forbids the mistreatment or abandonment of children. According to the latest available figures, compiled in 1994, the number of children abandoned annually was approximately 1.7 million, and the number may have grown over the subsequent decade despite the fact that, under the law, child abandonment is punishable by a fine and a 5-year prison term. The vast majority of children in orphanages were female, although some were males who were either disabled or in poor health. Medical professionals frequently advised parents of children with disabilities to put the children into orphanages.
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. A 1997 revision of the adoption law made it easier for couples to adopt. However, adopted children were counted under the birth limitation regulations in most locations. As a result, couples who adopted abandoned baby girls, for example, were sometimes barred from having additional children.
Trafficking in Persons
The law prohibits trafficking in women and children; however, trafficking in persons and the abduction of women for trafficking remained serious problems. The country was both a source and destination country for trafficking in persons. Most trafficking was internal for the purpose of providing lower middle income farmers with brides or sons. Some cases involved trafficking of women and girls into forced prostitution in urban areas, and some reports suggested that certain victims, particularly children, were sold into forced labor.
Internal trafficking was a significant problem. The Ministry of Public Security estimated that at least 9,000 women and 1,000 children were kidnapped and sold illegally each year.
Some experts suggested that the demand for abducted women was fueled by the shortage of marriageable brides, particularly in rural areas. The serious imbalance in the male-female sex ratio at birth, the tendency for many village women to leave rural areas to seek employment, and the cost of traditional betrothal gifts all made purchasing a bride attractive to some poor rural families. Some families recruited brides from economically less advanced areas. Others sought help from criminal gangs, which either kidnapped women and girls or tricked them by promising them jobs and an easier way of life and then transporting them far from their home areas for delivery to buyers. Once in their new "family," these women were "married" and raped. Some accepted their fate and joined the new community; others struggled and were punished.
There were reports that women and girls from Burma, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam, and Russia were trafficked into the country either to work in the sex trade or to be forced to marry Chinese men. Past reports noted that trafficking of North Korean women and girls into the country to work in the sex industry was reportedly widespread in the northeastern part of the country, but reliable sources suggested that the practice has decreased. According to press reports, North Korean brides were sold for approximately $38 to $150 (RMB 315 to RMB 1,245). Women reportedly also were trafficked from Vietnam into the country for the purpose of forced marriage.
Citizens were trafficked from the country for sexual exploitation and indentured servitude in domestic service, sweatshops, restaurants, and other services. There were reports that citizens were trafficked to Australia, Belgium, Burma, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Japan (illegal immigrants held in debt bondage), Malaysia, the Netherlands (for the purpose of sexual exploitation), Singapore, Sri Lanka (for sexual exploitation), Taiwan, the United Kingdom (for sexual exploitation), and the United States.
At times, trafficked persons became entangled with alien smuggling rings, which often had ties to organized crime and were international in scope. Persons trafficked by alien smugglers paid high prices for their passage to other countries, where they hoped that their economic prospects would improve. There were credible reports that some promised to pay from $30,000 to $50,000 (RMB 248,000 to 415,000) each for their passage. Upon arrival, many reportedly were forced to repay the traffickers for the smuggling charges by working in specified jobs for a set period of time. They often also were forced to pay charges for living expenses out of their meager earnings. The conditions under which these trafficked persons had to live and work were generally poor, and they were often required to work long hours. The smuggling rings that trafficked them often restricted their movements and confiscated their often fraudulent travel documents. Victims of trafficking faced threats of being turned in to the authorities as illegal immigrants and threats of retaliation against their families at home if they protested the situation in which they found themselves. Persons who were trafficked from the country and then repatriated sometimes faced fines for illegal immigration upon their return; after a second repatriation, such persons could be sentenced to reeducation through labor. Alien smugglers were fined $6,000 (RMB 49,600), and most were sentenced to up to 3 years in prison; some have been sentenced to death.
Kidnapping and the buying and selling of children continued to occur, particularly in poorer rural areas. There were no reliable estimates of the number of children trafficked. Domestically, most trafficked children were sold to couples unable to have children; in particular, boys were trafficked to couples unable to have a son. During the year, media reported arrests in the case of 76 baby boys sold in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, and a case of 200 children, mostly boys, who were kidnapped in Kunming, Yunnan Province. However, baby girls also were trafficked. During the year, 52 people were convicted in a March 2003 case in which 28 girls were found packed in suitcases on a bus from Yulin, Guangxi Province. The babies were purchased in Yulin for $24 (RMB 200) to be resold for $240 to $360 (RMB 1992 to RMB 2988) to families in Anhui and Henan Provinces to work or serve as child brides. The oldest was 5 months of age; one baby died en route. Two leaders of the ring were sentenced to death. Children were also trafficked for labor purposes. Children trafficked to work usually were sent from poorer interior areas to relatively more prosperous areas; traffickers reportedly often enticed parents to relinquish their children with promises of large remittances that their children would be able to send to them.

