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China news tagged with: Xu Zhiyong (26)

• Tax Case against Xu Zhiyong/OCI Dismissed

  

  The Chinese Law Prof Blog translates a blog post by Xu Zhiyong which announces that the case against his Open Constitution Initiative on tax evasion charges has been dropped:

  On Aug. 21, 2010, in the afternoon, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau decided to dismiss the case of suspected tax evasion against Gongmeng Company [i.e., Xu's organization, known in English as the Open Constitution Initiative] on the grounds that Gongmeng Company had paid the fine. The PSB returned the company account books as well as other confiscated materials. At the same time, the release on bail of Zhuang Lu and Xu Zhiyong was dissolved [i.e., they are free unconditionally and not just out awaiting trial].

  To date, the court has not accepted Gongmeng Company’s case over its disputed legal status. But whatever Gongmeng Company’s legal status, we citizens will continue just as before to promote the establishment and growth of civil society.

  Read more about the case via CDT.

  » Read more
  • September 3, 2010 3:25 PM

• Xu Zhiyong, et al: “The Chinese Citizens’ Pledge”

  

  ChinaGeeks translates a pledge written by Xu Zhiyong, Teng Biao, Wang Gongquan, Li Xiongbing, Li Fangping, Xu Youyu, and Zhang Shihe, which is being circulated online. The drafters are asking people to sign it here:

  Whereas democratic politics have already become the consensus of the people, the rule of law has been written into the constitution and forms the bedrock of the nation’s blueprint; and whereas nearly-omnipresent corruption and “special privileges” damage the rule of law; whereas building, supporting, and even defending the rule of law and changing social conduct to create belief in the rule of law requires an overwhelming number of rational citizens of undertake the cause; to those Chinese citizens searching for justice and the rule of law: resolve to mutually abide by the principles of conscience, duty, democracy, the rule of law and the concept of the “modern citizen”; protect the people’s rights and livelihoods, promote good laws and leaders. For the sake of a modern nation by the people, for the people, and of the people; for the sake of justice, love of one’s fellow man, and a happy civil society; for the sake of the future of the Chinese people under civilization and the rule of law, be willing to toil and to pay to build the foundation and the way forward.

  » Read more
  • June 21, 2010 10:38 PM

• Kerry Brown: China’s Shadow Sector: Power in Pieces

  

  Kerry Brown is an associate fellow on the Asia programme, Chatham House. He is the author of Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century (2007), The Rise of the Dragon: Inward and Outward Investment in China in the Reform Period 1978-2007 (2008) and Friends and Enemies: The Past, Present and Future of the Communist Party of China (2009). He writes on the OpenDemocracy.net:

  I spent the month of August 2009 travelling around China and looking at the state of democracy (in the sense of “village elections”), the rule of law, and civil society. It was a sobering experience full of disturbing revelations.

  There was an auspicious moment on the very day of my arrival, when Xu Zhiyong – who heads Gongmeng (Open Constitution Initiative), a small legal-aid NGO – was detained for “non-payment of taxes” (the grey zone in which independent NGOs exist in China means that this charge is often a convenient pretext for official persecution). Xu Zhiyong was released on 23 August, but may still face prosecution. The pattern of harassment is consistent: on 12 August a court case involving the environmental activist Tan Zuoren in the southwestern city of Chengdu was conducted so badly that his lawyer burst into tears.

  Ai Weiwei – the designer of Beijing’s Olympic stadium (the “Bird’s Nest”) and one of China’s most prominent intellectuals – had travelled to Chengdu hoping to testify on Tan Zuoren’s behalf, but to no avail. There was a chilling sequel: Ai was rewarded for his efforts by having his hotel door hammered on in the middle of the night, then – when he opened it to see what was going on – being punched senseless.

  » Read more
  • September 15, 2009 5:39 AM

• Chinese Activists Released

  

  From Reuters:

  A pioneering Chinese legal rights advocate, who had been detained for more than three weeks and accused of tax evasion, was released on Sunday but might still face prosecution, he and his lawyers said.

  Xu Zhiyong, co-founder of the Open Constitution Initiative, or Gongmeng, had been out of contact since he was seized from his home by security officials at dawn on July 29.

  Xu, surrounded by friends and supporters after his release, said: “I think this outcome was the result of pressuring and urging from many friends and many quarters. We’ll have to see what it means, and we can’t entirely exclude the possibility of prosecution. But if that happens, I’ll defend myself vigorously.”

  Zhou Ze, one of Xu’s attorneys, said the investigation might continue.

