Police from Xinyu, in the southern province of Jiangxi, detained Liu for “inciting subversion of state power”, her lawyer, Zheng Jianwei, told Reuters, by telephone. The charge is often leveled against critics of the party.

Police could not be reached for comment.

Liu, who has also advocated on women’s rights issues, last year started demanding that officials disclose their assets, Zheng said. She took her campaign to the internet and to fellow Chinese.

Zheng said he did not know the exact reason for Liu’s detention, but added that he had warned her “to be aware of her actions” six months ago.

A fellow activist told Patrick Boehler of the South China Morning Post that Liu was one of eight people who were apprehended by unidentified men on April 27 as they prepared to travel to Suzhou to commemorate Peking University student who was executed during the Cultural Revolution for criticizing the Communist Party:

Two of the people detained along with Liu have been released, Jiang said. One of them, Li Xizhen, shared on her microblog photos of bruises from beatings she said she had sustained in police custody. Li could not be reached on the phone.

Liu’s daughter, Liao Minyue, who on her microblog has documented several unsuccessful requests for information on her mother’s fate, declined to comment for fear of harming her mother’s case.

“Because the law doesn’t require relatives to be notified for such charges, we actually don’t know how many people have been arrested and charged,” said Hangzhou-based lawyer Wang Cheng, who has previously helped Liu in legal matters.

He said he could so far only confirm that five people including Liu were still detained, but only the charges against Liu had been made known, he said.

Police in Beijing detained four activists in early April for holding up banners in a public square demanding that top government officials publicly declare their assets, and four more were detained later in the month for participating in the street campaign. The issue of financial disclosure has simmered since last year, when some officials at the 18th Party Congress told foreign reporters that they would be open to the idea as a way to curb corruption. It also became a popular Weibo topic after Global Times Chief Editor Hu Xijin addressed financial disclosure on his own microblog.

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The men arrested last week include Zhao Changqing, a democracy advocate who has been jailed several times in the past; Ding Jiaxi, a human rights lawyer; and two activists, Sun Hanhui and Wang Yonghong. All four are being held at Beijing No. 3 Detention Center, lawyers for the men said.

According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, the whereabouts of two other activists, Qi Yueying and Li Wei, were unknown on Friday.

Liang Xiaojun, a lawyer who represents several of those detained, said prison officials would allow him to see only one of the detainees, claiming that the others were still being interrogated by the police. “I doubt this case will go through normal procedures,” he said. “Can you imagine a trial for a group of activists who demanded that government officials disclose their assets? I don’t see that trial happening.”

Analysts say the crackdown on dissent, coupled with newly announced media restrictions and the absence of any new anticorruption initiatives, are gnawing away at any hopes that Mr. Xi will embrace the rule of law and clean government.

The issue of financial disclosure has simmered since last year, when some officials at the 18th Party Congress told foreign reporters that they would be open to the idea as a way to curb corruption. It also became a popular Weibo topic after Global Times Chief Editor Hu Xijin addressed financial disclosure on his own microblog.

One rights lawyer told Voice of America that the family of one of the activists, prominent human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, received official notice last Thursday that he had been detained the previous evening:

Li says the activists have been charged because of their participation in a street campaign calling on officials to disclose their assets.

“It’s hard to say what is going to happen. Administrative detention can be expanded up to 37 days,” he said. “Then there will be an investigation and then a trial. How long this all will take depends on how important they consider the case to be.”

Xu Zhiyong, another prominent rights lawyer in China, is founder of the New Citizens Movement – a group that seeks to promote social justice, political and legal reforms. He is being held under what he called “illegal house arrest” and spoke to VOA by phone Friday.

“Up until yesterday, eight people who advocate asset disclosure by officials have been detained,” he said. “They have been accused of illegal gathering, but we believe this is illegal, because citizens have the right to assemble and demonstrate freely.”

The latest round of detentions came just before Xi Jinping addressed a group of Politburo members last Friday about the country’s anti-corruption efforts, according to Xinhua News. In a South China Morning Post opinion piece published Monday, Chinese writer and journalist Xiao Shu claimed that Xi’s administration “is sending very contradictory signals about its commitment to the rule of law and the fight against corruption.”

What is the long-term interest of the Communist Party? I would argue that it is in leading China, by means of peaceful transformation, into democracy and national reconciliation. Look no further than Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui, the last two non-democratically elected presidents of Taiwan, who did exactly that for the island. Any other path would be not only self-destructive for the party, but also catastrophic for the whole nation. To transform themselves and transform China, the Communist rulers must open the door to civil movements that will usher in a civil society.