The purchase of women was not criminalized until 1991, with the enactment of the NPC Standing Committee's "Decision Relating to the Severe Punishment of Criminal Elements Who Abduct and Kidnap Women and Children." This decision made abduction and sale separate offenses.
Arrests of traffickers have decreased from the peak in 2000, when a nationwide crackdown was initiated. That year, more than 19,000 persons were arrested and more than 11,000 were sentenced to punishments, including, in a few cases, the death penalty. In May, two men were sentenced to death in Yunnan Province after being convicted of trafficking 22 women to Guangdong Province and forcing them into prostitution. According to official media reports, from 2001 to 2003, police freed more than 42,000 kidnapped women and children. More than 22,000 suspects were arrested, and police solved 20,360 cases involving kidnapped women and children. Official statistics indicate that during the year authorities registered 3,343 cases involving trafficking of women and children (a 76.2 percent increase from 2002); uncovered 2,966 new cases of trafficking (an 87.1 percent increase from 2002); and rescued a total of 8,949 trafficked women and children (an 18.7 percent decrease from 2002). During the year, 5,043 suspects were arrested, and 3,144 were referred for prosecution. In Guangdong Province alone, 68 prosecutions were undertaken against traffickers from 2002 to June 2004 and officials rescued more than 100 children.
Despite government efforts to eliminate trafficking in women and children, the problem persisted. Demand far outstripped the available supply, making trafficking a profitable enterprise for those willing to risk arrest and prosecution. The Government also continued to struggle with the pervasive problem of official corruption (see Section 3). There were reports of complicity of local officials in the related problem of alien smuggling, as well as reports of the complicity of local officials in prostitution, which sometimes involved trafficked women. Hong Kong-based media reported in November that a Guangdong police official was arrested after allegedly providing thousands of visas to prostitutes traveling to Hong Kong and Macao, some of whom had reportedly never been to the place of visa issuance. In some cases, village leaders sought to prevent police from rescuing women who had been sold as brides to villagers.
Agencies involved in combating trafficking included the MPS, the SPC, the SPP, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Central Office in Charge of Comprehensive Management of Public Order, and the Legislative Office of the State Council. It was Central Government policy to provide funds to provincial and local police to house victims and return them to their homes. Government-funded women's federation offices provided counseling on legal rights, including the options for legal action against traffickers, to some victims. The All-China Women's Federation assisted Chinese victims in obtaining medical and psychological treatment.
Persons With Disabilities
The law protects the rights of persons with disabilities; however, the reality for persons with disabilities lagged far behind legal dictates, and many did not receive or have access to special assistance or to programs designed to assist them. According to the official press, all local governments have drafted specific measures to implement the law.
As attention began to focus on the Special Olympics and Paralympics to be held in the country in 2007-08, the press increasingly publicized the plight of persons with disabilities and the Government's efforts to assist them. State media reported that the Government increased its planned 2004 spending on infrastructure improvements for persons with disabilities to approximately $15.75 million, up from $12.5 million in 2003. The Government, at times in conjunction with NGOs such as the Lions Club International or the Special Olympics, sponsored a wide range of preventive and rehabilitative programs. For example, several thousand blind persons have been trained in therapeutic massage. The goal of many of these programs was to allow persons with disabilities to be integrated into society. However, misdiagnosis, inadequate medical care, pariah status, and abandonment remained common problems.
According to reports, doctors frequently persuaded parents of children with disabilities to place their children in large government-run institutions, often far from the parents, and in which care was often seriously inadequate. Those parents who chose to keep children with disabilities at home generally faced difficulty in getting adequate medical care, day care, and education for their children. Government statistics showed that almost one quarter of the approximately 60 million persons with disabilities lived in extreme poverty. Unemployment among adults with disabilities remained a serious problem. The Government's official strategy was to integrate persons with disabilities into the mainstream work force, but efforts to do so were limited and confronted a cultural legacy of discrimination and neglect. Standards adopted for making roads and buildings accessible to persons with disabilities were subject to the Law on the Handicapped, which calls for their "gradual" implementation; compliance with the law was lax. Students with disabilities were discriminated against in access to education. The Higher Education Law permits universities legally to exclude candidates for higher education who have disabilities.