  Update: The New York Times reports that Xu’s colleague Zhuang Lu was also released, as was Uighur writer Ilham Tohti:

  Chinese authorities unexpectedly released three political activists from detention on Sunday, including one whose case had drawn worldwide attention.

  Officials offered no reason for the releases, but they occurred one day after the new American ambassador to China, the former Utah governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr., arrived in Beijing.

  [...] Beijing authorities also released Ilham Tohti, an economist, Internet activist and ethnic Uighur who had been detained after deadly riots erupted in western Xinjiang region in early July.

  Mr. Tohti, 39, ran a Web site called Uighur Online, a popular forum for ethnic Uighurs, who live mostly in Xinjiang, to discuss issues important to them. After the July rioting, Xinjiang’s governor, Nur Bekri, charged that the site had helped foment the violence by spreading rumors.

  » Read more
  • August 23, 2009 3:04 AM

• Assistant To Pioneering Chinese Rights Lawyer ‘Disappears’

  

  From guardian.co.uk:

  Almost no one in China has heard of Zhuang Lu, which is hardly surprising. Plainly dressed and introverted, the 27-year-old office assistant completed her mundane daily tasks – booking tickets, paying bills – with minimum fuss. Then, three weeks ago, she disappeared.

  Family and colleagues believe she is being held in a detention house in Beijing. Like her boss Xu Zhiyong, a prominent human rights lawyer who has fought a string of high-profile cases, she was taken from her home at dawn on 29 July by security officials. But unlike Xu’s detention, which has made headlines internationally, her disappearance has gone unnoticed outside her immediate circle.

  “Information about her has always been out. But because the main focus has been on Xu, not many people have noticed her case,” said their colleague Yang Huawei.

  » Read more
  • August 21, 2009 7:14 PM

• Can Words Set Xu Free?

  

  From Forbes:

  Do words really matter?

  Candidate Barack Obama famously told Hillary Clinton that they do, and now we are about to find out exactly how much the president and secretary of state’s words — and those of the new U.S. ambassador to China — matter to the Chinese government on human rights.

  The Chinese government is in the midst of its most repressive crackdown on lawyers in the seven years since Hu Jintao took the helm of the Communist Party, forcing Obama administration officials to confront an issue they would rather have kept in the background before the president’s first visit to China in November.

  This week police formally arrested Xu Zhiyong, a highly respected legal scholar and elected legislator from the mainstream of China’s legal rights movement, on dubious tax-evasion charges related to his legal services non-governmental organization, Gongmeng, which the government also shut down.

  » Read more
  • August 21, 2009 5:46 AM

• Xu Zhiyong Charged Amid Crackdown

  

  The New York Times reports that Xu Zhiyong has been formally charged with tax evasion:

  Mr. Xu, 36, is a founder of the Open Constitution Initiative, known in Chinese as Gongmeng, a nonprofit group that often has taken on high-profile cases involving ordinary citizens’ civil rights. The government shut down the organization’s legal center on July 17, three days after accusing it of tax violations, and the police seized Mr. Xu on July 29.

  In an interview on Tuesday, his attorney, Zhou Ze, said Mr. Xu was formally charged on Aug. 12. Mr. Xu could face seven years in prison if he is tried and convicted. The prosecutors now must seek an indictment, but that is widely considered a formality.

  The government’s main accusation is that Mr. Xu’s group failed to pay taxes on a $100,000 grant from Yale that was earmarked for the legal center. But human-rights advocates and foreign political analysts are agreed that the charges are politically inspired, part of what seems to be a growing effort by security officials to shut down independent advocacy and especially advocacy that is supported with foreign funds.

  See also “Why have they taken citizen Xu?” from Chinayouren:

  There has been some speculation on the net – especially on Chinese official media – about whether Xu’s NGO really had taxes unpaid and why. This discussion is completely beside the point, unless the Global Times explains that it is normal to be abducted 3 weeks for a first-time, minor tax offense. No, the real reason why Xu has been arrested can be understood in this Xinhua article issued last week:

  In the national Justice conference the Minister of Justice Wu Aiying required: […] lawyers in our country must support the party leaders, adhere to the scientific development concept as a guide, uphold socialism with Chinese characteristics, ensure the correct political direction in lawyer’s work.

  The message is simple, you do things with the party or against the party. There is no middle ground, and trying to find it by studying hard and following the law simply will not do. Because the party leaders are above the law.

