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China Sentences Quake Activist to 5 Years’ Jail
Activist Tan Zuoren, who had been investigating the deaths of schoolchildren in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, has been sentenced to five years in prison after being tried in August. From AP:
Attorney Pu Zhiqiang said activist Tan Zuoren was convicted of the charge Tuesday by the Chengdu Intermediate Court. Tan’s trial in August had concluded with no ruling, while police detained and threatened the man’s supporters.
Tan’s supporters say they believe the authorities were trying to silence him for his investigation into the collapse of schools in the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck in Sichuan province in May 2008, leaving almost 90,000 dead or missing. Tan estimated at least 5,600 students were among the dead.
The charge of inciting subversion of state power is believed linked to his quake investigation as well as essays he wrote about the 1989 student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that ended in a deadly military crackdown. Beijing routinely uses such broad and vaguely defined accusations to imprison dissidents, sometimes for years.
Pu said Tan would appeal the court’s decision.
See also a Reuters report. ChinaGeeks has translated selected tweets about the verdict.
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- February 8, 2010 9:30 PM
Liu Xiaobo: I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement
Writer Liu Xiaobo, one of the drafters of Charter 08, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, Christmas Day. On December 23, the day he was tried, Liu Xiaobo wrote a “final statement” which is being widely passed around online. CDT thanks David Kelly, Professor of China Studies, China Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney, for the translation (the original Chinese version can be found here):
Liu Xiaobo, I have no enemies: my final statement*
June 1989 was the major turning point in my 50 years on life’s road. Before that, I was a member of the first group of students after restoration of the college entrance examination after the Cultural Revolution (1977); my career was s smooth ride from undergraduate to grad student through to PhD. After graduation I stayed on as a lecturer at Beijing Normal University. On the podium, I was a popular teacher, well received by students. I was at the same time a public intellectual. In the 1980s I published articles and books that created an impact, was frequently invited to speak in various places, and was invited to go abroad to Europe and the US as a visiting scholar. What I required of myself was: both as a person and in my writing, I had to live with honesty, responsibility and dignity. Subsequently, because I had returned from the US to take part in the 1989 movement, I was imprisoned for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement to crime”, loding the platform which was my passion; I was never again allowed publish or speak in public in China. Simply for expressing divergent political views and taking part in a peaceful and democratic movement, a teacher loses his podium, a writer loses the right to publish, and a public intellectual loses the chance to speak publicly, which is a sad thing, both for myself as an individual, and for China after three decades of reform and opening up.
Thinking about it, my most dramatic experiences after June Fourth have all linked with courts; the two opportunities I had to speak in public have been provided by trials held in the People’s Intermediate Court in Beijing, one in January 1991 and one now. Although the charges on each occasion were different, they were in essence the same, both being crimes of expression.
Twenty years on, the innocent souls of June Fourth do not yet rest in peace, and I, who had been drawn into the path of dissidence by the passions of June Fourth, after leaving the Qincheng Prison in 1991, lost in the right to speak openly in my own country, and could only do so through overseas media, and hence was monitored for many years; placed under surveillance (May 1995- January 1996); educated through labour (October 1996 – October 1999s), and now once again am thrust into the dock by enemies in the regime. But I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom, I stand by the belief I expressed twenty years ago in my “June Second hunger strike declaration”— I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who have monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I’m unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities, including Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing who act for the prosecution at present. I was aware of your respect and sincerity in your interrogation of me on 3 December.
For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes in understanding the development of the state and changes in society, to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love.
As we all know, reform and opening up brought about development of the state and change in society. In my view, it began with abandoning “taking class struggle as the key link,” which had been the ruling principle of the Mao era. We committed ourselves instead to economic development and social harmony. The process of abandoning the “philosophy of struggle” was one of gradually diluting the mentality of enmity, eliminating the psychology of hatred, and pressing out the “wolf’s milk” in which our humanity had been steeped. It was this process that provided a relaxed environment for the reform and opening up at home and abroad, for the restoration of mutual love between people, and soft humane soil for the peaceful coexistence of different values and different interests, and thus provided the explosion of popular creativity and the rehabilitation of warmheartedness with incentives consistent with human nature. Externally abandoning “anti-imperialism and anti-revisionism”, and internally, abandoning “class struggle” may be called the basic premise of the continuance of China’s reform and opening up to this day. The market orientation of the economy; the cultural trend toward diversity; and the gradual change of order to the rule of law, all benefited from the dilution of this mentality of enmity. Even in the political field, where progress is slowest, dilution of the mentality of enmity also made political power ever more tolerant of diversity in society, the intensity persecution of dissidents has declined substantially, and characterization of the 1989 movement has changed from an “instigated rebellion” to a “political upheaval.”