In this sense, activists like Xu Zhiyong, Wang Gongquan and Ding Jiaxi are not only heroes of civil movements, but also champions of public interest and allies of the Communist Party. In his push for the rule of law and war on corruption, Xi is coming up against the powerful special interest groups within his party, and has no chance of winning without soliciting the help of a strong civil society.

The persecution against these activists thus can be seen as an effort by the special-interest groups to sabotage Xi’s reforms. They were successful in the past 10 years, during the rule of Hu and Wen – the security apparatus launched a series of stifling blows against the burgeoning civil movements. In doing so, they also tamed and manipulated then top leaders including Hu and Wen, turning their “golden decade” into one of the biggest political jokes in modern Chinese history. Whether they will succeed again in Xi‘s time remains to be seen.

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Ma Gangquan, one of the lawyers, said the activists were dumbfounded by their treatment.

“Our leaders are the ones who came up with the ‘China Dream’ slogan, vowing to rule by law and to fight corruption,” said Mr. Ma, who represents Ma Xinli, 47, an employee in the logistics department of a Beijing bus company. “Their goal was simply to make his cause their own.”

Another lawyer, Ding Xikui, complained that the police bloodied the face of his client, Hou Xin, as they dragged her away.

Although it is unlikely that Mr. Xi and other top leaders were aware of the protest, rights advocates say the detentions, coupled with the recent harassment of other people fighting corruption, are a worrying sign that the leadership is determined to constrain any populist campaigning on an issue central to the president’s agenda.

A number of political activists have signed a petition in favor of the so-called “sunshine law,” according to Radio Free Asia, which spoke to the wife of one of the detained demonstrators:

“[The leadership], including Xi Jinping, is always talking about having officials declare their assets, but they’re all talk and no action,” Zhu said.

“And now that we citizens have taken this action, the police crack down on us,” she said. “We didn’t do anything destructive or violent; we just wanted to speak out.”

Online transparency campaigner Sun Hanhui said a number of rights lawyers have offered to defend the activists.

“Some lawyers have already agreed to represent and defend the case this morning,” Sun, who works in a law firm, said on Tuesday. “They are putting together a legal team, and eventually they will announce it.”

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Liang said his client, Yuan Dong, was taken into police custody along with three other activists for criminal investigation after they held banners in the Xidan Culture Square in Beijing’s Xicheng district on Sunday afternoon calling for greater disclosure of officials’ assets to improve the transparency of governance and combat official corruption.

Yuan, 45, was being held in the Beijing No3 Detention Centre along with two other activists, Zhang Baocheng and Ma Xinli, Liang said, but the whereabouts of the fourth activist, Hou Xin, was unknown.

Beijing police did not respond to an inquiry about the detentions yesterday.

The activists’ street campaign is part of a broader civil campaign launched in December calling for top government officials to declare their assets publicly to help fight rampant official corruption.

The issue has simmered since last year, when some officials at the 18th Party Congress told foreign reporters that they would be open to the idea as a way to curb corruption. It also became a popular Weibo topic after Global Times Chief Editor Hu Xijin addressed financial disclosure on his own microblog.

On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch urged the government to release the activists, calling the detentions “the harshest action yet against activists involved in a grass-roots campaign to press the government to honor its promise to fight corruption:”

“The detention of four anti-corruption activists calls into question President Xi Jinping’s commitment to get tough on graft,” said Sophie Richardson, China director, “The government’s treatment of these activists is a litmus test about whether Xi’s campaign to end China’s corruption epidemic is more than mere rhetoric and a few show cases.”

Police in Beijing arrested the activists – Hou Xin, Yuan Dong, Zhang Baocheng and Ma Xinli – on March 31, 2013. The four were displaying large banners with slogans such as “require officials to publicly disclose assets” and “unless we put an end to corrupt officials, the China Dream can only be daydreams.” The activists also gave a speech about the need to address corruption in Xidan Cultural Plaza in Beijing’s Xicheng District.

Police arrested them for “illegal assembly,” which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. Yuan, Zhang, and Ma are being held in Beijing’s No. 3 Detention Center, while Hou is in No. 1 Detention Center. Under Chinese law, anyone accused of a crime is entitled to a lawyer within 48 hours of being taken into police custody. The police may detain a person for 37 days before they are required to obtain permission from the prosecutor’s office for a formal arrest.

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The use of the controversial laojiao system will be tightly restricted, with lawmakers expected to approve its abolition this year, a top government legal adviser has confirmed.

Chen Jiping, deputy director of the China Law Society, said the changes to laojiao, or re-education through labor, announced at the national political and legal work conference on Jan 7, are imminent.

