Doctor Says Cao Shunli on Life Support, Family Made to Sign Medical Parole

February 28, 2014

Rights activist Liu Xiaofang (刘晓芳) who visited Cao Shunli (曹顺利) at the 309 Military Hospital told HRIC that a Dr. Su there said that Cao is on life support and her condition is terminal. Liu said that Cao did not respond when she called out to her loudly through a glass window.

According to Liu, Dr. Su, who is in charge of treating Cao, said that Cao’s organs are failing. Dr. Su added that Cao was already extremely critical when she arrived at the hospital (病人来到医院时，已经是不行了), and they are now trying their best. Cao was transferred to this hospital on February 20 from the Beijing Qinghe 999 Hospital.

Liu also told HRIC that yesterday, February 27, when Cao’s brother, Cao Yunli (曹云立), went to the hospital, someone from the procuratorate told him that the application for his sister’s medical parole had been approved. The official asked Cao Yunli to sign many forms relating to his sister’s medical condition and treatment, which he did. The official also asked him to sign other forms that did not relate to medical treatment, which he did not sign.

A representative of the growing citizen legal activism in China, Cao Shunli has in recent years been using Chinese laws and the courts to press the government for greater information openness and to include citizen participation in its international reporting on the country’s human rights progress. Beginning in June 2013, Cao also participated in sit-ins in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to petition for participation in the reporting process of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The authorities systematically rejected these requests. (Click here to see Cao Shunli’s case documents.)

Cao was disappeared from the Beijing Airport on September 14, 2013, en route to Geneva to attend a training session for NGOs on United Nations human rights mechanisms. Her disappearance drew expressions of concern from high-level international authorities, including independent UN experts and the EU’s High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Cao was formally arrested in October on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” (寻衅滋事) and had been held in the Chaoyang Detention Center in Beijing.