The dilution of the mentality of enmity made the political power gradually accept the universality of human rights. In 1998, the Chinese government promised the world it would sign the the two international human rights conventions of the UN, marking China’s recognition of universal human rights standards; in 2004, the National People’s Congress for the first time inscribed into the constitution that “the state respects and safeguards human rights”, signaling that human rights had become one of the fundamental principles of the rule of law. In the meantime, the present regime also proposed “putting people first” and “creating a harmonious society”, which signalled progress in the Party’s concept of rule.
This macro-level progress was discernible as well in my own experiences since being arrested.
While I insist on my innocence, and that the accusations against me are unconstitutional, in the year and more since I lost my freedom, I’ve experienced two places of detention, four pre-trial police officers, three prosecutors and two judges. In their handling of the case, there has been no lack of respect, no time overruns and no forced confessions. Their calm and rational attitude has over and again demonstrated goodwill. I was transferred on 23 June from the residential surveillance to Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau Detention Center No. 1, known as “Beikan.” I saw progress in surveillance in the six months I spent there.
I spent time in the old Beikan (Banbuqiao) in 1996, and compared with the Beikan of a decade ago, there has been great improvement in the hardware of facilities and software of management.
In particular, Beikan’s innovative humane management based on respecting the rights and dignity of detainees, implementing more flexible management of the will be flexible to the detainees words and deeds, embodied in the Warm broadcast and Repentance, the music played before meals, and when waking up and going to sleep, gave detainees feelings of dignity and warmth, stimulating their consciousness of keeping order in their cells and opposing the warders sense of themselves as lords of the jail, detainees, providing not only a humanized living environment, but greatly improved the detainees’ environment and mindset for litigation, I had close contact with Liu Zhen, in charge of my cell. People feel warmed by his respect and care for detainees, reflected in the management of every detail, and permeating his every word and deed. Getting to know the sincere, honest, responsible, good-hearted Liu Zhen really was a piece of good luck for me in Beikan.
Political beliefs are based on such convictions and personal experiences; I firmly believe that China’s political progress will never stop, and I’m full of optimistic expectations of freedom coming to China in the future, because no force can block the human desire for freedom. China will eventually become a country of the rule of law in which human rights are supreme. I’m also looking forward to such progress being reflected in the trial of this case, and look forward to the full court’s just verdict ——one that can stand the test of history.
Ask me what has been my most fortunate experience of the past two decades, and I’d say it was gaining the selfless love of my wife, Liu Xia. She cannot be present in the courtroom today, but I still want to tell you, sweetheart, that I’m confident that your love for me will be as always. Over the years, in my non-free life, our love has contained bitterness imposed by the external environment, but is boundless in afterthought. I am sentenced to a visible prison while you are waiting in an invisible one. Your love is sunlight that transcends prison walls and bars, stroking every inch of my skin, warming my every cell, letting me maintain my inner calm, magnanimous and bright, so that every minute in prison is full of meaning. But my love for you is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes.
Given your love, sweetheart, I would face my forthcoming trial calmly, with no regrets about my choice and looking forward to tomorrow optimistically. I look forward to my country being a land of free expression, where all citizens’ speeches are treated the same; here, different values, ideas, beliefs, political views… both compete with each other and coexist peacefully; here, majority and minority opinions will be given equal guarantees, in particular, political views different from those in power will be fully respected and protected; here, all political views will be spread in the sunlight for the people to choose; all citizens will be able to express their political views without fear, and will never be politically persecuted for voicing dissent; I hope to be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisition, and that after this no one else will ever be jailed for their speech.
Freedom of expression is the basis of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth. To block freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, to strangle humanity and to suppress the truth.
I do not feel guilty for following my constitutional right to freedom of expression, for fulfilling my social responsibility as a Chinese citizen. Even if accused of it, I would have no complaints. Thank you!
Liu Xiaobo (December 23, 2009)
Read more about Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08 via CDT.