As part of discussions with legal experts from law societies nationwide about the major tasks, he said the closed-door conference had committed to reducing the use of the controversial punishment this year until the National People’s Congress, the top legislature, can entirely scrap the system.

AFP has more background on the system and recent public anger over its implementation:

It is another signal that the widely criticised system – where people can be sentenced to up to four years’ re-education by a police panel, without an open trial – is coming to an end.

The comments come after the Communist Party’s newly installed leader Xi Jinping said the organisation recognised as a “pressing problem” that it was “out of touch with the people”.

Opponents say the camps are used to silence government critics and would-be petitioners who seek to bring their complaints against officials to higher authorities.

Earlier this month reports emerged briefly that the system – known as laojiao – would be abolished, but they were swiftly deleted and replaced with predictions of reforms, with few details and no timetable.

Because of its use against dissidents and petitioners, human rights activists have expressed concern that the government has not yet explained if another form of “administrative detention” will replace laojiao. From a statement from Human Rights Watch:

Public outrage over RTL cases has grown in recent months, particularly about RTL punishments given to individuals who complain about the government and who express their opinions online, including Tang Hui, a mother sent to RTL in 2012 for complaining to the government about the rape of her young daughter. In 2012, a senior official responsible for judicial system reforms acknowledged that there was “consensus” for “reforming the RTL system.” Other recent government decisions, such as removing the head of the Ministry of Public Security as a permanent member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo in 2012, may also reflect central government awareness of public anger over the impunity enjoyed by the domestic security apparatus.

Over the summer of 2012, authorities announced a pilot scheme in four cities to test out reforms to the system. Little is known about these “reforms” except that the name of the system has been changed to “Education and Correction.” It is therefore unclear, after the government “stops using” the system, whether it will be reformed, abolished, or replaced by another administrative detention system with a different name.

Read more background about the re-education through labor system and recent cases that have generated public outrage, via CDT.

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Zhu’s wife, Zeng Qiulian, was taken by police to a hotel to meet him for two hours yesterday morning, his lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said. Zhu is being held at a secret location, he said.

“She said he looked okay … his hair and beard have grown very long because they have not been cut,” Liu said. Zeng’s mobile phone was switched off yesterday. Shaoyang police refused to comment.

[…] Since Zhu was detained, police have pressured his relatives to get him to sign a retraction of statements he made to the media that cast doubt on the official version of Li’s death.

Fellow activist Wang Lihong, who spoke to Zhu’s wife yesterday, said Zhu remained incarcerated because he refused to sign the retraction. But she and other activists would continue to press the authorities to release him before the Lunar New Year.

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Post tags: Article 73, criminal procedure law, detention, Hunan, li wangyang, Wang Lihong, Zhu Chengzhi
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Authorities in Shaoyang city in central Hunan province told family members of Zhu Chengzhi, 62, last Friday that he would be put under “residential surveillance” under “Article 73″, Zhu’s wife, Zeng Qiulian, told Reuters by telephone on Monday. Article 73 legalizes detaining people in secret.

[…] Article 73 legalizes a practice that began in earnest in 2011. Fearing that anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world could inspire challenges to Communist rule, the government unlawfully held dozens of activists, including artist Ai Weiwei, for weeks or months in secret detention.

[…] Police had charged Zhu with “incitement to subvert state power” after he posted photos online following the death of his friend, Li Wangyang, who was found in a hospital ward in Shaoyang, his neck tied with a noose made from cotton bandages.

Authorities said it was suicide – a verdict that angered thousands of scholars, lawyers and activists.

See more on Li’s case via CDT. Zhu had already been held for over six months since his detention on June 9th, days after Li’s death. A fuller account of Zhu’s story is available at the Dui Hua Human Rights Journal:

Public criticism over the “disappearance clauses” may have ultimately contributed to some salutary changes to the legislation, including the removal of exemptions for providing notification of residential surveillance (but not carrying out residential surveillance in a designated residence). Under the revised CPL, which took effect on January 1, 2013, police are thus required to give notice to relatives within 24 hours of all individuals being subjected to “non-residential residential surveillance.” This limits the ability of police to make an individual disappear without a trace, but the practice of non-residential residential surveillance remains deeply problematic, even though its inclusion in the CPL has given it a veneer of legitimacy.

