Xu Zhiyong appeared in the Chinese edition of Esquire in August 2009, while he was being detained for alleged tax evasion.

Rights defense lawyer Xu Zhiyong has continued his advocacy despite years of setbacks. The Open Constitution Initiative, a legal assistance NGO he and several other lawyers founded in 2003, was shut down in 2009 by Beijing officials, citing tax evasion. After writing a blog post about the New Citizens’ Movement last May, Xu was detained overnight. In the run-up to the National People’s Congress this February, Xu was one of 100 signatories to an open letter to the Chinese government calling for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Xu was put under house arrest during the Congress. He lectures at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, but has been barred from teaching because of his activism.

In an April 12 blog post, Xu describes how the police pulled him from a flight to Hong Kong and questioned him about the New Citizens’ Movement and public dinners he has helped organize to discuss issues of civil rights and democracy. Both this blog post and his April 23 essay on the New Citizens’ Movement are translated below.

On April 12, I was on my way to Hong Kong to participate in the “Symposium on the 10th Anniversay of the Sun Zhigang Case” at the invitation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Teng Biao. I went through border control waited for my flight. “See you this afternoon,” I told Teng.

As we started boarding, three policemen suddenly appeared and asked if I was Xu Zhiyong. I said yes, and asked if they were there to stop me from boarding. They said yes. They didn’t know why. There were people waiting for me outside.

Outside, there were three familiar plainclothes officers from the Cultural Protection Branch of the Municipal Police Bureau. They asked why I was leaving the country without telling them. I said citizens have the freedom to leave and enter the country. “Get a refund,” they said. “We need to take you to your university.”

When we got to the College of Humanities, Z told me to leave my bag and go upstairs. I firmly resisted. I wasn’t afraid that they would find anything to use against me. Everything on my laptop can be made public. But that’s my private information, and I was concerned that they would install something on it. I bolted out of the car. They ran after me, right in front of the classrooms on the ground floor where students could see. I want to tell the students that this is something that happened in today’s China. Concerned that there were too many people around, they promised not to take my bag. I went to my office on the third floor, closed the door, and called my family. The college Party secretary started knocking at the door.

The Party secretary told me that my college salary had been suspended as of March. I said I understood and would consider writing a resignation letter. My teaching credentials were revoked in 2009, but I was willing to stay because I hoped that I would still have the opportunity to teach. However, this system cannot tolerate a true idealist. The salary suspension was a result of direct pressure from the Ministry of Education. The excuse was that I hadn’t been going to work for some time. That was when my freedom was illegally restricted and I could not leave my house.

I told the Party secretary that they were going to illegally seize my bag and asked him to help me hold onto it. He refused. I left the Party secretary’s office and was taken to the campus security office. I know that Chinese universities lost their basic independence and dignity long ago. In an isolated room, five people seized my bag.

For the next few hours, I was alone with my thoughts while they chatted in the next room. They ordered McDonald’s. As usual, I didn’t eat anything. In the mean time, Z came along and asked to make a written report. I said there was nothing much to say, but he insisted.

He asked, “Will you continue to work for education equality?” I said, “I will.”

Q: What are you going to do about black jails?

A: As long as there are illegal detentions, like what you did today, I will continue to surround and watch.

Q: What are you going to do about financial disclosure?

A: I’ll continue to strive for it. How can you fight corruption if you don’t even dare to disclose your personal assets?

Q: Will the citizens’ city-wide dinner parties continue?

A: Yes. We will be citizens with pride and dignity.

Q: How many people attend your dinners?

A: Not sure. Everybody can be a citizen. Everybody can attend or leave at any time.

In the end I asked him to add that “I solemnly protest the Beijing Municipal Police Bureau illegally restricting me from leaving the country, illegally restricting my personal freedom, and illegally searching my personal belongings.” He didn’t add this. I refused to sign. They took the written report away.

After 10 p.m., Captain C came in. We’ve had many conversations before.

C: In the past, you worked on individual cases to protect people’s rights. Wasn’t that pretty good? For example, you helped appeal the Chengde case. But now, this New Citizens’ Movement. In the past ten years, especially the last year, the there have been dinners everywhere. The nature of the movement is changing.

Me: The unjust Chengde case happened 19 years ago. We have been working on the appeal for 10 years, but no settlement has been reached. While we worked hard on individual cases, more and more injustices emerged. This is essentially a problem of the political system. From individual cases to the New Citizens’ Movement, we followed Heaven’s will. And to some extent, you forced us. Before March of last year, we had a fixed office. Every day we had at least one person available to receive petitioners. I would go there twice a week to read their documents. Perhaps there were many cases we could not handle, but at least we could offer some advice. We spent a lot of time doing this concrete work. But after March, you shut down our office. A lot of underprivileged people couldn’t find us. We shifted the emphasis of our work to promoting people’s awareness of their identity as citizens. Actually, the nature of our work hasn’t changed at all. We have always been pursuing democracy, rule of law, equality, and justice. In the past we worked more on being citizens ourselves. Now we advocate that everybody act as citizens. More and more people want to be citizens. What are you afraid of?

