Chinese policemen guard Tiananmen Square in March ahead of the National
People's Congress, which the petitioners claim they were prevented to
attend.
Shanghai (CNN) -- The only souvenir that Xie Jinghua
has from her stay at a Holiday Inn Express located in a vast tourism
park alongside the East China Sea is a room key.
The 52-year-old said she
was not able to buy any of the beach toys in the lobby, walk around a
lake nearby, or enjoy the ocean just outside of her window. Xie was
there, she said, because she was forced to be - held in a hotel room for
eight days after she and her 56-year-old husband, Ma Haiming, traveled
to Beijing in March to protest the compensation they were given for the
demolition of the family's farmhouse to make way for the expansion of
Shanghai's Pudong International Airport in 2005. When the couple arrived
in Beijing, Xie said they were picked up by plain clothes police and
forced to travel hundreds of miles back to Shanghai, then held
separately at the hotel.
"I really felt quite sick
inside," said Xie, who now lives in a tiny apartment near the airport
where her son works as a janitor. Xie said she tried to escape from her
third floor hotel room on March 10 via its balcony but was stopped by at
least seven guards who, she said, "put me on the bed and used the
bedspread" to hold her down. She said she stole the room key when a
guard was not looking.
Xie and her husband were
not alone. Three other people have told CNN they were held against their
will at the Holiday Inn Express Nanhuizui - located in Lingang New City
on the outskirts of Shanghai - to keep them from airing grievances to
the central government during the 10-day annual meeting of China's
legislature in March. The hotel management and owners deny their claims.
But people being detained
without charge is nothing new in China, according to Human Rights
Watch, which says authorities use hotels, homeless shelters, mental
health facilities, farmhouses and obscure government compounds as
so-called "black jails" -- unofficial prisons where Chinese officials
hold citizens without charge.
However activists say
this is the first time a facility run by a western company has been
allegedly used for these unofficial detentions.
Petitioners claim they were evicted from their land for expansion of the Pudong International Airport.
"I have not come across
an American branded hotel being used as a black jail," said Phelim Kine,
a senior Asia researcher with the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"That is a first, and it is noteworthy."
The InterContinental
Hotels Group (IHG), the UK-based firm that owns the Holiday Inn Express
brand, said there was no indication that guests at the hotel were being
held against their will last March.
I have not come across an American branded hotel being used as a black jail ... that is a first, and it is noteworthy
Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch
"We have found no
evidence which would confirm these accusations or any sign that the
hotel owner knew or cooperated with (the) government on this hotel stay
and the hotel is operated in accordance with PRC [People's Republic of
China] local laws and regulations," IHG said in a statement, noting that
it had conducted a "thorough investigation" of the allegations. "As
you'll appreciate, we can't provide details of the booking or guests due
to privacy laws."
'Black jails' in China
According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report on
China's alleged "black jails," local courts often refuse to take cases
from residents who have complaints against local officials, which means
petitioning Beijing is the only option those residents have.
But their trips to
Beijing present a major problem for local officials, who face demotions
or other forms of retribution from higher levels of government based on
the number of petitioners who come to Beijing, according to Human Rights
Watch. As a result, local governments intervene, abducting the
petitioners either before they leave or once they arrive in Beijing,
Kine said.
The forced detention of
dissidents has become its own cottage industry as public security
offices subcontract people to work for them who "are paid per head for
each person that they abduct and hold," Kine added. "This is a huge grey
economy."
As Communist Party
officials meet this week to decide China's new leadership, outside will
be people like Wang Yifeng and Fan Jianjiang who are petitioning
government leaders directly for compensation after the demolition of
their homes. Both Wang and Fan are among the five interviewed by CNN who
said they attempted to make their case last March, but were intercepted
by police who took them into custody and held them in the Holiday Inn
Express Nanhuizui.
Human rights groups say
detentions without charge are common, particularly during times of
central government meetings. "We always expect that around significant
political events that there will be a tightening of surveillance and
control over key individuals who the government considers to be
troublemakers," said Catherine Baber, director of Asia Pacific for
Amnesty International. "But certainly in the lead up to the transition,
there is a growing list of people who are under house arrest."
We have found no evidence which would confirm these accusations
IHG statement
"Phenomenal resources
are used for keeping tabs on [petitioners]," Baber said. "Detaining them
and bringing them back, putting them under surveillance, sending them
to reeducation through labor [camps]."