This situation is illustrated by the case of Zhu Chengzhi, who, according to Zhu’s defense lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, is likely to be the first person in China to be placed in this form of residential surveillance (the number of the notice issued by local police is “A01”) since the new CPL took effect earlier this month. Zhu, age 62, was detained in June 2012 by police in Shaoyang, Hunan, after he allegedly disseminated information that raised doubts about local authorities’ official finding of suicide in the death of his friend and long-time political prisoner Li Wangyang (李旺阳). After reportedly refusing to sign a guarantee that he would cease his efforts to draw attention to suspicions surrounding Li’s death, Zhu was placed under criminal detention on suspicion of “inciting subversion,” charges for which he was formally arrested on July 25, 2012.

After five months of incommunicado detention, Zhu’s case was transferred to prosecutors on December 25. On January 4 (the first day of business for Chinese government offices following the New Year’s Day holiday), Zhu’s wife, Zeng Qiulian, retained Liu Xiaoyuan to represent her husband. That same day, the Shaoyang People’s Procuratorate handed the case back to police for additional investigation, and police decided to place Zhu under residential surveillance and delivered an official notification (translated below) to his wife.

See more on the controversy over Article 73 and other CPL amendments via CDT, including reactions from cartoonists and weibo users.

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Lobsang Gendun, a 29-year-old Tibetan monk self-immolated in Golog Pema Dzong at around 7:45 pm (local time). He succumbed to his injuries at the site of his protest.

[…] “According to eyewitnesses, Lobsang Gendun had his hands clasped in prayers as he raised slogans while engulfed in flames,” Tsangyang said. “He walked a few steps towards a busy road intersection and then fell to the ground.”

Following the self-immolation protest, a minor scuffle broke out between local Tibetans and Chinese security personnel, who tried to confiscate Lobsang Gendun’s body.

[…] Security has been heightened in the region following today’s fiery protest.

The total of 92 excludes five self-immolations carried out in India and Nepal and two disputed cases in Sichuan.

At LinkAsia, Yul Kwon discussed the situation with historian Tsering Shakya. The crackdown on self-immolations has only spurred further protests, he explained, adding to a list of grievances including the relegation of Tibetan language to secondary status in schools.

Click here to view the embedded video.

At Foreign Policy, Oxford sociologist Michael Biggs examined the history and logic of suicide protests, in contrast with suicide attacks. He concludes:

So far, the recent wave of Tibetan immolations has not yielded any tangible political success. Repression has only increased in the Tibetan areas of China, and expressions of sympathy from the majority Han population within China are rare. Western public opinion, which already favored the Tibetan cause, has no means of exercising leverage over China. But it is too soon to assess the consequences of these immolations. Gauging their effect on Tibetans within China is effectively impossible given the degree of repression.

What we can predict is that suicide protest will continue. Its communicative logic is no less potent than the suicide attack’s sanguinary logic — and it is more readily carried out. A suicide bombing requires organization, coordination, and technical skills to prepare explosives. In conflict zones like Afghanistan, the attacker also needs assistance to reach what are often fortified targets. Suicide protest does not require organization. There is no defense against the practice, short of the total suppression of information. Where information about suicide protest can be suppressed completely, there is hardly any reason to perform it. In today’s world, the totalitarian control formerly exercised by the Soviet Union or Maoist China is no longer feasible, at least for a country participating in the global economy. For evidence, look no further than China’s inability to prevent us from reading about — and in some cases even watching — the immolations in Tibet.

This may risk underestimating the effectiveness of China’s suppression of information, however. While news of over 90 cases has escaped Tibet to date, its impact appears to have been substantially dampened by the difficulty of independent verification. The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts and McClatchy’s Tom Lasseter were able to reach Aba in February, but restrictions on foreign reporters have generally held firm, with coverage of the protests often muted as a result. Madeline Earp of the Committee to Protect Journalists viewed this near-blackout through the lens of Jigme Gyatso’s unknown whereabouts. The monk and filmmaker’s assistant has been missing since mid-September, and was presumed detained until local authorities publicised an award for his capture, accusing him of manslaughter.

Let’s concentrate […] on what we do know about Jigme Gyatso. After his initial arrest for making the film, he reported being tortured in Chinese prison. Radio Free Asia has reported he lost consciousness due to beatings, and was prodded in the face with electric batons. Publicizing that led to his re-arrest, according to CPJ research. Twice, authorities have moved him from a monastery where he lived, once in 2009, and again in 2012, when they razed his home, Radio Free Asia reported. This man has undergone unrelenting harassment since he collaborated with Dhondup Wangchen. An arrest order issued against him is a deeply troubling sign. Either he is already in secret detention, and this order is meant as a belated justification. Or, he is really missing–and there is nothing good waiting for him once he is found.

