First off, you’ll see that the two offenses involve different sorts of behavior: “organizing, plotting, or carrying out” subversive acts on the one hand versus “inciting others” to do so “by spreading rumors or slanders or any other means.” In other words, “subversion” is primarily an offense of association or concrete action—the individual must be personally involved with actions designed to lead to overthrow of the political system—whereas “inciting subversion” is an offense of expression in which the danger lies in the alleged potential for that expression to lead others to want to overthrow the political system.

As a rule of thumb, then, individuals involved in any kind of organization like the China Democracy Party or the New Youth Study Society will most likely be charged with subversion. Individuals who have published articles critical of the government are usually punished with inciting subversion. Unfortunately, that distinction doesn’t alway hold in practice (a point to which I’ll return below) ….

The problem is that the offenses of “subversion” and “inciting subversion” were written into law before the Internet came along and destroyed the clear distinction between speech and association. Many Internet cases involve a combination of association and expression. If I post articles advocating the need for an opposition party to a group of people in a chat room, is that organization or incitement? If my articles focus more on the structure or goals of my opposition party, then it might be argued that I’m organizing a subversive group. If my articles focus more on criticizing the tyranny of one-party rule, then it could very likely be construed as incitement.

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Post tags: China Democracy Party, criminal law, legal system, new youth study group, sentencing, subversion
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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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Post tags: dissidents, new youth study group, political prisoners, Yang Zili
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Li’s life embodies the moral shades of gray in China, and how the same person can be both participant and victim in a society where walls have ears.

In the communist heyday of the ’60s and ’70s, colleagues, neighbors, even family members informed on each other. In today’s freer, wealthier China, informing on others is much less common. Yet in a one-party authoritarian state, police can still bring tremendous pressure on people to inform, offering to boost or wreck careers and making it hard to say “no.”

Zhang Honghai, one of the people Li helped send to jail, said he still puzzles over Li’s choices.

“I don’t know. Money? Patriotism?” said Zhang, who was freed in March after eight years in prison. “People are complicated and Li is more complicated than most.”

For more background on the case of Zhang Honghai and his three friends, and Li’s role in their imprisonment, read this article from the Washington Post in 2004.

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Post tags: exiles, informants, new youth study group, political prisoners, thailand, Yang Zili
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Many of Liu Shui’s writings (in Chinese) are available here. One of his most recent articles includes an interview with family members of the New Youth Study Group, four young men who are serving long sentences for their Internet writings on political and social reforms. He also wrote in support of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of women whose relatives were killed in the June 4, 1989 military crackdown.

Photo courtesy of boxun.com

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Post tags: dissidents, liu shui, new youth study group
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