Human Rights: December 2006 Archives

By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
December 22, 2006

BEIJING, Dec. 22 — A Chinese court convicted a leading human rights lawyer of subversion on Friday but gave him an unusually light sentence under terms that may mean that he will soon be released.

The lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, 42, was sentenced to three years in prison with a five-year reprieve, the official New China News Agency said. That means he does not have to serve his sentence in prison as long as he does not commit another crime in the next five years, legal experts said.

Mr. Gao, who has been outspoken in his defiance of the ruling Communist Party, was expected to receive a harsher penalty for his prolific and uncompromising writings and his efforts to defend followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual sect.

The authorities under President Hu Jintao have been seeking to cripple China’s weiquan, or rights protection, movement, which consists of journalists, grass-roots organizers and lawyers who use legal means to defend people who feel they have been wronged by officials.

Top officials have also sought to send a strong warning about the risks of cooperating with foreign news media and foreign organizations that have ties to China. Earlier this week a Beijing court sentenced Lu Jianhua, a prominent scholar at the government-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to a 20-year prison term on charges of leaking state secrets. He was accused of disclosing unspecified sensitive information in articles he prepared for publication abroad.

Mr. Gao’s relatively light sentence may reflect his status as a leading dissident with relatively wide recognition among human rights groups overseas. His supporters in China have publicized his case and the plight of his family, whose members they say have suffered beatings and harassment by the security police.

But through the official news agency, the authorities presented Mr. Gao as cooperative, saying he had provided evidence that could be used against other opposition figures. “Gao also voluntarily reported others’ offenses and provided important clues for cracking other cases, a contribution to win him a lenient penalty and a reprieval of five years,” the agency said.

Hu Jia, a rights advocate who has maintained close ties to Mr. Gao, said officials mainly intended to reduce his influence.

The sentence deprives him of his “political rights,” which is often interpreted to include the freedom to publish or speak out on sensitive topics, for one year. It also places him under heavy scrutiny for another four years. “He will be a prisoner in his own home,” Mr. Hu said. “The sentence is better than we expected. But it is designed so that he will not be able to express himself in public.”

“This is a clever move by the leadership,” he added. “They can appear as though they are responsive to overseas opinion. But they also see that Gao’s influence will be diminished or eliminated within China.”

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By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
December 14, 2006

An outspoken Chinese human rights lawyer was put on trial this week, accused of inciting subversion, but authorities kept such tight control over the proceeding that his lawyer and family were prevented from attending, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Gao Zhisheng, the human rights lawyer, was tried Tuesday at Beijing’s No. 1 People’s Intermediate Court. The proceeding lasted less than a day and was conducted in open court, but Mr. Gao’s relatives and their chosen lawyer, Mo Shaoping, were never notified. No verdict has been announced.

“This hearing did not follow the proper legal procedures,” Mr. Mo said. “They didn’t even inform the family.”

Mr. Gao’s trial occurred after rulings in two other controversial cases were announced this month in different Chinese courts. In Shandong Province, in eastern China, a trial court reinstated a guilty verdict against Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal expert who had spoken out against local abuses of population control policies. His lawyers complained that local officials had barred important defense witnesses from the trial.

In Beijing, an appeals court upheld a fraud conviction against Zhao Yan, a Chinese researcher for The New York Times, despite complaints from his defense team of having been prevented from presenting evidence and questioning witnesses. Mr. Zhao is serving a three-year sentence and is scheduled to be released next September.

This year, Chinese lawyers are facing tighter scrutiny under recent regulations that require lawyers to submit to government supervision when they represent clients in politically charged cases like disputes over land seizures, evictions, pollution and other issues. A recent Human Rights Watch report warned that such regulations undermined the fairness of China’s legal system.

Mr. Gao, 42, is one of the most well-known dissidents in China. An outspoken government critic, he has written lacerating essays on the Internet, including predictions that the governing Communist Party will implode because of corruption and abuse of power. He has a flair for confrontation and has taken on cases that many Chinese lawyers would not dare touch, including representing advocates of the banned Falun Gong sect.

He was taken into custody in August and formally arrested on Sept. 21 on charges of inciting subversion. The authorities have not publicly specified the evidence against Mr. Gao or said whether he is being jailed for his writings or his actions as a lawyer.

Mr. Mo, the defense lawyer, has never been allowed to visit Mr. Gao in detention.

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Radio Free Asia
12 December 2006

HONG KONG—Chinese authorities in Beijing have secretly tried a top Chinese civil rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, on unspecified subversion charges, but his family hasn't been informed of the verdict, his wife has said.

“I just returned home from lawyer Mo Shaoping’s office,” Geng He told a friend who recorded the conversation and gave it to RFA’s Mandarin service.

“They concluded his trial in secret this morning. The family had not been informed. Nor do we know the two court-appointed attorneys. We’ve never met them. We know nothing,” Geng said in the recording, which was made with her knowledge and consent.

Her telephone appeared to be out of order when RFA Mandarin service reporter Ding Xiao subsequently tried to contact her.

Mo, appointed to represent Gao by Gao’s brother Gao Zhiyi, confirmed in an interview that he had not received prior notice of the trial and wasn’t permitted to attend. He declined further comment.

But a Dec. 12 letter — co-signed with lawyer Ding Xikui, addressed to Gao’s brother and wife, and obtained by RFA — states the family-appointed lawyers learned Monday that Gao had been tried that morning in an “open” hearing by the Beijing Municipal First Intermediate People’s Court.

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By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
December 11, 2006

Rules requiring Chinese lawyers to submit to government supervision when representing clients in politically delicate cases have dealt a serious blow to the country’s legal system and should be rescinded, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be issued Monday.

The rights group said the rules, known as “guiding opinions,” effectively shut down the legal system to people fighting official land confiscations, forced relocation, corruption, pollution and other politically delicate matters in China’s one-party system.

“These restrictions effectively deprive people with lawful collective complaints of meaningful legal representations and risk instilling a sense of futility about legal avenues of redress,” the report said. “That may exacerbate social unrest in the future.”

The Chinese police have reported a surge in “mass incidents,” including large demonstrations, in the past several years, with 87,000 such events in 2005.

Statistics for the first nine months of 2006 showed a decline in the number of protests from the year before, but Human Rights Watch said that the numbers were subject to political manipulation and that anecdotal evidence suggested rising discontent.

The “guiding opinions,” which were put into effect in the spring, require lawyers who accept cases that involve 10 or more plaintiffs suing organs of the government or the ruling party to submit to “guidance and supervision” by their local judicial bureau and the All-China Lawyers Association, which are under government control.

They also must obtain consent from at least three partners in their law firm before accepting such cases, and they must refrain from “stirring up” news media coverage.

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By THE NEW YORK TIMES
December 01, 2006

A blind Chinese legal expert who exposed forced abortions in eastern China was convicted on Friday morning for the second time on charges that he destroyed property and disrupted traffic.

The case of Chen Guangcheng, the legal expert, has provoked international concern, as his defense lawyers have argued that officials in Shandong Province arrested him on baseless charges as punishment for his activism against abuses of population control policies.

Mr. Chen was convicted in August but won a rare retrial after an appeals court overturned the conviction. The retrial was held this week in Shandong, and a local judge announced the verdict on Friday morning, lawyers said. Mr. Chen was again found guilty and given the same sentence, of four years and three months.

The retrial has been marred by apparent official efforts at intimidation. Mr. Chen’s wife was kept under close police supervision during the trial.