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He Fangmei, the mother of a baby made sick by a faulty vaccine, wasinitially detained by police from her home province of Henan on Feb. 25 during a protest by parents of children affected by faulty vaccines outside the National Health Commission in Beijing, rights groups said. But instead of releasing her, the authorities issued a notice of criminal detention dated March 20, and are continuing to hold her on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network. Around 30 parents of children made sick by substandard and expiredvaccines gathered outside the National Health Commission headquarterson Feb. 22, ahead of the annual parliamentary sessions in Beijing, calling on the government to deliver on earlier promises of assistance. Several human rights defenders working on socio-economic rights issueshave been detained just days after the close of China’s third human rights review in Geneva, CHRD said.

Former Colleague of Cao Shunli Detained After Public Tribute on Anniversary of Cao’s Death Several human rights defenders working on socio-economic rights issues have been detained just days after the close of China’s 3rdUniversal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva on March 15 during the 40th Session of the Human Rights Council (HRC). Just days before being detained, Chen had penned a tribute to her former colleague Cao Shunli to mark the fifth anniversary of the death in custody of Cao on March 14. In September 2013, authorities stopped Chen from boarding a flight to attend a human rights training and observe a HRC session in Geneva—on the same day when Cao Shunli was abducted by police while heading to the same program. The outspoken mother of a baby sickened by faulty vaccine, He Fangmei (何方美), has been put under criminal detention on March 20, 2019 on “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” charges for her efforts to organize families of victims of faulty vaccines.

Dates of Detention/Arrest: September 8, 2016(detained); November 4, 2016 (residential surveillance in a designated location); May 4, 2017 (formal arrest) Ge Jueping, a Jiangsu activist who had taken part in an array of advocacy campaigns, was among a group of individuals seized while demonstrating outside the Suzhou City Intermediate People’s Court on September 8, 2016. During another visit on November 23, Ge told his lawyer that the conditions in the detention center were inhumane: guards forced him to sleep near a toilet  in a narrow and crowded space where he can’t lie flat, depriving him of sleep. In February 2019, it was reported after a physical exam that Ge’s cancer had not returned, but he still had high blood pressure and authorities had refused to evaluate his heart condition.

The U.S. State Department, echoing reports by human rights groups and some news media, reported that between 800,000 and 2 million Muslims have been forced into “internment camps” in Communist China where they are reeducated “to erase religious and ethnic identities. Authorities were reported to have arbitrarily detained 800,000 to possibly more than two million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslims in internment camps designed to erase religious and ethnic identities. In addition to forcing between 800,000 to 2 million Muslims into modern day concentration camps for “reeducation,” Communist Chinese authorities, according to the report, either participate in or allow countless human rights abuses. Last week, commenting on the State Department’s report, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China was “in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations,” as reported by Reuters.