  And a post called “Sodom” by Leung Man-tao, translated by Danwei:

  My friend Xu Zhiyuan (许志远) also wrote a deeply moving essay, “Our Generation,” (“我们这个时代”) in which he wrote that two years ago Xu Zhiyong had spiritedly said to him: “The 2008 Olympics will bring along with it a huge opportunity for reform. When the whole world has its eyes on Beijing, political authority will be restrained, and different grassroots organizations will use the opportunity to expand civil society.” I am not unfamiliar with this speech because I have expressed similar opinions: I was once full of hope for a China that had experienced the Wenchuan earthquake and the Beijing Olympics. Whenever a foreign journalist finds me to discuss China’s dark aspects, I would remind them at the end to always look on the bright side of things, just as I once reminded you to do.

  And that brighter side included Xu Zhiyong and his partners at Gongmeng, and the rising group of rights lawyers, and the countless other warm-hearted people who want to do good things. But this country’s corruption, this social coldness, it’s as if everything is maintained through the tacit understanding of 1.3 billion people and certain lies. Even so, there are still many people who give up their time and go hither and thither for other people’s children, such as Tan Zuoren; and there are also many people willing to sacrifice the life that they could have enjoyed, instead choosing to knock doors for their fellows in trouble, such as Xu Zhiyong. I even optimistically put the government into this category, because at least they once let the rays of light sway in the murkiness. Perhaps they too will be swept up with it, and when they put in a vote by their foot, they’ll see how important the existence of good people is. If Heaven permits that you’re able to find someone good in Sodom.

  Also, see “Xu Zhiyong and What His Detention Means for Rule of Law in China” by Elizabeth Lynch on Huffington Post and an article from the Guardian. Read more about Xu Zhiyong and Gongmeng, via CDT.

  » Read more
  • August 18, 2009 9:13 AM

• Tweets of the Week: Tan Zuoren, Xu Zhiyong, Twitter and Green Dam (Updated)

  

  Despite the blocking of Twitter, Chinese politically-active tweeters are still tweeting away. Some hot keywords from the last week?

  Tan Zuoren, Xu Zhiyong, Twitter and Green Dam.

  Here are selected tweets on these topics, translated by CDT:

  1. 我們都知道今天真正被審判的是誰。

  We all know today who is really being tried. (Referring to Tan Zuoren’s case)

  2. 阿甘说，生活就像明信片，你永远不知道下一张寄给谁。

  Forest Gump once said: Life is like postcards. You never know who you’re going to send one to next. (Referring to the Twitterers’ campaign to send postcards to prisoners of conscience.)

  3. 除了中國，有那些國家會在數年間有數十次的意圖推翻政府？為甚麼在共產黨宣稱的百年難見的盛世中，會有這許多人想赤手空拳地推翻一個政府？共產黨的確欠我們一個解釋。

  Other than China, which other country has had several dozen attempts to overthrow the government within just few years? Why do so many people want to overthrow the government with their empty hands during a period that the Communist Party claims is the best in a hundred years? The Communist Party owes us an explanation.

  4. 上联：必须有证件 下联：不许有政见 横批：和谐社会

  [Written in the style of a Chinese couplet poem]

  Gotta have identification

  Gotta have no [political] opinion

  Harmonious Society

  5.  “wezhiyong.org” 变成关键词，新IP地址更换12小时后再次被封

  “wezhiyong.org” (a blog site set up by netizens to advocate Xu Zhiyong’s release.) became a filtered keyword. It’s new IP address was blocked again twelve hours after it had changed.

  6. 他们打算怎样？用坦克来碾压推特的服务器么？//解放军报雄文：网络颠覆，不容小觑的安全威胁。http://bit.ly/aDGIy

  What are the PLA really planning to do? Roll tanks over Twitter’s servers? (Referring to this article on PLA Daily: Internet Subversion: A Security Threat which must not be underestimated.)

  7. Twitter封得住，母猪会上树

  If Twitter can be blocked, then pigs can climb trees.

  8. 我已翻墙，感觉良好，请祖国和人民放心！

  I am over the Great Firewall now. I feel fine. Motherland and people, please don’t worry!

  (Chinese astronaut Qu Zhigang 翟志刚 said during a spacewalk: “I am out of the spaceship now. I feel fine. Motherland and people, please don’t worry! “)

  9. 差点以为天安门被绿坝了

  I almost thought that Tiananmen was “Green Dammed.” (Referring to this news: On August 14, a green fence was set up around Tiananmen Square in Beijing for renovations to greet the 60th anniversary of the PRC’s founding.)

  

  

  

  

  10. 谭作人在狱中写给妻女的信中说：“你们，是我的眼泪”。

  “You are my tears.” – from a letter prisoner of conscience Tan Zuoren wrote to his wife and two daughters.