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- February 8, 2010 7:26 PM
China Stays Silent on Missing Lawyer Gao Zhisheng
The whereabouts of lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who went missing one year ago, are unknown and government officials have failed to provide any details, the BBC reports:
Mr Gao’s wife, now living in the US, said she was “certain” he was being tortured in prison and called on the US to increase its pressure on China.
At a regular news conference on Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu refused to answer questions from journalists about Mr Gao.
“I have made our position known many times, at least three times,” the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
“China is a country of rule of law and everything is handled according to the law,” he said.
But Mr Ma said he might “refer to competent authorities for more specifics”, said AFP.
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- February 4, 2010 1:17 PM
Han Han’s Speech At Xiamen University: “The So-called Grand Cultural Nation”
Author, race-car driver and blogger Han Han’s most recent speech at Xiamen University, translated on the EastSouthWestNorth blog:
This is my second time in Xiamen. The weather here is great. No wonder people like to go outside and stroll. Hmmm … I just heard Teacher Deng spoke about certain issues on nationalism. I was reminded of a couple of sayings which I came across them previously. They are other people’s words, not mine. The first saying is, “Nationalism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” The second saying is, “True patriotism is to protect this country so that it will not suffer any harm.”
For today’s talk, I have brought along a written speech in order to constrain myself. Mainly, I don’t want you to suffer any harm because I may stray all over the place. Let me begin.
Dear leaders, dear teachers, dear students, how are you doing?
Do you know why China cannot become a grand cultural nation? It is because most of the time when we speak, we say “Dear leaders” first and those leaders are uncultured. Not only that, for they are also afraid of culture, they censor culture and they control culture. So how can such a nation become a grand cultural nation? Dear leaders, what do you say?
Actually, China has tremendous potential of becoming a grand cultural nation. Let me tell you a story. I am the chief editor of a magazine which has yet to publish. The Constitution states that every citizen has the freedom to publish, but the law also says that the leaders has the freedom not to let you publish. This magazine has run into some problems during the review process. There is a cartoon drawing. In it, there is a man without clothes — of course, this is unacceptable because the law says that we cannot exhibit the private parts in a publicly available magazine. I agree with that and I don’t have a problem with it. Therefore, I intentionally created an extra-large magazine logo that was placed over the illegal spot of the cartoon. But unexpectedly, the publisher and the censor told us that this was unacceptable too — when you cover up the middle part of a person, you are referring to the “Party Central” (note: “party” is a homonym for “block/shield” and “central” is “middle”). My reaction was like yours — I was awed and shocked. I thought to myself, “Buddy, it would be so wonderful if you could put your awe-inspiring imagination into literary creation instead of literary censorship!”

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- February 4, 2010 12:58 PM
Chinese Activist Claims Victory in Airport Sit-In
From CBSNews:
After camping out at Japan’s busiest international airport for almost three months, a Chinese human rights activist is ending his extraordinary protest with a claim of victory.
“I will be going home sometime before the Chinese New Year, (February 14) and can’t wait to see my 90-year-old mother,” Feng Zhenghu, 55, told CBS News over the phone. “I have achieved my goal of showing everyone that we have to fight for our legal rights.”
Feng has been an unusual fixture at Narita Airport’s Terminal 1 since Nov. 4. He refused to leave the airport in Japan to draw worldwide attention to his own government’s refusal to allow him back home. Authorities had denied him entry to Shanghai eight times since June. All he wanted to do was go back home.
Feng, an economist-turned-lawyer who has a long history of supporting pro-democracy movements, has said he infuriated Shanghai officials by exposing their corruption and wrongdoing in his writings.
Following three recent meetings with officials from the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, Feng now plans to clear immigration at Narita on Wednesday and stay with relatives in Japan for a few days before flying back to Shanghai.
“Returning home is my right as a Chinese citizen – I never negotiated that,” he emphasizes. “I am doing this as a gesture of good faith in response to the sincerity of the embassy officials.”
Image source: AFP.
More news of Feng Zhenghu, via Google News.
Please click here and here to read translations of Feng Zhenghu’s tweets and blog posts on China Digital Times.
