LEGAL, CONSTITUTIONAL OR INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS Sweeping national security laws and regulations continued to be drafted and enacted, giving greater powers to the authorities to silence dissent, restrict or censor information and harass and prosecute human rights defenders. The Foreign NGO Management Law was due to come into force on 1 January 2017, creating additional barriers to the already limited rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression. Although the law was ostensibly designed to regulate and even protect the activities of foreign NGOs, it transferred to the Ministry of Public Security – the state policing agency – the responsibility to oversee the registration of these NGOs, as well as supervise their operations and pre-approve their activities. The wide discretion given to police to oversee and manage the work of foreign NGOs raised the risk of the law being misused to intimidate and prosecute human rights defenders and NGO staff. On 7 November, the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed the Cyber Security Law, which purported to protect internet users’ personal data from hacking and theft, but made it obligatory for internet companies operating in China to censor content, store users’ data domestically, and enforce a realname registration system in a way that runs counter to national and international obligations to safeguard the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. The law prohibited individuals or groups from using the internet to “harm national security”, “upset social order”, or “harm national interests” – terms that were vague and imprecise under existing Chinese law and could be used to further restrict freedom of expression. The law enshrined the concept of “internet sovereignty”, which justified broad censorship and extensive surveillance powers in the name of protecting national security. Also on 7 November, the NPC passed the Film Industry Promotion Law which prohibited the production of films that Amnesty International Report 2016/17 include content endangering national security, inciting ethnic hatred and violating religious policies. JUSTICE SYSTEM Shortcomings in domestic law and systemic problems in the criminal justice system resulted in widespread torture and other illtreatment and unfair trials. The authorities increasingly used “residential surveillance in a designated location”, a form of secret incommunicado detention that allowed the police to hold individuals for up to six months outside the formal detention system, without access to legal counsel of their choice, their families or anybody else from the outside world, and placed suspects at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. This form of detention was used to curb the activities of human rights defenders, including lawyers, activists and religious practitioners. HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS At the end of the year, five people remained in detention awaiting trial on charges of “subverting state power” or “inciting subversion of state power”, and four on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” or “making arrangements for another person to illegally cross the national border”. Their detention followed the unprecedented government crackdown on human rights lawyers and other activists which started in mid-2015, in which at least 248 lawyers and activists were questioned or detained by state security agents. At least 12 of the individuals detained in the crackdown, including prominent human rights lawyers Zhou Shifeng, Sui Muqing, Li Heping and Wang Quanzhang, had been held in “residential surveillance in a designated location” on suspicion of involvement in state security crimes. Family members of those detained were also subject to police surveillance, harassment and restriction of their freedom of movement. Legal assistant Zhao Wei and lawyer Wang Yu were released on bail in early July and early August respectively, although they remained subject 119