C: Where does your theory of “new citizens” come from?

Me: Inspiration from above. Specifically, inspiration came to me around May last year while I was reading at home. I believe that all inspiration that drives the work of human beings comes from above.

C: Do you know the theory of the “small circle”? Do you know Li Yiping?

Me: I know of this theory. I heard about it in the past few months. I don’t know Li Yiping. The dinners are not “small circles.” They are open to all. We who share an identity as citizens meet to discuss common issues, and together push forward democracy and rule of law in China.

C: What’s the purpose of New Citizens’ Movement and the dinners?

Me: For citizens to work together to push forward democracy and rule of law, and ultimately to make China a country of freedom, righteousness, and love.

C: Does democracy imply overthrowing the Communist Party?

Me: There are no such concepts as “overthrow,” “knock down,” or “enemies” in our system of thought or our discourse. Democracy implies people having the right to directly cast votes and elect officials and legislators at all levels of government. This has nothing to do with overthrowing anyone. If the Communist Party is capable of transforming itself like the Kuomintang and winning an election, we will definitely support that. What we pursue is true democracy, China’s peaceful transition to constitutional government. Whether the Communist Party can transform itself and win elections is your own business. We don’t entertain any fantasies about that. But we harbor good will towards every Chinese person.

C: You and I have known each other for years. I believe that you are a pure idealist. This is the reason we have been relatively polite to you. But do other people in your group, like Zhao Changqing and Ding Jiaxi, think the way you do? How do you control other people?

Me: I am quite selective when it comes to my close friends. Zhao Changqing and Ding Jiaxi are both model citizens with moral characters and pure ideals. The “citizenry” is a group that is open to all, a coalition of free citizens which offers no hierarchy or material gain. Nobody can censor others. We cannot exclude people who have bad characters. We don’t even know if anyone was sent to us by you. We don’t care. But if someone does seriously immoral things under the banner of freedom, righteousness, and love, I may publicly criticize him or her. It might have some impact on the person, but that isn’t control. It’s normal for citizens to disagree with each other. We resolve discord through democratic rules. What we are pursuing is ultimately the establishment of a system of democracy and rule of law. People will bad characters will be controlled by the law.

C: Some among you are extreme. Are you able to control them? We have solid evidence that those four people advocating financial disclosure gathered illegally. How could you possibly say you are not responsible for that?

Me: Citizen groups all around China are evolving independently, and act autonomously. I can only influence others, not control them. As for the four gentlemen detained for promoting financial disclosure, of course I am responsible. I initiated the movement. Although strategically I don’t agree with their particular method, their action was just, and anything but illegal. I’m responsible for following in their steps. If they are guilty, I ask for the same treatment right now.

C: I’m puzzled. You were always a good student. Your family wasn’t persecuted. You’ve been successful in school and in your career. You could have lived a good life. Why did you choose this path? Everything has a reason. What’s yours?

Me: You think everyone lives for himself or herself. Only when we suffer injustice ourselves do we fight back; only when something unfortunate happens is the orbit of our lives altered. This logic doesn’t suit me. I could live a comfortable life under this system, and I don’t feel that I have ever been persecuted. Every time my freedoms have been illegally restricted, even when I have been beaten, it was because I stood up for someone else. This is a responsibility I ought to bear. But in this country, the autocratic system is the root of so much injustice and so much pain. Autocracy must end. Nothing happened when I made up my mind in the ninth grade. The radius of my life was no more than ten kilometers at that time. So I believe in destiny. If we have to find a reason, it is the destiny of a people which has gone through immense hardship, and which will find nirvana in a new life of freedom, righteousness, and love. This is the reason why I came into this world.

At 11 p.m., they said they would send me home. I wanted to go home by myself, but they forced me into their car. Outside the corridor, they didn’t leave. I don’t know how long will I lose my freedom for this time. I know that as I carry on, the price I have to pay will only grow. But someone has to take this on for the progress of our people’s modern civilization. A group of citizens has already stood up.

Citizen Xu Zhiyong, April 12, 2013

Citizen Self-Encouragement–Service, Duty, Letting Go

In an autocratic society, the path of striving to be a good citizen is a long one. I have come to some understanding in recent years of what this path entails–service, duty, and letting go. I write this to encourage myself as well as my friends. Service means serving society, helping those who need help the most through actions. Every place has its own social problems: domineering, corrupt officials; chengguan who beat people; a polluted environment; injustice; land grabs; and arbitrary fines and illegal charges, to name a few. We need to cast our attention downwards, sincerely care about the underprivileged, and help them protect their rights and interests. Citizen groups should do things that offer genuine help to the people. Only if we help many, many people can we take root in society and gain broad support, so that we can promote the development of a democratic and constitutional government in China. Politics should serve the public. At present, there are a lot of opportunities to serve the people in China. We need to look for them carefully and invest in them with devotion. Tomorrow’s democratic politicians are today’s pro bono representatives.