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- February 2, 2010 10:49 PM
China’s Defiance on Rights Stirs Fears for Dissident
The New York Times reports on the disappearance of activist lawyer Gao Zhisheng and the climate for human rights activists in China now:
Emboldened by China’s newfound economic prowess but insecure about its standing at home, the Chinese Communist Party has been tightening Internet censorship, cracking down on legal rights defenders and brushing aside foreign leaders who seek to influence the outcome of individual cases.
In December, the authorities executed Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen, on drug trafficking charges despite Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s personal plea to President Hu Jintao that Mr. Shaikh was mentally ill.
During President Obama’s state visit to China in November, the plight of a pro-democracy advocate, Liu Xiaobo, was reportedly at the top of his list of concerns. A few weeks later, on Dec. 25, Mr. Liu was given an unexpectedly harsh 11-year sentence for publishing an online petition that sought expanded liberties.
John Kamm, a veteran American human rights campaigner, said that during three decades working in China he had rarely seen such a hard line toward dissidents — and unbridled defiance against pressure from abroad.
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- February 2, 2010 9:07 PM
US Senator Asks Companies about China Rights Practices
Senator Dick Durbin is calling for information from American tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, IBM, Nokia and Twitter, about their practices in China. AFP reports:
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, also announced plans to hold a hearing in February on global Internet freedom.
He said the hearing would feature testimony from Barack Obama administration officials and from Google and other firms about their business practices in Internet-restricting countries.
“I commend Google for coming to the conclusion that cooperating with the ‘Great Firewall’ of China is inconsistent with their human rights responsibilities,” Durbin said in a statement.
“Google sets a strong example in standing up to the Chinese government’s continued failure to respect the fundamental human rights of free expression and privacy.
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- February 2, 2010 2:02 PM
Perry Link: What Beijing Fears Most
On the New York Review of Books blog, Perry Link writes about the 11 year sentence handed down to Liu Xiaobo and the tenacity of the Charter 08 movement:
Friends and supporters of Liu were generally startled at the length of the sentence. Fellow writer Li Jie, for example, wrote that “I expected [the authorities] might want to play down the issue—give Liu a one-year sentence, declare that he’d already served it [because he had already been held without trial for a year], let him go home, and move on. I really did not imagine that they would be as feeble-minded as this.” Among Charter 08’s supporters, there is little doubt where the eleven-year sentence originated; such a decision could be made only by the government’s most senior leaders. But no one has a good answer for why eleven seemed the right number. (The maximum under the law was fifteen years.) One theory that has spread on the Chinese Internet is that eleven years is 4,018 days, and Charter 08 contains 4,024 Chinese characters. So: one day for each character you wrote, Mr. Liu, and we’ll waive the last six.
If the purpose of the harsh sentence was to intimidate others, it has not worked well. Hundreds of signers of Charter 08 have endorsed an additional statement declaring that if Liu Xiaobo is guilty then we are, too. Cui Weiping, a film scholar (and translator of Vaclav Havel into Chinese), spent the days following the announcement of Liu’s sentence conducting a telephone survey of more than 100 prominent Chinese intellectuals, including both signers and non-signers of Charter 08, on how they viewed the sentence. Finding almost unanimous disgust, she collected her findings under the heading “We Give Up on Nothing” and published them in a series of twitter feeds that circulated widely in China and abroad—even to my computer in California. Until now, the authorities have not been able to stop her.
Cui quotes Zhang Sizhi, a senior lawyer, who wonders how the once “great, glorious, and correct Communist Party” could now be so “manipulative, petty, and selfish.” Wang Lixiong, a leading writer and advocate of peace with the Tibetans, said the best way to support Liu Xiaobo is to continue to work for his cause, until “society is changed and everyone in it is free.” Liang Xiaoyan, a well-known editor, said the sentence shows that while some things in China have changed radically in the last thirty years, other things “haven’t budged, and there is not the slightest impulse [at the top] to budge them.” The eminent historian Yu Ying-shih, reached at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, noted that this was the third time in twenty years that China’s rulers have sent Liu Xiaobo to political prison, and “each time has been more glorious than the last.”
» Read more
- February 1, 2010 2:24 PM
Feng Zhenghu (冯正虎) to End His Protest
There has been an update from our post yesterday about Feng Zhenghu, who has been living in Tokyo’s Narita Airport for almost three months since being refused entry to Shanghai, where he lives. On Twitter, Feng announced that he will end his airport protest on February 2, 2010.
