Chinese Activist Says Officials Ordered His Torture

2006.12.07

HONG KONG, Dec. 7, 2006—A leading rights activist from the eastern Chinese province of Shandong says a law enforcement official tried to arrange for him to be tortured at his detention center where he was awaiting trial, but that his jailers flatly refused to do it.

Chen Guangcheng, who was sentenced to four years and three months' imprisonment in August after he blew the whistle on forced abortions and other abuses by family planning officials in his home county of Yinan, spoke extensively of his experience behind bars during an interview with his lawyer, broadcast exclusively by RFA's Mandarin service Thursday.

He told lawyer Li Jingsong: "In late July, a certain individual – either from public security or the judicial branch – came to the detention center and ordered that I be tortured."

In late July, a certain individual – either from public security or the judicial branch – came to the detention center and ordered that I be tortured

Chen Guangcheng

"His order was flatly rejected by detention center officials. The force of justice will prevail," Chen said, adding that he had met other officials who were privately sympathetic to his case, which was overturned on appeal to the Linyi Municipal Intermediate People's Court in late October.

Chen said he was delighted that his case had been sent back to the lower court for retrial.

"On Aug. 28, presiding judge Wang Jun [from the Yinan district level court] paid me a visit. The first thing he said to me was, 'Chen Guangcheng, you should not regard everyone as bad. Someday the truth about your case will be known to the whole world.'"

"And so I asked him why he did what he did if he was clear about where the truth of the matter lay. He said it was because the communists were still in power," Chen said, adding that Wang had admitted that the initial verdict against him had been due to 'extrajudicial factors'.

"I told him that what motivated us to join the rights campaign was our confidence in democracy, the rule of law, and government policy. But the fact that they feel they can resort to any tactics – including depriving you of the right to defend yourself and to appeal a verdict – it just shows that they have a much darker view of the system. We have a fundamental faith in the system. We ask the government to fulfill its promise to the people," Chen said.

Chen's groundbreaking work as a self-trained legal advocate on behalf of women suffering forced abortions and other abuses at the hands of Yinan county family planning officials has earned him praise among socially aware netizens in China.

But it has also drawn him months of house arrest, surveillance, beatings, and harassment by local officials and the unidentified men they hire as heavies.

On Nov. 30, the Yinan county court upheld its original verdict and sentence against Chen.

Chen told the outside world from his detention cell: " I am still engaged in the rights campaign. Don't worry about me. Think of it as if I have embarked on a long journey. My resolve has not been shaken. I will never give up."

Original reporting in Mandarin by Ding Xiao. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie, and edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

China: Government Must End Crackdown on Lawyers

Here is a statement from Human Rights Watch
(Hong Kong, August 23, 2006) Chinese lawyers who defend human rights and expose the absence of an independent judiciary are under increasing attack from state authorities, Human Rights Watch said today. The central government must respond to the recent spate of harassment, detentions, and physical attacks on human rights lawyers.

" It's unclear whether China's central authorities have ordered, condoned or ignored the recent attacks on lawyers. But it's crystal clear that the government should uphold the law and stop this blatantly illegal persecution of lawyers. "

Sophie Richardson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

Contribute to Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch also urged the central government, which has so far failed to intervene on the lawyers� behalf, to state publicly that attacks against lawyers will not be tolerated, and to take immediate steps to ensure the effective protection of lawyers.

It's unclear whether China's central authorities have ordered, condoned or ignored the recent attacks on lawyers, said Sophie Richardson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. But it's crystal clear that the government should uphold the law and stop this blatantly illegal persecution of lawyers.

Two of China's most prominent lawyers are currently facing prosecutions that seem to be politically motivated. Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng, an outspoken advocate of the rights of victims of government violations and abuse of power, was detained on August 15 on charges of alleged involvement in criminal activities. In 2005, authorities stripped Gao of his right to practice law.

On August 18, the trial of another legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, turned into a mockery of justice when his lawyers were physically assaulted and then forcibly detained by Public Security to prevent them from attending. The court, in Yinan county, Shandong province, has charged Chen with intent to damage public property and inciting others to join him to disrupt traffic intent to damage public property and inciting others to join him to disrupt traffic.

Chen and Gao have faced months of harassment, intimidation, unlawful detentions and physical assaults because of their legal activism.

In a separate incident on August 18, Yang Zaixin, one of the lawyers who attempted to attend Chen�s trial, was beaten. He was placed in detention at a local police station, then reportedly sent back to his home province of Guangxi on August 19. Yang has not yet returned home.