As long as foreign journalists are prevented from independent travel to Tibet, and reporting by Tibetans themselves remains criminalized, there is simply no way to get to the bottom of mysteries like these. And that is untenable. Twenty-seven Tibetans said so this month in the only way they believe they have left: They set themselves on fire, leaving messages calling for the return of the exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama. Self-immolation, too, is now a criminal offense, as is documenting or caring for the body of anyone who does, Human Rights Watch reports. The urgent need to find out what has happened to Jigme Gyatso reflects a broader need to restore freedom of information to Tibetans in order to stop this awful tide of protest by those who contest Chinese rule. This is a story that cannot be suppressed any longer.

Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile, discussed the prospects for change with The Globe and Mail’s Stephanie Nolen. He explained his views on the legitimacy of the protests and the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, and expressed his hope that Tibetans could reach an “equilibrium” of contented autonomy within China, analogous to Quebec’s status within Canada. This Middle Way of eschewing demands for independence has come under increased fire as the self-immolations have surged.

Q. How are you feeling about the new leadership in Beijing, installed at the 18th Congress of the Communist Part a few weeks ago, and what do you think it may mean for Tibet?

A. I think it’s too early to say. Of the seven leaders, most of them are in their mid-60s. … So in the 19th Congress there will be more wholesale changes – the 18th Congress is a continuation of the same people from the 16th and 17th. So if you are really looking for real changes you have to wait for the 19th. The likelihood of continuing the same policy is high. Particularly the fact that some of the more “liberal” people, who are of younger age and more open-minded, were not included … We might get some hint when Xi Jinping takes over the presidency in March of next year … He will give a speech and that’s where he will indicate his line of thinking. Otherwise it’s so opaque.

Q. The Dalai Lama has suggested he is optimistic about Mr. Xi Jinping, perhaps because he had a warm relationship with Mr. Xi’s father.

A. Optimism is too strong. As a human being you should always remain hopeful. Optimism you have some basis for. Xi Jinping is the son of [former Chinese deputy premier] Xi Zhongxun, who received His Holiness in Beijing in 1954 and was with His Holiness many times, and His Holiness gave him a watch that he kept even during the Cultural Revolution and after. They took a picture and Xi Zhongxun saved it … so it seems the [warm feeling towards the Dalai Lama] was genuine … Xi Zhongxun also had a close relationship with the late Panchen Lama … and he would tell him, ‘Have patience, don’t get angry, things will take time to change.’

See more on the self-immolations via CDT.

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Post tags: Aba, Committee to Protect Journalists, Dalai Lama, detention, jonathan watts, journalists conditions, Lobsang Sangay, reincarnation, self-immolations, suicide bombing, suicides, Tibet, Tibetan language
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Allowing reporters to visit Beijing No 1 and 2 detention centres was a surprising move by public security officials, who usually avoid foreign media. But it was only a tiny glimpse of the highest quality facilities in the country.

Nicholas Bequelin, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said there was no doubt the facilities were the country’s best, but added: “It does tell you something: it means this is what the government sees it should be doing … I don’t think China is building model detention centres just to fool the international community.”

[…] But John Kamm of Dui Hua, which advocates for political and religious prisoners and monitors developments in the criminal justice system, pointed out that not everyone was held in a detention centre: those put under residential surveillance were held in “guest houses” run by the Public Security Bureau. Last year, several of those held under such conditions during a crackdown on activists and lawyers, subsequently described being tortured.

In August, lawyer Zhang Yansheng recounted his own visit to a client in a Guangdong detention centre, and complained that conditions inside prevented him from offering effective legal counsel. In addition to residential surveillance, black jails and house arrests, there is also the notorious shuanggui system reserved for Party members, in which Bo Xilai now appears to be held and retired Hunan official Wang Zhongping died under disputed circumstances late last month.

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Interference is not limited to high-profile cases, however, and is not always so aggressive. At Caixin, criminal defence lawyer Zhang Yansheng recalls advising a client through a frosted plastic partition, which blocked effective communication for much of their meeting.

As a professional criminal defense lawyer, I have been to detention centers everywhere. They are of course all different, but at a recent visit with an inmate, we were separated by pane of frosted glass.

[…] It has been more than a month since I came back from Foshan City, but I just can’t wipe that blurred face and muddy voice from my memory. A colleague laughed at me by saying, “You were not there on a date. What does it matter that you didn’t see the person’s face?”

But yes, we are often forced reluctantly to work under such conditions and people much too often accept it as normal. But has anyone thought about how many wrong verdicts have come about because of such tough conditions? How many have lost their lives unjustly because of these restrictions?

