Britain, the EU and US ambassador to the UN among those calling for activists detained just before International Women’s Day to be freed
Wei Tingting, right, waits outside a court in Beijing last year. Wei is one of five female activists detained for planning to put up anti-sexual harassment stickers. Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP
Tania Branigan China correspondent
Wednesday 25 March 2015 13.03 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 25 March 2015 13.51 EDT
China has rejected calls from Britain, the US ambassador to the UN and others to release five feminist activists detained just before International Women’s Day.
Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the country’s foreign ministry, said she had no specific details about the cases, but insisted: “No one has the right to ask China to release relevant persons, so we hope that relevant people will stop interfering in China’s judicial sovereignty in such a manner.”
The women have been held for nearly three weeks on charges of disturbing public order. They had planned to distribute stickers calling for action against sexual harassment. Beijing police told Associated Press that they too had no information on the cases.
In the UK, a Foreign Office spokesperson expressed deep concern about the detentions and said: “We are particularly concerned by reports that they have been denied due legal process, and at least one, Wu Rongrong, denied access to adequate medical care.
“We urge China to release all those detained for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, in line with China’s constitution and international human rights commitments.”
Wu has hepatitis B and spent the month before her arrest in hospital, but was reportedly denied medication for more than a week prior to her transfer to the detention centre’s medical facility. Her former lawyer Wang Fei said she was experiencing pain in the liver area and had blood in her phlegm.
Before her transfer, she told Wang that she had been forced to sleep on a concrete floor and denied regular medication by authorities who said her condition did not require treatment.
The US-based group Human Rights in China said another activist, Wang Man, was also in the medical centre after developing a heart condition following hours of interrogation.