From @fzhenghu’s twitter, translated by CDT:
Today is Jan.30, the 88th day of my sleeping outside the Japan customs.
6:30，I was still in “bed,” a female staff member I know came with a Singaporean flight attendant to say hello to me. The flight attendant gave me a package of four cakes.
Four cakes: http://flic.kr/p/7zpS63
9:30，a Japanese returning from Germany visited me. He was asked to by his colleague Ms. Chan, who works in Siemens company in Germany. She gave me a beautiful card and a package; inside the package are vitamin pills, fruit juice, dry veggies, a long-sleeve T-shirt, socks, NIVEA cream and other things. I do not know German so can only tell what the things are by their picture.
One side of the card was glued on a human rights postcard, published by the United Nations. It is one of a full set of cards and contains Article Thirteen of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ["Everyone has the right... to return to his country."]. On the other side of the card, Ms. Chan wrote: “Respectable Mr. Feng, you know there are many people who care about you and support you — hope you return home soon! Happy Spring Festival! *** Chan, Nuremberg Deutschland Jan 26, 2010. On the side there were also several signatures from her German colleagues.
Human rights postcard from Ms. Chan: http://flic.kr/p/7zm6Cn
1100，Mr. Du and Consular Zhao from the Chinese Embassy in Japan came to visit me again. Both sides communicate smoothly. As a matter of fact, returning to their country is a citizen’s right, there is no issue about who is negotiating with whom. Now the illegal barrier has been removed, so there is no need for negotiation. Officials from the Chinese embassy came to visit me several times to show their diplomatic concern, this is to their credit. I will respond with credibility as well.
13:45 to 15:00，I was taking a rest at the place with sunshine, I took a video of myself in the sunshine. This will be a wonderful memory in the future.
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- January 30, 2010 11:30 PM
Chinese Officials Visit Feng Zhenghu in Narita Airport, and Feng’s Public Reply
Google made global headlines for standing up to the Chinese government as a private company. In the Tokyo Narita airport, a 56-year-old Chinese citizen has spent three months waging his own battle for the right to return to his own country. On November 4, 2009, Feng Zhenghu, an economist and self-taught human rights lawyer, was barred entry by Shanghai border control and sent back to Narita Airport in Tokyo. Feng is a Chinese citizen and resident of Shanghai who had spent several months in Japan before attempting to return home. He was refused entry eight times: Four times he was forcibly put back on an airplane after arriving at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, and four times various airlines refused to let him board in Tokyo citing orders from the Chinese government. The last time, he refused to go through Japanese customs and remained in the airport, where he has been ever since. Feng has been subsisting on donations of food and sleeps in the airport terminal.
Feng had been an activist for many years and recently has advocated on behalf of petitioners fighting injustices by local or central officials. He has suffered regular harassment by authorities for his activities, and before leaving for Japan was detained for several weeks without charge. On January 27, an official from the Chinese embassy in Japan visited Feng, the first contact he has received from the Chinese government after almost three months of living in the airport.
Thanks to Chinese volunteers who have helped him set up Twitter and blogging accounts, Feng has been documenting his experiences. He now has over 13,000 followers on Twitter. CDT has translated some of his recent posts and tweets below.
» Read more
- January 29, 2010 11:11 PM
Ma Jian (马建): It Doesn’t Pay to Appease China
In Japan Times, author Ma Jian writes about the arrest of Liu Xiaobo, Google, and China’s growing economic clout:
History is said to repeat itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. And it is indeed farcical for China’s government to try to suppress the yearning for freedom in the same brutal ways that Soviet-era communists once did. For jailing Liu on the absurd charge of trying to overthrow the Chinese state is typical of the type of thinking found in the closed societies of 20th-century communism, where the state asserted its absolute right to judge every thought and every thinker.
In such a state, the only way to survive was for everyone to become his or her own thought police: self-censoring and never daring to question. But to judge and imprison one’s own mind, or any other mind, is to criminalize civilization.
In the Internet age, moreover, no prison or censorship can destroy an idea whose time has come. In its fight with Google, for example, China’s government appears to think that its technologists can provide the means to maintain the old thought control. But, thankfully, for anyone with persistence and a modicum of computer skill, the Internet leaks like a sieve.