China has seen a sharp upswing of protests over the past few years, especially in rural areas, some of which have been violently put down by security forces. Although China's top leaders have acknowledged that many protests were fueled by local government abuses, and promised to enhance access to judicial remedies for aggrieved citizens, repressive tactics have continued unabated.

In the rare instances in which central authorities have acknowledged such cases, they have tended to blame rogue local officials for the problems. Yet few local officials have been prosecuted for wrongdoing. And ultimately it is the central government's responsibility to protect all people exercising their lawful rights. The recent crackdown on civil rights lawyers appears to be part of an effort by the central government to stymie challenges to its rule.

The Chinese authorities can no longer have it both ways, said Richardson. Beijing should either uphold the rule of law and tolerate legal challenges or drop this facade of commitment to legal reform. The actions against Chen, Gao and others make it difficult to believe that everyone in China is equal before the law.

Human Rights Watch said the pattern of abuses against lawyers contravened China's obligations under international law, as well as its stated commitment to the rule of law. China's constitution and numerous domestic laws protect all individuals against violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure discrimination, pressure or other arbitrary action as a consequence of legitimate exercise of their rights. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees that everyone is entitled to a fair trial, as does the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China signed in 1998 but has not yet ratified.

Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese authorities to release Gao, declare a mistrial in Chen's case and ensure that lawyers are free of intimidation and interference as they carry out their professional duties; they are entitled to this protection under the United Nations Statement of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.

Chinese lawyers don't need special treatment, but the public needs them to work freely because of their essential role in the justice system, said Richardson. If lawyers can't have justice, what are the hopes for ordinary citizens�

Blind Justice

Here is a good report by Hannah Beech in

Time Magazine:

The saga of a brave activist reveals both the pity and the promise of China
By HANNAH BEECH/ SHANGHAI

Posted Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006

The text message on my cell phone came last Thursday as I was standing in my Shanghai apartment, surrounded by packing boxes and bubble wrap. Preparing to leave after more than six years in China, I was feeling nostalgic. This is not an easy place to be a journalist--phones are often tapped, sources sometimes harassed--but the economic developments that have transformed this country bring with them an infectious optimism. People's lives are getting better. The polite packer helping to direct traffic in our apartment told my husband he had helped move us into our flat three years ago. Back then he was a simple day laborer; now he's a foreman. Many stories in China have a similar upward trajectory. If for nothing else, I would miss China for the promise it holds.

Then came the text message: "Chen Guangcheng has been sentenced to four years and three months' imprisonment." I first met Chen a year ago. A native of China's eastern Shandong province, the self-schooled legal activist came to Shanghai to publicize the plight of women who had been forced to undergo abortions or sterilizations as part of the nation's family-planning campaign. China has tried for more than two decades to lower its population through its "one-child" policy, but the coercive measures used in Shandong's Linyi region are now illegal. By publicizing abuses committed by local bureaucrats, Chen believed he could persuade higher-level officials to step in and stop them.

A few days after our first meeting, we got together again in Beijing. As we were leaving, Chen had a last request: Would it be possible to see what I looked like? He lifted his hands and felt my face. My nose, he commented, wasn't especially big for a foreigner's. Chen was blinded by a fever as a small child. His hands--as well as an unusually supportive family that reads out loud to him everything from law books to letters from peasants requesting his legal aid--are what allow him to see the world.

Just hours after our interview, Chen was detained by security officials, who had traveled hundreds of miles from Linyi to Beijing. For the next six months, he was kept under virtual house arrest. Despite the harassment, which included several beatings, he remained hopeful: the State Family Planning Commission in Beijing admitted publicly that Linyi officials had broken the law. Chen kept in contact with foreign journalists through cell phones that friends and family smuggled in for him. Last September I wrote a story for TIME about forced sterilizations in Linyi. The magazine subsequently named Chen to its annual list of the world's 100 most influential people.

After trying to leave his village without official permission last March, Chen was arrested again. The local police finally announced in June that he was being held on charges of damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic. (Witnesses on the scene dispute the allegations.) In previous years, a plea from the U.S. State Department might have helped get a Chinese political prisoner released. But foreign pressure has less effect these days, in part because the international community holds little leverage. China is the world's factory. It holds bountiful foreign-currency reserves. It will be host to the Olympics in 2008. The balance has shifted from China's feeling as if it needs the world to the world's needing China.
The news that Chen was sentenced, after a two-hour trial, to more than four years in prison has left his supporters stunned. His wife Yuan Weijing, who has been under house arrest for months, says her 3-year-old son tells her he doesn't want to start supper until his father comes home. "Today," she said over a cell phone, "I had to tell my child that his father won't be joining him for dinner for a long time."