  » Read more
  • August 14, 2009 5:16 PM

• Editorial: Jailing Xu Zhiyong

  

  From the Washington Post:

  At the conclusion of the Strategic Economic Dialogue on July 28, the United States and China issued a news release affirming “the importance of the rule of law to our two countries.” One day later, Chinese police led prominent legal scholar Xu Zhiyong out of his apartment to be detained indefinitely.

  Few people embrace the rule of law in China as openly or as wholeheartedly as Mr. Xu. After graduating from one of China’s most prestigious law schools, he has dedicated his life to fighting for justice by means of the Chinese legal system. He has represented the parents of more than 300,000 children affected by melamine-contaminated milk, opposed secret “black jails” and fought for the rights of death row inmates. Mr. Xu is a strong proponent of working within the system for change — so much so that he ran for office in one of China’s rare contested elections and won. Along with his colleagues at the Open Constitution Initiative, which he helped establish, Mr. Xu is a highly visible legal figure to whom people have increasingly turned as they gained awareness of their constitutional rights.

  Nongovernmental organizations such as the Open Constitution Initiative, or Gongmeng, occupy an uneasy place in China. Many register as businesses to avoid dealing with a system that limits the number of NGOs and that requires government agencies to oversee their operations. This decision leaves them in a legal gray area, and in July, Chinese authorities charged that Gongmeng was improperly registered and had failed to pay taxes. Officials entered the organization’s offices and confiscated dozens of files.

  » Read more
  • August 14, 2009 9:07 AM

• Open Constitution Intiative Not Allowed to Pay Fines

  

  After being fined for allegedly violating tax laws, Xu Zhiyong’s Gongmeng (Open Constitution Initiative) has solicited donations from the public to pay the fines. However, authorities have frozen the organization’s bank accounts, making it impossible for them to pay the required fines, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders. A blogger who claims to be a college student somewhere in western China has written an open letter (in English) to President Obama asking him to support the release of Xu Zhiyong:

  Days ago, OCI lawyers went to tax office to pay the fine.

  To astonish everyone of us, officials decided that they’re not going accept it! In their defense, they don’t accept it when they don’t have corporate representative present, who is Xu Zhiyong, who can’t be present because police confined him.

  I’m not an expert on law, I’m just an ordinary citizen, yet even an ordinary citizen can tell injustice from justice, arbitrary government behavior from law enforcement.

  As if they haven’t had their fun, the administration put Sichuan activist Tan Zuoren [on trial] just yesterday, during which all defendant witnesses have been arrested or even beaten by police on their way to the courthouse, and a great number of journalists got harassed or confined.

  Where is justice? Where is law? Where is human right?

  » Read more
  • August 13, 2009 9:50 AM

• Chinese Tweets: “Send Your Feelings” to Xu Zhiyong Today!

  

  Since legal scholar and founder of Gongmeng (Open Constitution Initiative) Xu Zhiyong was detained, his virtual existence has also been cleaned up in Chinese cyberspace. His blog on sina.cn.com was completely deleted around 11 am on August 12 and searching his name in Baidu and Google will produce the following error pages:

  

  

  

  Netizens have pointed out that similar search results will appear at the following links as well: Douban group Search, Douban Topic search, Sina Community Search, Sougou, Netease Search, Tom, Qihu Search …    (豆瓣小组搜索，豆瓣话题搜索，新浪社区搜索，搜狗，网易有道，TOM，奇虎搜索……)

  » Read more
  • August 12, 2009 9:12 PM

• Baby Milk Powder Victims Lose Legal Proxy

  

  Global Times published a lengthy and largely sympathetic article looking at the legal charges against Xu Zhiyong’s Gongmeng (Open Constitution Initiative) group and the plight of NGOs in China today:

  What happened to the Open Constitution Initiative has been widely discussed by fellow domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China.

  [...] Some scholars and domestic NGO leaders showed sympathy for the organization, saying Xu had no other choice. It’s extremely difficult to register as an NGO, according to them.

  Yu Jianrong, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated in an article: “The identity dilemma for the Open Constitution Initiative is a tragedy for our society.”

  [...] There were 386,916 official and unofficial NGOs registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs by the end of 2007. That number only accounts for NGOs registered at civil affairs bureaus across the country. A far larger number of NGOs are either registered at local administrations for industry and commerce or not registered at all, according to Lu.