The great economic progress China has made over the past 30 years is something all Chinese celebrate. But the jailing of Liu also demonstrates in the starkest terms that China’s neglect of human rights is flowing to the rest of world alongside the mass of Chinese goods. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that China opened its economy only to maintain the country’s over-mighty rulers in power, not to respect and enhance the lives of ordinary Chinese.
» Read more
- January 28, 2010 2:33 PM
Internal Document of the Domestic Security Department of the Public Security Bureau (Part I)
The Domestic Security Department （国内安全保护支队）is a branch of the police force within the Ministry of Public Security, specializing in collecting intelligence, infiltrating and dealing with political dissidents, human rights activists, petitioners, religious groups as well as “subversive” activities in the cultural, educational and economics domains. It is a massive, secretive and omnipotent security apparatus within the giant police machine of the PRC.
The following excerpts are from China’s interactive knowledge site Baidubaike , translated by CDT:
国内安全保卫的目的。国内安全保卫的目的是巩固共产党执政地位，保卫人民民主专政的政权和社会主义制度，保障社会主义现代化建设的顺利进行。
The goal of domestic security protection is to strengthen the ruling position of the Chinese Communist Party, protect the regime of the People’s Democratic Dictatorship and socialist system, ensure the smooth carrying out of the socialist modernization construction.
And the following three types of people are the main targets of DSD police:
1, People who have social influence – they do not need to be social celebrities, but within China, they have broad social networks or become spokespeople of a group with common experience.
有一定的社会影响力——他们不一定是社会名人，但是他们在中国国内，有广泛的人际关系或为一群共同命运伙伴的代言人
2, People who have their own distinct views in the economic, cultural and political domain, they possess different views from the authorities or “main melody” and insist on expressing their views.
有自己独特的主张——在经济、文化或政治领域，与当局或“主旋律”持有不同的观点并且坚持表达自己的意见
3, Possibly related to rights protection – protecting economic rights, such as apartment owners of urban residential blocks or peasants who lost their land; protecting political rights, such as journalists, writers who insist on freedom of the press or freedom of expression, or house church members who maintain their beliefs, or Tibetan Buddhists who support the Dalai Lama.
可能涉及维权——或者维护经济权益，如小区业主和失地农民等；或者维护文化权益，如画家和艺术家；或者维护政治权利，如坚持新闻和表达自由的记者、作家，坚持信仰的家庭教会成员和支持达赖喇嘛的藏传佛教信徒等
And the following excerpt is from Chinese wikipedia, which is partially blocked by the Great Firewall:
Within the Domestic Security Department, the general components are office; information, intelligence and external liasion branch; social investigation and local work-directing branch; ethnic and religious investigation branch; anti-subversive and sabotage investigation branch; university, cultural and economic domain domestic security protection work-directing branch; domestic security protection case investigation branch; and anti-cult investigation branch.
国保支队内设机构一般为办公室、情报信息与对外联络科、社会调查与基层基础工作指导科、民族宗教领域侦察科、反颠覆破坏侦察科、高校文化及经济领域国内安全保卫工作指导科、国内安全保卫案件侦察科(机动侦察大队)，反邪教侦察科。
The following internal document, a paper written by a local Domestic Security Officer from Shaoxing city, Zhejiang Province, was leaked into Chinese cyberspace recently, and reveals many details about how this secretive police force works day-to day at the local level to control Chinese society. The original passage is excerpted from a book entitled Collected Essays on Domestic Security that is circulated internally within the Domestic Security Department (DSD). CDT translated the selected text here; thanks to the translator who wishes to remain anonymous.
Internal Document of the Domestic Security Department of the Public Security: Follow the Path of Staying Close to the Masses; Strengthen the Foundation of the Domestic Security Department
走群众路线实国保根基
Yang Guangwei (Political Commisioner of Domestic Security Department [DSD] of the Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Public Security Bureau)
杨光伟（浙江省绍兴市公安局国保支队政委）
These last several years, the DSD system in our city has made it its number one priority to protect social and political stability. [The DSD system has] used “the experience at Fengqiao,”* which gave rise to the DSD’s work, as a powerful weapon to further the work of the DSD, persisted in its unmoving commitment of following the path of working with the masses, continued to strengthen the foundation of the DSD, powerfully promoted the healthy development of the DSD’s work, and effectively ensured the social and political stability of the city.