The Maternal and Child Health Care Law forbids the marriage of persons with certain specified contagious diseases or certain acute mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. If doctors find that a couple is at risk of transmitting disabling congenital defects to their children, the couple may marry only if they agree to use birth control or undergo sterilization. The Population and Family Planning Law requires local governments to employ such practices to raise the percentage of healthy births.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
According to the 2000 census, the total population of the country's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities was 106.4 million, or 8.4 percent of the total population. In addition to these 55 ethnic minorities and the dominant Han ethnic group, some citizens identified themselves as members of unrecognized ethnic minorities. Most minority groups resided in the areas they traditionally have inhabited. The Government's avowed policy on minorities calls for preferential treatment in marriage regulations, birth planning, university admission, and employment. Programs have been established to provide low interest loans, subsidies, and special development funds for minority areas. Nonetheless, in practice, minorities faced discrimination by the majority Han culture. Most of the minorities in border regions were less educated than the national average, and job discrimination in favor of Han migrants remained a serious problem. Racial discrimination was the source of deep resentment by minorities in some areas, such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibetan areas. For example, ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang did not have equal access to newly created construction jobs associated with development projects; Han workers were brought in from Sichuan and elsewhere to work, particularly on technical projects such as oil and gas pipelines. The Government did not openly recognize racism against minorities or tension among different ethnic groups as problems.
Government development policies have long been in place to improve minority living standards. However, while overall standards of living for those in minority areas have improved as a result of these policies, real incomes in minority areas, particularly for minorities, remained well below those in other parts of the country. The majority Han Chinese have benefited disproportionately from government programs and economic growth, even in minority areas. Many development programs have disrupted traditional living patterns of minority groups, and have included, in some cases, the forced evacuation of persons (see Section 2.d.).
Since 1949, government policy has resulted in a significant migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang. According to a Government White Paper released in 2003, approximately 8.25 million of Xinjiang's 19.25 million official residents were Han Chinese, up from 300,000 Han in 1949. Approximately 8 million Xinjiang residents were Uighurs. Signficant numbers of Kazakhs, Hui, Tajiks, and other minorities also lived in Xinjiang. Official statistics underestimated the Han population of Xinjiang because the Government did not count as part of the official population the thousands of Han who were long-term "temporary workers." The migration of ethnic Han into Xinjiang in recent decades has caused the Han-Uighur ratio in the capital of Urumqi to shift from 20:80 to 80:20 and was a source of Uighur resentment. According to the 2000 census, non-Tibetan residents of the TAR comprised 6 percent of the population, but that figure did not include a large number of long-term Han residents. Their presence caused resentment among some Tibetans (see Tibet Addendum).
In many areas with a significant population of minorities, there were two-track school systems that used either standard Chinese or the local minority language. Students could choose to attend schools in either system. However, graduates of minority language schools typically needed 1 year or more of intensive Chinese before they could handle course work at a Chinese language university. Despite the Government's efforts to provide schooling in minority languages, the dominant position of standard Chinese in government, commerce, and academia put graduates of minority schools who lacked standard Chinese proficiency at a disadvantage. The vast majority of Uighur children in Xinjiang attended Uighur-language schools and generally received an hour's Chinese language instruction per day. During the year, the government allocated an additional US$9 million (RMB 74.25 million) to promote Chinese-language instruction in Xinjiang.
The CCP has an avowed policy of boosting minority representation in the Government and the CCP, and minorities constituted 14 percent of the NPC, which was higher than their percentage in the population. A 1999 government white paper reported that there were 2.7 million minority officials in the Government. The 2003 Government White Paper states that there are 348,000 minority cadres in Xinjiang, accounting for 51.8 percent of all Party members in the autonomous region. Many members of minorities occupied local leadership positions, but few held positions of influence in the local Party apparatus or at the national level. For example, 63 percent of Xinjiang's deputies to the NPC were ethnic minorities. However, in most areas, ethnic minorities were shut out of positions of real political and economic power, which fed their resentment of Han officials holding the most powerful Party positions in minority autonomous regions.
Tensions between ethnic Han citizens and Uighurs in Xinjiang continued, and the authorities continued to restrict political, civil, and religious freedoms (see Section 2.c.) in the region. A campaign that began in 1997 to stress unity and to condemn "splittism" and religious extremism showed no signs of abating. During the year, authorities continued to prohibit activities they deemed separatist in nature, announced tightened security measures, and mounted campaigns to crack down on opposition.