I had been worried how Yuan would receive our call. I wondered whether she would blame the international media for publicizing the forcible family-planning campaign, perhaps prompting Linyi officials to take out their anger on her husband. But Yuan wasn't bitter. "I am proud of my husband," she said, "and I want the outside world to know what is truly happening."

As I packed up the final boxes for my move from Shanghai, I couldn't shake the disgust I felt over Chen's sentencing. But I was also moved by Yuan's conviction that the outside world needs to know what is happening in Linyi. Hers is a faith based on a system that has not yet taken root in China, one in which justice prevails and heroes like her husband are honored. If Yuan can have hope in China's future, I should too. I can't pack that sense of optimism in a box, but it is something I will treasure long after I leave.

Rights Group Slams Legal System as China Jails Blind Activist

HONG KONG—Tighter regulations, procedural obstacles, increasing harassment of lawyers, and recent conviction of blind activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng show that China is intensifying its crackdown on the legal profession, a U.S.-based rights group says.

Pointing to an overall "chilling effect" on China's nascent legal profession, the New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) listed in its August Trends Bulletin several high-profile cases of physical violence, harassment, and prosecutions targeting lawyers in recent months.

Last week, authorities in the eastern province of Shandong handed a four-year jail term to Chen Guangcheng, a social activist who blew the whistle on official abuses under China's one-child policy. Lawyers and Chen's relatives called the trial an illegal and retaliatory move by local officials.

Chen Guangcheng, who is blind, was sentenced by the Yinan County People's Court on Aug. 24 to four years and three months' imprisonment for "willfully damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic," an official statement said.
Wife surprised by sentence

While Chen's sentence was reported by the official Xinhua news agency, his wife told RFA's Mandarin service she found out about the sentence only after reporters contacted her for comment.

"This sentence has come as a surprise," Yuan Weijing said. "From a legal point of view, even a day spent in jail would be an injustice for Chen Guangcheng."

"This is quite simply an attack on him," she said.

Chen's groundbreaking work as a self-trained legal advocate on behalf of women suffering forced abortions and other abuses at the hands of Yinan county family planning officials has earned him praise among socially aware netizens in China.

But it has also drawn him years of house arrest, surveillance, beatings, and harassment by local officials and the unidentified men they hire as heavies.

Xinhua attributed the whole of its report on Chen to a document it received from the court, even down to an assertion that the trial proceedings had been fair.
Legal team harassed

"The court document says Chen's rights were completely protected, and his two lawyers expressed their views in full," the English version of Xinhua's report said.

But lawyer Li Jinsong, one of Chen's legal team, said local officials had obstructed them at every turn, not even delivering a final copy of the judgment to his representatives.

Another lawyer in the team, Beijing-based Teng Biao, said the trial was illegal.

"This sets a very bad precedent," he told RFA's Cantonese service. "Civil rights activists in China are in a terrible plight, because the government itself uses illegal methods against them."

And Chen's wife Yuan told RFA's Cantonese service: "The Communist Party propaganda makes it all sound so civilized, as if legal procedures are being observed and justice is being done, as if they care about the law."

"But you only have to look at what has happened to Chen in the countryside, and to lawyer Gao Zhisheng in the capital, to see what sort of rule of law China really has."
Legal profession under fire

HRIC's report said China's legal system was being undermined by continual pressures on lawyers, especially those representing clients in sensitive cases involving allegations of official wrongdoing. This was particularly the case when lawyers represent large groups in land and property disputes, it said.

Local authorities, while exhorted by Beijing to work towards a "harmonious society," have rolled out a series of fresh regulations in recent months aimed at severely limiting the scope of lawyers in investigating cases and gathering evidence.

The report quoted one Beijing-based law professor as saying that around 70 percent of defendants in criminal proceedings never had access to a lawyer at all.

Frequent beatings, harassment, and prosecutions had made the profession unattractive to fresh talent, it said.

"Although nearly 80 percent of the 500 lawyers detained, accused, or punished for any reason between 1997 and 2002 were eventually found innocent of any wrongdoing, the aggravation caused by these accusations and the general fear of harassment has led many individuals away from pursuing careers in criminal or civil law," the report said.

"The result is that some defendants or litigants have been unable to find a lawyer willing to take their case because of the sensitive nature of the case, leaving them to either not pursue their grievance or to represent themselves."

Earlier this week, an activist and a lawyer who had travelled, or planned to travel, to Yinan county to support Chen were themselves detained at an unknown location.

