Fired and tortured for having a second child

Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – A woman who campaigned against China's one-child policy was tortured in a labour camp. Among other things, she was bound hand and foot and suspended in mid-air, a human rights group said on Wednesday.

Mao Hengfeng, a Shanghai resident and a mother of two, is serving an 18-month labour camp sentence. She has been repeatedly subjected to abusive treatment and severe beatings, Human Rights in China (HRIC) said. According to the latest reports HRIC has received, "more recently Ms Mao has been subjected to even more brutal treatment."

HRIC's sources say camp police bound Mao's wrists and ankles with leather straps, and then proceeded to pull her limbs in separate directions, while demanding that she acknowledge wrongdoing.

Ms Mao was sentenced to one-and-a-half years at re-education through labour camp in April after petitioning the government for years to defend her rights. The human rights group said Ms Mao had complained of her treatment to visiting family members, who saw injuries on her wrists and ankles. She also displayed her injuries at a November 18 hearing for legal action against the authorities for terminating her welfare assistance.

Her clashes with authorities date back to the late 1980s when she broke Chinese law by insisting on giving birth to a second child despite severe pressure to have an abortion. After her second delivery, she was dismissed from her job at a soap factory and entered into a lengthy court battle for her right to work.

At the time of a key court hearing she was seven months pregnant with her third child and was told by the trial judge he would rule in her favour if she agreed to abort the child, the group said. She had the abortion under duress, but in the end the court ruled that because she had contravened China's family planning policy, the factory had a right to dismiss her. Ms Mao subsequently embarked on a 15-year struggle for her right to work and other basic rights.

"Mao's brutal treatment by camp officials clearly contravenes the UN Convention Against Torture, which China has ratified," HRIC president Liu Qing said. "Higher authorities must step in and require that camp officials desist in any further actions of this nature against Mao Hengfeng and any other prisoners."

China's one-child policy began in 1978 under then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. It applies to the whole country but with some regional variations.

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