近年来，我市国保系统以维护社会政治稳定为第一责任，把源于政保工作的“枫桥经验”作为开展国保工作的有力武器，坚持走群众工作路线不动摇，进一步夯实国保基层基础，有力推动了国保工作的健康发展，有效确保了全市社会政治稳定。
I. Using the “Four Uniteds” to clarify the direction of working with the masses.
[We have striven to] use “the experience at Fengqiao” to organically integrate the four aims of grasping the actual situation, understanding development, understanding discipline, and accomplishing work goals. [We have striven to] locate the DSD work’s focus, difficulties, and points of integration so as to clarify the direction of the DSD’s foundational work of following the path of staying close to the masses.
A. Become united in spirit; clarify the direction of the work (omitted)
B. Become united in actual reality; clarify the focus of the work (omitted)
C. Become united in discipline; clarify the direction of development (omitted)
D. Become united in work goals; clarify work protocols (omitted)
一，以“四个结合”为内容，明确群众工作方向
把运用“枫桥经验”，把握现实形势，洞悉发展规律和实现工作目标四者有机结合起来，找准国保工作的重点，难点和结合点，从而明确国保基层基础工作“走群众路线”的大方向。
（一）结合精神实质，明确工作方向 (略)
（二）结合现实形势，明确工作重点 (略)
（三）结合发展规律，明确发展走向 (略)
（四）结合工作目标，明确工作步骤 (略)
II. Use the “Five Reliances” to create a mechanism for working with the masses
It has consistently been the DSD’s utmost priority to establish mechanisms to work with the masses, and to continually perfect these mechanisms through examination and through guidance. After several years of exploration and experience our city has basically developed a comprehensive and thorough scheme implemented in cities, counties and townships to correlate the work of the DSD with the masses.
二，以“五个依靠”为主线，打造群众工作机制
始终把建立群众工作机制作为国保工作的重中之重，并通过考核和指导不断完善。经过几年的探索和实践，我市基本形成了市，县，镇三级横向到边，纵向到底的国保群众工作机制体系。
A. Rely on the Party Committee and Government; perfect the leadership mechanisms
We proactively acted as intermediaries with the Party Committee and Government and actively sought their recognition and support. We established and perfected a mechanism called “Three Groups, Three Meetings, Three Reports.”
（一）依靠党委政府，完善领导机制
我们主动当好党委政府参谋，积极争取重视支持，建立完善了以“三组三会三报”为内容的国保工作上层机制：
(1) The “three groups” ensure organization between the work of the DSD and the work of ensuring social stability. The first group is the Party Committee and Government head leadership council. The Public Security Bureau branch leaders participate in the work of preserving social stability within the region. The next set of groups is the various specialized small leadership groups attended by those responsible within the DSD and organized by the top Party and government branch leadership. The final group conducts meetings involving the main leaders of the Party committee and government. Those responsible within the DSD participate in small groups that focus on preventing large mass incidents and punishing and trying those involved.
一是以“三组”为形式，确定国保工作和社会稳定工作的组织体制。首先是建立党委政府主要领导挂帅，公安分管领导参加的维稳工作领导小组组织，协调区域内的国保维稳工作；其次是建立由党委政府分管领导牵头，国保部门负责人参加的各种专门工作领导小组；再次是党委政府主要领导牵头，国保部门负责人参加的重大群体性事件防范和处置领导小组，开展对重大群体性事件的预防，研判和处置指挥工作。
(2) The “three meetings” refer to regularly scheduled domestic security report meetings, serious incident analysis meetings, and specialized work correlation meetings. These meetings ensure the timely communication of intelligence information and the correlation of command mechanisms. They also aid in ensuring the Party committee government leadership’s complete control over the direction and content of the DSD’s work. This in turn helps the Party committee government leadership understand and support the DSD’s actual work.
二是以国内安全形势定期报告会，重大情况分析会，专门工作协调会为形式，确保情报信息的及时沟通和指挥协调，也利于党委政府领导全面掌握国保部门的工作动向和工作内容，从而理解和支持国保部门的具体工作。
(3) The three reports refer to a system of reporting in which the head of the Public Security Bureau regularly reports to the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress on the periodic work of the DSD and the Government Stability Preservation Leading Group Office, a system of reporting in which DSD intelligence information is carried through executive channels, and a specialized system of reporting in which in specified circumstances, the DSD will use special channels to report directly to major leaders within the Party committee and government. In addition, in 2004, the municipal Party Secretary instructed DSD departments that certain specific intelligence information should be carried directly to him/her through specified confidential channels.