In the detention center, ripping away those plastic boards and replacing them with steel bars would have transformed the way the lawyers meet their clients and would have made the meeting much more productive. Effective communication would be beneficial to the criminal proceedings themselves, but would also show criminal suspects that they are fairly treated. Would the detention center ever think to allow that?

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Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Bo Xilai, Chen Guangcheng, criminal rights, detention, Foshan, gu kailai, Guangdong, Jerome cohen, lawyers, legal defense, legal system, Liu Xiaoyuan, pu zhiqiang
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“If Gu were not charged with economic crimes, Bo won’t face too huge a problem,” said Beijing-based lawyer Pu Zhiqiang . “The high-ups want to see an uncomplicated and quick ending.”

The source, who was part of the prosecution team and spoke on the condition on anonymity, described the suspect as “gracious” and “relaxed” during questioning.

“Gu told investigators everything she could remember and, as for those accusations about which she couldn’t remember clearly, she asked the investigators to go ahead and write up anything they’d like to.”

The source also said that the only physical evidence prosecutors obtained in their investigation was a piece of Heywood’s heart removed by former police Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun before his body was hastily cremated in November without an autopsy.

Thursday will mark “the most anticipated trial in China since the Gang of Four took the stand in 1981,” according to Kathrin Hille and Sally Gainsbury of The Financial Times, who write that Bo’s fate remains the big storyline amid an all-but-certain guilty verdict for Gu:

“The key question in this case is whether the verdict will mention Bo Xilai and make this case openly political,” said Yu Hui, a lawyer familiar with Chongqing. “There have been such fierce internal party struggles about this.”

In one way, the Bo saga brings the party back in time. In 1981, the Gang of Four – Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing and three other party members – were found guilty of persecuting hundreds of thousands during the Cultural Revolution.

As was the case after the death of Mao, the Chinese leadership has an interest in limiting the damage to the party from the case of Mr Bo who partly built his quest for power on a renaissance of Cultural Revolution-era Maoist policies.

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Li had been petitioning authorities for years to investigate the death of her son, who died suddenly in 2006 and was quickly cremated, Liu said. She never saw her son’s dead body.

She had wanted to enter Hong Kong to petition her cause at a march held to mark the anniversary of Britain’s 1997 handover of the territory back to China, Liu added.

Li was subsequently held in a hotel room in Hebei province in northeast China weeks later and, when her guards were dozing, the relatives sneaked her out of the building, Liu Weiping, a spokesman for the alliance, said late on Thursday.

“On July 17, at around 5:00 a.m., she managed to escape her hotel room with help from her relatives. They (police) are now pressuring her family to hand her over,” Liu said.

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Post tags: activists, detention, dissidents, Hong Kong, Li Guizhi
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Those missing include a butcher, a car mechanic, a restaurant manager, a bus driver, a street fruit vendor, a chef, a student, a recent university graduate, a chef/musician, and a recent graduate of a forest design school. Only 19 of these families have allowed their names to be made public. All fear retaliation by the authorities.

It is likely that this group of families is just a small portion of those with disappeared relatives.

…

Wang Mingshan, the chief of the Urumqi Public Security Department, is reported to have said he had received 300 requests from families for help in locating relatives.

According to one family member, there are more than two hundred families in one county in Hotan prefecture alone with disappeared relatives. Many of these families have been afraid to come forward out of fear of retribution by the authorities. For many families, the financial burden of travelling to Urumqi and Beijing is considerable, nevertheless many have made repeated trips in their hunt for information.

Instead of assistance from the authorities, many family members describe years of threats, intimidation, and even detention for petitioning the authorities and searching for information. The families who came forward publicly with their stories in interviews with Radio Free Asia describe intensified surveillance, threats, and orders to stop speaking to overseas groups.

Amnesty’s director for the Asia-Pacific told Reuters that repression in Xinjiang is “particularly pronounced”. In a Wall Street Journal piece published on Monday, World Uyghur Congress head Rebiya Kadeer wrote that Xinjiang “has become a second Tibet” in the years since the protests:

There is cause for concern that the third anniversary of the Urumqi clashes will further cement China’s existing policies. In anticipation of protests, the Chinese authorities have already announced that the temporary residence permits enabling workers from the countryside to remain in Urumqi have been revoked. Every day there are fresh reports of Chinese police raids on Uighur schools and other religious and cultural institutions.

Just as Beijing persecutes Christians and Falun Gong followers, it has tried to eliminate the Islamic religion which the majority of Uighurs adhere to. Last month, a 12-year-old boy was killed at an Islamic school that Chinese authorities deemed illegal. To add insult to injury, China defends this discrimination as necessary to fight Islamic extremism.