One man spoke to RFA before his phone was cut off, while the wife of the other man said national security police had said her husband was safe, while declining to give further details.

China's controversial population control policy is aimed at restricting urban couples to having one child and rural parents to two, and while local officials are not supposed to coerce families into compliance, independent research by writers, activists, and scholars suggests a grimmer picture.

Chen's work in Linyi city and neighboring Yinan county prompted an unprecedented admission from China's national family planning agency that Linyi authorities had indeed carried out some extreme measures. The agency promised disciplinary action, but no punishments have been made public.

Original reporting in Cantonese by Lee Kin-kwan and in Mandarin by Ding Xiao. RFA Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

“I believe the court officials there have lost their minds,” - Xu Zhiyong

Here is clip from an August 25, New York Times article by Joseph Kahn:

Chinese Peasants’ Advocate Sentenced to 51 Months in Jail

On the eve of Mr. Chen’s trial last week, three of his lawyers were accused by local thugs of stealing property. The lawyers were then detained by local police, and one of them was not released until after Mr. Chen’s trial had ended.

“I believe the court officials there have lost their minds,” said Xu Zhiyong, one of Mr. Chen’s chosen lawyers, who was prevented from attending his trial by local police. “The entire process was illegal.”

Read the full story in The New York Times.

A Little State-Sponsored Carjacking

Video of assault on Chen Guangcheng' lawyers

This video shows you just how mundane and run-of-the-mill a little state-sponsored carjacking can be. Chen Guangcheng is the blind lawyer jailed after suing the local government. More about that later.

Here we have his lawyer, Li Jinsong, driving over to take depositions in Chen’s village near Linyi in Shandong province. Up comes the welcoming committee, a pack of regular-looking villagers. They saunter over, yell something at the lawyer, and then try to forcibly move the vehicle - what's with that? They proceed to smash up the windows. Things are not looking good for Li Jinsong and his friend Li Subin who are trapped inside the car at this point.

What I want to know is, how much did they get paid for it? Did the local party boss take them all out for a little banquet with gan bei's all around for another job well done? Or is this just another day in the life of your local thug / policeman / party member? It is getting so hard to tell them apart these days.

The really scary part is the dialogue between the folks shooting the video. You can feel the tension when the gal whispers,

"He sees us. Let's get outta here!"

But our driver keeps his cool murmuring,

"I saw him. It isn't especially dangerous... yet."

Soon it does get dicey and they race off saving their skins and the video.

Carjacking Shandong Style

Later the thugs bloody up the lawyer and roll the car into the ditch. Chen Guangcheng's story is impressive. First he taught himself to be a lawyer and then sued the government for not providing the assistance legally required for the blind. Then he helped other disabled folk get the free services they had been denied. Later, he even forced a mill to stop polluting the village river. Local authorities thought he was all the rage. They even broadcast his wedding. All was well until 2005 when he sued the local government for forcing peasants to have late term abortions and undergo sterilization. For more detail and a great photo see the front page article by Joseph Kahn in the The New York Times.

If you want Chen’s full story complete with timeline, photos and blog entries, go to Let Chen Guangcheng Go Home.

Oh yeah, by the way, Time Magazine named him among the top 100 people who shape our world in their TIME 100. For Podcasts and the most thorough coverage see Radio Free Asia. In addition, Chen's lawyer, Xu Zhi-Yong, has a blog with a journal not to be missed.

What can you do to help? Spread the word by linking to this and other Chen Guangcheng sites. Put the Free Chen Guangcheng button on your site right this moment. Just cut and past the following: http://www.allaboutahom.com/uploaded_images/freecgc-739949.jpg

Every little bit helps but what else could we do? Ideas anyone…..?

Advocate for China’s Weak Crosses the Powerful

Here is a good background story by JOSEPH KAHN of the New York Times, Published: July 20, 2006

BEIJING, July 19 — Only a few years ago, Chen Guangcheng, a blind man who taught himself the law, was hailed as a champion of peasant rights who symbolized China’s growing embrace of legal norms.

Mr. Chen helped other people with disabilities avoid illegal fees and taxes. He forced a paper mill to stop spewing toxic chemicals into his village’s river. The authorities in his home province, Shandong, considered him a propaganda coup and broadcast clips from his wedding ceremony on television.

All that changed last year, when he organized a rare class-action lawsuit against the local government for forcing peasants to have late-term abortions and be sterilized. Mr. Chen, 35, is now a symbol of something else: the tendency of Communist Party officials to use legal pretexts to crush dissent.

Read the rest of the story in the New York Times.