  The Beijing Yirenping Center belongs to the larger group. It was visited by a police officer and two plainclothes officers from the Cultural Market Administrative Law Enforcement Office of Beijing on July 29. The officers said they received a report that the center was involved in publishing without a license. They searched the center and confiscated more than 90 copies of China’s Anti-Discrimination Legal Action Newsletter.

  Lu explained to them that printing documents like fliers and newsletters is a major task of NGOs. Otherwise they would not be able to publicize relevant laws and information to the public.

  The newsletters were published in small numbers and given out free at seminars, not public places. Therefore they should not be taken as a publication.

  Read all of CDT’s coverage of Gongmeng and Xu Zhiyong.

  » Read more
  • August 11, 2009 8:57 PM

• Lawyer’s Detention Shakes China’s Rights Movement

  

  The New York Times looks at the impact of Xu Zhiyong’s arrest for the rights movement in China, especially as it comes on the heels of a broader crackdown on lawyers who defend civil rights and NGOs:

  Although rights lawyers and grass-roots social organizations have always been tightly controlled here, the pressure has intensified in recent weeks. More than 20 lawyers known for taking on politically tinged cases were effectively disbarred, and the police raided a group that works to ease discrimination against people with Hepatitis B.

  Last week, China’s justice minister gave a speech saying that lawyers should above all obey the Communist Party and help foster a harmonious society. To improve discipline, the minister said, all law firms in the country would be sent party liaisons to “guide their work.”

  But given Mr. Xu’s international stature and reputation for working within the law, legal scholars both in China and abroad say his prosecution suggests a new level of repression.

  [...] After 30 years of reform, China’s legal system is at a critical juncture. Law schools continue to pump out thousands of graduates each year, and the courts, even if imperfect, have increasingly become a forum for resolving disputes. Late last month the Supreme People’s Court announced reforms intended to markedly reduce executions.

  But as lawyers here discover, there are limits to China’s embrace of judicial reform.

  » Read more
  • August 9, 2009 6:39 PM

• Chinese Start Postcard Drive to Support Dissidents

  

  From Reuters:

  Chinese web users have launched a postcard campaign to support dissidents in prisons and to protest against their detention, one of the organizers told Reuters.

  Chinese Internet activists launched their first postcard campaign last month, in a little-known case of a man detained in Fujian province in southern China.

  They are now expanding the campaign to support better-known activists, including legal aid lawyer Xu Zhiyong and earthquake victim advocate Tan Zuoren.

  “It depends on the prison or detention house whether they can receive the postcards,” wrote Wen Yunchao, the blogger who initiated the idea.

  “But pressure could be felt when huge amounts of postcards are flooding in.”

  Read also on CDT: “Guo Baofeng, Your Mother is Calling You Home for Dinner!” (With Slideshow)

  » Read more
  • August 7, 2009 5:15 PM

• China Lawyer Who Fought Unfair Arrest is Arrested (Updated)

  

  The Australian and the Los Angeles Times both report on the work of Xu Zhiyong and his recent arrest. From the L.A. Times:

  Xu’s law firm was one of the few in China willing to represent the parents of the nearly 300,000 children sickened and the six who died last year as a result of dangerous milk additives.

  Since its founding in 2003, the firm, also known as Gongmeng, has not shied away from sensitive topics. It challenged China’s secret detention centers, the so-called black jails, after a 27-year-old graphic designer who was arrested for failing to carry his identification card died in custody. Xu represented an editor of the hard-hitting newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily who was arrested in 2004 on what were widely seen as politically motivated bribery charges.

  This summer, Xu’s firm joined the chorus of voices opposing a requirement that all computers sold in China come preinstalled with software that would filter out pornographic or controversial content.

  But Xu is by no means a dissident, preferring to work within a system he has hoped to improve, not overthrow.

  And from the Australian:

  “I’m prepared for the worst to happen,” the activist Beijing lawyer, 38, told The Australian only days before he was arrested. “I have no fear.”

  He was prepared for such an event after his well-known but politically risky legal-aid group Open Constitution Initiative, also known as Gongmeng, had been shut down on July 17 after a morning raid by Tax Department officials.

  Dr Xu said his aim was to protect the rights of all civilians and especially those who protected the dignity of law and constitution of China.

  Now a growing number of non-government organisations who, like OCI, operate with the assistance of foreign funding are being harassed.

  Journalist Susan Jakes also writes about Xu, whom she has known since 2004, for China Beat.

  Update: The Chinese Law Prof blog has posted more links about this case, including the original sanctioning decision from the State Tax Administration.

  » Read more
  • August 6, 2009 8:42 PM

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