The campaign against separatism in Xinjiang specifically targeted the "three evils" of extremism, splittism, and terrorism as the major threats to Xinjiang's social stability. Because the Government authorities in Xinjiang regularly grouped together those involved in "ethnic separatism, illegal religious activities, and violent terrorism," it was often unclear whether particular raids, detentions, or judicial punishments targeted those peacefully seeking to express their political or religious views or those engaged in violence. Many observers raised concerns that the Government's war on terror was being used as a pretext for cracking down harshly on Uighurs expressing peaceful political dissent and on independent Muslim religious leaders. In December 2003, the Government published an "East Turkestan Terrorist List," which labelled organizations such as the World Uighur Youth Congress and the East Turkestan Information Center as terrorist entities. These groups openly advocated East Turkestan independence, but with the exception of one group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), there was no available evidence that they advocated violence to achieve this goal. The U.N. has designated ETIM a terrorist organization.
Uighurs were sentenced to long prison terms and sometimes executed during the year on charges of separatism. During the strike-hard campaign, which officially concluded in 2003, authorities stated they prosecuted more than 3,000 cases in Xinjiang and held mass sentencing rallies attended by more than 300,000 persons. By its own account, the Government broke up 22 groups engaged in what it claimed were separatist and terrorist activities and meted out 50 death sentences to those charged with separatist acts from January to August. In July, two Muslim Uighurs reportedly were executed after being convicted in Aksu City, Xinjiang, of illegally organizing the East Turkestan People's Party and using armed tactics to split the country. Approximately 15 others were convicted of separatism and sentenced to long prison terms in the same case. In October 2003, Uighur Shaheer Ali was executed after being convicted of terrorism. He had been repatriated forcibly from Nepal in 2002, where he had been interviewed by the UNHCR and granted refugee status.
For many Uighurs, the ongoing imprisonment of Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer symbolized the Government's mistreatment of Uighurs. In 2000, a Xinjiang court sentenced Kadeer, a former member of the provincial-level Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, to 8 years in prison on charges of "passing state intelligence" to foreigners; according to an official press report, the intelligence she was accused of passing included newspaper articles and a list of names of persons whose cases had been handled by the courts. Kadeer, her son, and her secretary were arrested in 1999 while on their way to meet a visiting foreign delegation. Kadeer reportedly suffered various health problems in prison. Some foreign observers believed Kadeer was singled out for her activism on behalf of Uighurs and for her husband's involvement with Uighur causes and Radio Free Asia. In March, Kadeer received a 1-year sentence reduction for good behavior. The Government claimed she had recognized that she was a victim of "splittism" and remained "on the side of the Party and the people." She was due for release in August 2006. On October 18, Uighur Dilkex Tilivaldi was detained after meeting a foreign journalist, and his whereabouts continued to be unknown.
Other Uighurs whose work emphasized pride in cultural identity have also been harassed and detained by the Government. Writer and translator Abdulghani Memetemin was convicted in June 2003 on charges of sending state secrets abroad and sentenced to 9 years in prison for translating news articles into Chinese from the Uighur language and forwarding official speeches to the East Turkestan Information Center. In late 2001, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitary Detention ruled that Uighur scholar and researcher of Xinjiang's ethnic minorities Tohti Tunyaz had been arbitrarily detained. He was sentenced in 1999 to an 11-year prison term for "inciting separatism" and "illegally acquiring state secrets" and remained in prison at year抯 end.
Possession of publications or audiovisual materials discussing independence or other sensitive subjects was not permitted, and, according to reports, possession of such materials resulted in lengthy prison sentences.
Officials in the region claimed that the campaign against separatism was necessary to maintain public order. In March, Xinjiang's chairman Ismail Tiliwaldi said the campaign had improved security, noting in published reports that, since the start of 2003, there were no explosions or assassinations in the region and no tourists were killed in Xinjiang.
Han control of the region's political and economic institutions also contributed to heightened tension. Although government policies brought tangible economic improvements to Xinjiang, Han residents have received a disproportionate share of the benefits. The majority of Uighurs were poor farmers, and 25 percent were illiterate. Regulations require Uighurs to use Mandarin Chinese characters for their names on identification documents.
In July, Guizhou University Law School dean Yuan Hongbing and former colleague Zhao Jing applied for asylum during a business trip to Australia. Yuan, an ethnic Mongolian who had been arrested in 1994 for dissident writings and political organizing, stated that he had decided to remain in Australia in order to publish his writings on the situation of ethnic Mongolians and Tibetans. Inner Mongolian cultural activist Hada also continued to serve a 15-year sentence during the year.
In October, violence erupted near Zhongmou Township in Henan Province after an ethnic Hui taxi driver struck and killed a 6-year-old Han girl. Ethnic reciminations followed involving Han and Hui from several villages. In the end, dozens from both ethnic groups were killed or wounded. The Government clos