三是实行“三报”制度，即公安局长定期向常委会报告阶段性国保工作和维稳工作制度，通过行政渠道的国保情报信息例报制度和特定情况下由国保部门通过特殊途径直接送达党委政府主要领导的专报制度。2004年，市委书记还指示国保部门，对一些专门内容的情报信息可以通过特定的机要渠道直接送达其本人。
[To be continued]
* “The experience at Fengqiao” is a term coined in 1963 when Mao Zedong visited Zhuji City in Zhejiang province. Mao praised the local leaders for their ability to rely on the masses, diffuse contradictions, safeguard stability and ensure that “minor problems can be settled without going out of the village, major problems can be resolved without going out of the town and conflicts are not passed on to the leadership.”
(Image source: hedong.cn: DSD officers of Hedong region, Linyi City, Shandong Province.)
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- January 26, 2010 10:52 PM
Roger Cohen: A Woman Burns
New York Times columnist Roger Cohen visited Chengdu and met with Tang Huiqin, the older sister of Tang Fuzhen, who set herself on fire to protest the demolition of her family’s house and beatings of her family members by the local demolition squad:
“They were beating me, beating me, and I could hear my younger sister, on the highest part of the roof, screaming ‘Older sister, older brother, have you been beaten to death?’” Tang, 53, told me. “I could hear her voice but I had blacked out from the beating and could not speak.”
We were seated in the courtyard of Tang’s simple home, adjacent to her sister’s house, now reduced to rubble. Chickens strutted about. Tang had just emerged from the hospital. A large reddish scar cut across her forehead. She was nervous. It can be dangerous in China to speak out, to speak truth to power. Tang stood up and raised her shirt to reveal severe bruising all down her left flank.
Tears filled her eyes. She averted them. Her younger sister was called Tang Fuzhen. She’s dead now.
On that day, Nov. 13, as Tang Fuzhen yelled at the demolition brutes to stop the violence against her siblings, as she pleaded with them to leave her house intact, she doused herself three times in gasoline, saying she would set herself on fire, right there on the roof, if the beating of her family continued.
The blows continued to rain down and the self-immolation of Tang Fuzhen, 47, was added to the long list of victims of explosive Chinese development.
Read more about Tang Fuzhen here.
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- January 26, 2010 11:24 AM
Sim Chi Yin: Up Against the ‘Great Firewall’
From the The Malaysian Insider, (via Wandering China blog):
Each time Web portal executive Li (not his real name) receives an e-mail from his political masters telling him to remove certain posts and articles, he curses under his breath – and then immediately carries out the orders.
Heavy-handed – and tightening – censorship was a key reason cited by international cyber giant Google for possibly quitting China, the world’s largest Internet market.
But it is a daily reality for the thousands of fresh-faced Chinese who work in China’s “Silicon Valley”, Zhongguancun, in west Beijing.
Mostly graduates of top local universities, many struggle with the sort of “schizophrenia” Li professes to have – yearning for free flow of information but having to block an ever-growing list of “sensitive” words and content.
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- January 24, 2010 10:09 AM
“Looking Back at Those Years”: Yang Zili’s Memory Tweets
Siweiluozi’s blog has translated a series of tweets by writer Yang Zili, a founding member of the New Youth Study Group who spent eight years in prison on subversion charges. On Twitter, Yang has provided an account of his arrest, trial and his time in prison. From the third installment (Read also installments One and Two.):
13.
My interrogator asked me, “Why did you write this article?” “That’s the way I thought,” I answered. “Don’t I have freedom of thought and freedom of speech?” He answered: “As long as its in your mind, you have freedom of thought. As soon as you speak, it becomes action!” Looking at it this way, since the constitution says nothing about “freedom to breathe,” every breath I take must be illegal.
14.
After our first-instance trial opened in November 2001 we waited 1-1/2 years, then in came a woman from the court and her male assistant. “You’ve gained weight,” the woman said, laughing. “Have we met?” I asked, taken aback. “I’m the presiding judge in your trial,” she answered. All throughout, Judge [Bai Jun] was kind and considerate to us. Only after the sentence was handed down did I realize that even the most humane people in the criminal justice system were still machines.
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- January 22, 2010 11:17 AM