Last year in early July, Beijing declared that the situation in Xinjiang was “good and stable.” A fortnight later, 14 people were killed in the town of Khotan after police opened fire on protesters. Since the root cause of Uighur anguish is China’s determination to control our region permanently, it follows that stability can only grow from the barrel of a gun.

For many years, I have campaigned for Uighur freedom. I have also worked to develop and advance Uighur society. Just before I was incarcerated in a Chinese prison for six years, my main project involved assisting Uighur women to run their own businesses, just as I had done. My experiences brought me to the conclusion that Uighurs will only taste democracy when the outside world understands that there is a moral and strategic imperative to curb China’s brutal reign.

Also this week, Chinese state media reported that two Uyghurs died in custodyafter they and four others allegedly attempted to hijack a plane bound for Urumqi on June 29. Read more about Xinjiang and the Uighur ethnic group, via CDT.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: detention, Uyghurs, World Uyghur Congress, Xinjiang
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I often ask myself if I am afraid of being detained again. My inner voice says I am not. I love freedom, like anybody; maybe more than most people. But it is such a tragedy if you live your life in fear. That’s worse than actually losing your freedom.

[…] Reflect on Bo Xilai’s case, Chen Guangcheng’s and mine. We are three very different examples: you can be a high party member or a humble fighter for rights or a recognised artist. The situations are completely different but we all have one thing in common: none of us have been dealt with through fair play, open trials and open discussion. China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm.

I’m just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I’m thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me. It gives me hope: Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. They can delay that freedom but they can’t stop it.

Ai’s one year probation has now been lifted, according to Edward Wong at The New York Times:

“They told me they had lifted the probation because I had behaved well all year,” he said in a telephone interview as he was dining at a restaurant in Beijing’s Sanlitun neighborhood. “It really surprised me because I violated almost every rule they imposed.”

Before Mr. Ai was released from detention last year, the police said he had to refrain from talking to foreign journalists and could not use Twitter. But Mr. Ai regularly talks to journalists and uses Twitter daily.

Mr. Ai said the police did not give him back his passport. “You don’t need it,” Mr. Ai quoted one officer as saying. The officer then said that on Monday the police would return the passport and computer equipment they had seized.

Despite the promised return of his passport, Ai has been told that he still may not leave China as he may face charges of pornography, bigamy and illicit exchange of foreign currency, as Reuters’ Sui-Lee Wee explains. The pornography charges revolve around images, posted online “as a joke”, of Ai posing naked with a group of women. When the threat of prosecution first emerged late last year, supporters posted a barrage of nude photos online, while the original images sparked further controversy by tripping Facebook’s nudity alarms.

“We never even touched each other,” Ai said. “It’s nothing. Nobody will say that’s pornography. I asked them why this is pornography. They said under our policy, if there’s nudity, if people try to open a file many times, like over 1,000 times, that’s pornography. They have a law like that, which is ridiculous.”

Ai, who is married, also denies the charge of bigamy. He openly meets a girlfriend and has a three-year-old son from that relationship.

On the possible charge of “illicit exchange of foreign currency”, Ai said police told him that it concerned a project in 2008, when he invited 100 foreign architects to Inner Mongolia and arranged for a Swiss gallery to pay them in euros, while he got yuan currency in return.

Last July, Ai accepted a visiting lecturer post at the Berlin University of Arts, even knowing that once outside China, he might be unable to return. The continued bar on international travel will postpone this still further, but Ai may in any case now be less inclined to take the attendant risk. He told The Telegraph‘s Malcolm Moore recently that “’it has never been important to stay, until now …. When I went to New York in 1981, I vowed never to come back.’ But he has now become so emotionally involved, and has such faith in the twin powers of the internet and globalisation to change China, that he cannot bring himself to leave.”

The expiration of Ai’s probation coincided with a hearing in his lawsuit against local tax authorities, whose case against him, he claims, was riddled with procedural irregularities. Ai was prevented from attending the hearing. His legal advisor Liu Xiaoyuan went missing, and was then forced to leave Beijing; potential supporters were placed under watch and, in Hu Jia’s case, reportedly beaten; posts about Ai including some memorable photos of him posing in a police uniform were removed from Sina Weibo; and in the courtroom itself, his lawyers were prevented from giving evidence, while all public seating was filled with paid attendees to keep supporters out. From NPR’s Louisa Lim:

On Wednesday, a Beijing court heard Ai’s challenge to tax authorities demanding almost $2.5 million in back taxes. Ai was ordered to stay home, so he missed the eight-hour-long hearing. He said the court did not allow his lawyers to read the existing evidence, submit new evidence or call witnesses. Ai noted the irony of a public hearing in which the defendant wasn’t allowed to attend and the public seats — all five of them — were occupied by people paid to be there.

