Southern Mongolian dissident writer Huuchinhuu beaten by Chinese police (SMHRIC photo)
(SMHRIC photo)
(SMHRIC photo)
(SMHRIC photo)
(SMHRIC photo)
(SMHRIC photo)

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) obtained a written communication and new photos dated from July 20 to July 30, 2011, showing that Ms.Huuchinhuu Govruud, a well-known Southern (Inner) Mongolian dissident writer who has gone missing since January 27, 2011 was frequently beaten by police from the Tongliao City Horchin District Public Security Bureau in eastern Southern Mongolia.  Ms.Huuchinhuu is an activist and member of the banned organization Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance (SMDA). She has been on an “enforced disappearance” since January 27, 2011, after she was reportedly released from a police-guarded hospital in the region’s Tongliao City.

Still being held in an undisclosed location in Tongliao City, Huuchinhuu has been subjected to frequent harassment and repeated beatings by police due to her refusal to cooperate with the authorities. The photo taken on July 20, 2011 shows a severely swollen contusion on her forehead most likely caused by a blow from a baton. Fresh bruises and scars on her elbow and the surrounding area of her eyes shown on photos dated July 22, 23 and 30 testify that she had been beaten multiple times within an interval of ten days.

Huuchinhuu had been placed under house arrest on November 11, 2010, after a brief detention by the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau for rallying the Mongols through the Internet to cheer for the scheduled release of Hada. Hada is a prominent Mongolian political prisoner and head of SMDA, who remains missing after his expected release date December 10, 2010 having completed his 15 year jail term.

During her house arrest, Huuchinhuu had very limited access to the outside. Her home phone and Internet line were cut off. More than twenty police with two vehicles guarded her around-the-clock. Huuchinhuu was hospitalized in Tongliao City in late December 2010 due to a serious health condition. She had suffered a severe headache for more than a month in the hospital before she was given an anesthetic treatment that relieved her symptom superficially. Police followed her to the hospital and guarded her at her hospital bed.

As a breast cancer patient, single mother, dissident writer and staunch advocate of human rights of the Mongols in China, Huuchinhuu fought tirelessly despite the physical ordeal, economic hardship and political persecution over the past two decades.

Huuchinhuu authored several books and hundreds of essays to express her opinion on ethnic problems and to criticize the Chinese authorities’ repressive ethnic policy in Southern Mongolia. Two of her books entitled “Stone-hearted Tree” and “Silent Stone” have been banned recently and confiscated from bookstores that carried them.

Since the late 1990s, Huuchinhuu has been actively advocating freedom of speech, press and association of the Mongols in Southern Mongolia in particular through the Internet. She volunteered to help administer a number of Internet discussion forums by Mongolian students and intellectuals including www.nutuge.com, www.ehoron.com, and www.mongolger.net , all three of which have been shut down by the Chinese authorities for “posting separatism contents” and “discussing ethnic problems”.

In August 2007, Huuchinhuu planned to visit the independent country of Mongolia and applied for a passport with the local Public Security Bureau. Considered a “possible threat to the national interest and state security of China”, her passport application was denied and she was given an official notice from the Tongliao Municipality Public Security Bureau stating that she was categorized as a “person who is prohibited from going abroad” effective for 5 years from the date of the issuance of the notice.