A spokeswoman for IHG
said that during the time in question a group of rooms were booked by a
government official from the Pudong district of Shanghai. That area is
home to the five alleged detainees. They say their movements are
constantly monitored by security officials in their home district after
years of appealing for better compensation for their properties.
According to the five, local officials have either intercepted them
before they arrived in Beijing to make their petitions or tracked them
down in the capital and sent them on the 665-mile journey back to the
Shanghai area, where they were held.
An official at the
Petition Bureau of Zhuqiao Town, home of the five petitioners, denied
their claims. "I don't know what you are talking about, our channels of
petitioning are open," said the official, who declined to give his name
when he was reached by phone. "There's no such thing."
CNN contacted China's
Ministry of Public Security on November 5 for a response to these
claims, but there has not yet been a reply. However, in the past,
Beijing has denied the existence of so-called "black jails" in China.
The central government also last year issued new regulations outlawing
violent forced eviction and offering new protections, including fair
compensation.
'Violent forced evictions'
But rights groups say
problems remain. "Violent forced evictions in China are on the rise as
local authorities seek to offset huge debts by seizing and then selling
off land in suspect deals with property developers," according to an
October report by Amnesty International, called "Standing Their Ground."
he 85-page report also
said there is ineffective redress for Chinese citizens like Xie and her
husband, who - without cash to hire legal help - petition the central
government directly with local grievances that range from allegations of
illegal land seizures and forced evictions to corruption and abuse from
local authorities. They often face weeks or sometimes years of forced
detentions without charge, human rights groups say.
"From our research and
research from domestic Chinese human rights [groups], they are held from
a few days to several months and routinely subjected to physical abuse,
sleep deprivation and very often they have to buy their way out of
custody," Kine said. "The government has denied there are any such black
jail facilities in China. Even though [Chinese] state media run stories
about black jails, there is an official disconnect."
Baber at Amnesty
International said it is hard to quantify the number of people who are
detained illegally in China, but "it is a large phenomenon," she said.
"Just from the volume of people who put their energies into pursuing
petitioning and continue to do so. It will be a large problem still."
Petitioner: Kept under guard
Xie said there were
several guards posted outside of her Holiday Inn Express room and two
women who were living in the room with her whose job was to monitor her.
She said while held at
the hotel, she was told she would be given "classes about petitioner
regulations." But there were no classes, she added. Xie took a reporter
to the hotel to show where she was allegedly detained. The rooms were
neatly furnished, with a flat screen TV and abstract art hanging on the
walls.
When the front desk
worker was asked whether they were aware people had allegedly been held
against their will in the hotel, the employee said there were a number
of guests who were staying in their rooms and were not leaving, and
there were people standing outside their room, but that they had no idea
why.
Violent forced evictions in China are on the rise as local authorities seek to offset huge debts
Amnesty International report
IHG said they
interviewed all employees at the hotel in June after being first
contacted by CNN, none of whom confirmed this story. A review of hotel
security tapes was impossible, the hotel said, because recordings are
erased after one month. The hotel had the employees sign affidavits
attesting to their version of events, a hotel spokeswoman said.
"IHG is committed to
operating our company with integrity and we have a Human Rights Policy
applicable across the business. We have signed up to the UN Global
Compact, aligning our operations and strategies with the ten universal
principles that include commitments to human rights and labor
standards," IHG said in its statement. "Our staff is trained to handle
different situations and were a situation to arise, our staff would
report an incident to the relevant authorities and IHG."
China has become a
leading market for the InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns the
Holiday Inn Express, Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza brands. Greater
China led its first half, with a 9.7% increase in revenue per available
rooms. IHG, headquartered outside London, generates revenue from 181
hotels in greater China, with plans to open 160 more hotels, according
to the company.
IHG's local partner in
the hotel is Shanghai Harbor City Hotel Investment and Management Co.-- a
subsidiary of Shanghai Harbor City Development Group. Like most of
IHG's properties in China, a local partner legally owns the hotel but
IHG manages the property. Zhu Gang, a manager with Shanghai Harbor City
Development, said the company "knows nothing about" people being
detained at the Holiday Inn Express. "No violence happened in the
hotel," he said.
Researcher Jack Zhang contributed to this story
