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China: Stop police violence against workers fighting for their rights
 | In partnership with the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions. Founded in July 1990, the HKCTU, which consists of more than 90 affiliates, represents more than 190,000 members. It is a completely independent from any regime, political party, or consortium. |
Since early 2015, the repression on labour rights defenders in mainland China has been escalating from forced eviction of labour NGO offices to systematic use of violence against workers' representatives. There were at least three cases of labour disputes in which police broke into the venues where workers were meeting. Police beat up and arbitrarily arrested staff of labour organisations and workers, and representatives who were detained compulsorily for 1 to 20 days under the charge of "sabotaging production and operation". Undocumented cases of labour activists who were detained or criminalized are innumerable. According to the IHLO (the Hong Kong Liaison Office of the international trade union movement), there are still at least 7 labour activists in prison, including those who were sentenced to either life or long-term imprisonment due to their alleged involvement in labour organizing in 1989. Meanwhile, the draft Foreign NGOs Management Law and the National Security Law will be reviewed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 2015, aiming to block mainland workers' rights defenders from building connections to and receiving support from overseas.