“Those five seats they assigned to their own people,” he said. “After three hours, these five people, they completely have no interest in case. They ask can they leave, ‘We didn’t know it would last for so long.’ And the court tells them that no, you cannot leave, you have to stay here until the case finishes and we’ll pay extra money for it. So they just take a nap in the court.”

So far, there has been no verdict from the hearing.

Update: Ai gave CNN a pessimistic and disheartened interview on his legal battle:

“I feel very sad, very miserable, actually,” he said in an interview Friday with CNN at his studio in Beijing.

[…] He said more than forty police cars and hundreds of officers surrounded his home. “You just cannot go, if you try, you cannot make it,” he claimed the police told him. Public buses were also prevented from stopping in the area of the court,” he added.

“They use the tax case to crush me but they don’t want me to show up because…all facts can be revealed.” Ai likened the court proceedings to a “very bad play” and said he was feeling “very discouraged” and “powerless.”

“The outcome is very clear. The court works for the police; the tax bureau also works for the police; the police is becoming a superpower in China…And they decide everything because we have a policy: it’s called ‘maintain stability’…But what is stability? Is it stability of the nation? Or of the people? Or stability of the controller?”

In another interview for the BBC, Ai also expressed his disappointment at the extension of the ban on international travel:

“My feelings are very mixed,” he said. “They told me I cannot leave the nation. I asked them for how long and they said: ‘We cannot answer you’. It seems very disappointing.”

The artist said he would like to go to both the UK and the US later in the year for work, but did not know whether it would be possible.

“It comes as a surprise they will not let me travel, because you cannot give somebody freedom and say there are strings attached,” he said.

While the inability to travel abroad for his work is clearly a source of frustration, Reuters’ Mike Collett-White writes that the overall effects of the government’s restrictions on Ai’s career are somewhat mixed. On one hand, his absence increases his allure among Western collectors; on the other, political sensitivities appear to have dampened enthusiasm among the Chinese collectors who have driven up other artists’ prices.

There is little doubt Ai’s outspoken views and subsequent travails have placed him at the “high table” of contemporary art in the West, although many of his works are not overtly political and their conceptual nature limits their market value.

“In terms of his impact, it makes him an even more important artist,” said Anders Petterson, head of ArtTactic which analyses trends in the art market, commenting on the latest headlines.

[…] While significant, Ai’s commercial value pales in comparison to other Chinese contemporary artists, and prices for his works have not skyrocketed in the same way. Before this year, his auction record stood at $657,000 for “Chandelier” set in 2007.

By comparison, the contemporary Chinese auction high is held by Zhang Xiaogang, whose “Forever Lasting Love” sold for just over $10 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in April 2011.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Bo Xilai, Chen Guangcheng, courts, detention, Hu Jia, legal system, Liu Xiaoyuan, pornography, tax evasion
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Membership in the Chinese Communist Party has many advantages. Officials often enjoy government-issued cars, bottomless expense accounts and the earning potential from belonging to a club whose members control every lever of government and many of the nation’s most lucrative enterprises.

There is, however, one serious downside. When party members are caught breaking the rules — or even when they merely displease a superior — they can be dragged into the maw of an opaque Soviet-style disciplinary machine, known as “shuanggui,” that features physical torture and brutal, sleep-deprived interrogations.

[…] Few who have been pulled into the system emerge unscathed, if they emerge at all. Over the last decade, hundreds of officials have committed suicide, according to accounts in the state news media, or died under mysterious circumstances during months of harsh confinement in secret locations. Once interrogators obtain a satisfactory confession, experts say, detainees are often stripped of their party membership and wealth. Select cases are handed over to government prosecutors for summary trials that are closed to the public.

“The word shuanggui alone is enough to make officials shake with fear,” said Ding Xikui, a prominent defense lawyer here.

Last year, the Dui Hua Foundation translated an account, cited in Jacobs’ article, of a blogger’s visit to a shuanggui facility (via CDT). The introduction to the translation noted that “sadly, acceptance of shuanggui seems to have seeped into international human rights circles and resulted in a dearth of relevant research and advocacy. While stamping out corruption is a worthy cause, it by no means warrants extra-legal detention, torture, or lack of transparency and rule of law.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, CCP, corrupt officials, corruption, detention, forced confessions, party discipline, Shuanggui, torture
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