Politics is not empty talk. Politics is not opposition for its own sake. Politics is a noble career that serves the interest of the public. Politics is in our daily life. Our fundamental strength is not measured by how politically calculating we are, but how many things we have done and how many people we have helped. Demanding financial disclosure of officials, pushing the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress to pass the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, surrounding and watching Attorney Wang Quanzhang’s detention and other public incidents, all serve society. Reposting the truth about events online and spreading the ideals of democracy and rule of law also serve society. While paying attention to the general direction of our country, we ought not to neglect the people and events around us. Citizen groups should work hard to be recognized as good people by the public in their communities and cities. There are many things to do in this time of change. Fierce action has its value, but it is neither possible nor necessary to have everyone at the vanguard. More people should serve society in down-to-earth and practical ways. In all, we should do work and thrive through our actions.

Duty means courageously taking on responsibility. In the pursuit of freedom, righteousness, and love, in the transformation from subject to citizen, you might “drink tea,” be harassed, have your freedoms illegally restricted, be fired from work, or even be beaten and punished as a criminal. But there have to be people who pay the price for the progress of society. Many of our predecessors have shouldered enormous responsibility. Some of them spent decades in prison, and others, like Lin Zhao, sacrificed their lives. Today, we still need to make sacrifices to push forward social progress. Although we have generous hearts; although we pursue a noble career of freedom, righteousness, and love; although our actions are temperate and reasonable, the move from subject to citizen is, by nature, dangerous.

Some people take the lead for social progress. Once they take the first step, they cannot go back. We respect those warriors who fiercely challenge the system. But we do not need everyone to be at the forefront. We hope that everyone takes responsibility according to his or her own capacity. Some citizens within the system can also take on responsibility in their own way. If a person does not have too many family obligations, is psychologically prepared, and is relatively well-known, then he or she can take on more. If someone has a heavy family burden and is not that well-known, I suggest that he or she start with smaller, less sensitive tasks; for example, individual rights defense cases, environmental protection, charity and public welfare, etc.

The New Citizens’ Movement is a huge, historic change. We should move forward with perseverance and peaceful minds, avoid the impulse to act radically, and not let setbacks defeat us. Letting go means forgoing the ego. Most people who pursue democracy and freedom have a strong personality. The positive side of this is that they are courageous and persistent, while the negative side is that they cling to their own ideas. Some of them even regard themselves as elders. They talk endlessly during our dinners, while others cannot squeeze a word in edgewise. Instead of going through the democratic process, they act according to their own will. If one utterance rubs them the wrong way, they think it is a conspiracy and try to undercut the speaker–to the point that the doors for us to open multiply, the mountains for us to climb stand like a forest, and our group is factionalized. We pursue freedom, but that does not mean we do not have responsibility. Only when we unify our strength can we achieve true democracy and freedom. Only when we let go of our obstinate egos and follow democratic rules can we achieve unity. No matter how senior you are or how much you have accomplished, at citizens’ dinners we sit as equals and speak as equals. When we disagree, we can engage in public debates and resolve them by vote. It does not matter if you are a reformer or a revolutionary. We can have different methods to pursue democracy and constitutional government. We should coordinate with each other while preserving our own beliefs, but we should not attack each other. If some people in our community of citizens does something wrong, we should criticize them if necessary, but always maintain good will.

Ultimately, letting go means forgoing personal interests, social status, and prejudice. Modern politics is a noble career of idealism. We do not pursue democracy and constitutional government for personal gain or social status, but to realize our dream–to make China a country of freedom, righteousness, and love–to promote the progress of human civilization, and to fulfill our mission on this earth. To those who think politics is a filthy shoal whose sands we may sift for profit, I suggest they keep away from modern politics. In an ever more transparent, modern, and civilized society, a person’s image is accumulated through time and action. There is no need to overemphasize temporary gains and losses. By serving society, taking on responsibility, and letting go of ego, strength will naturally grow.

Service, duty, and letting go; each is harder to accomplish than the last. Many can serve society, but as soon as they encounter resistance, they might retreat. This is understandable. Each person should take on responsibility according to his or her capacity. The most difficult of all is letting go. We all have our selfish instincts. But to fulfill our responsibility, we must let go of our egos as best we can. This is a continuous process of self-reflection and self-cultivation. Democratic elections and the system of checks and balances are of course more essential forces; but the strength of personal morality within the community of citizens will directly influence the progress of democratization and, in the long run, the quality of the newly-born democratic system. Service, duty, and letting go; this is a never-ending process of personal cultivation, and it is the continuous union and growth of the force for democracy and constitutional government.

Citizen Xu Zhiyong, April 23, 2013

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Mengyu Dong.

Notes:

Li Yiping, an activist living in the U.S., theorizes that the pro-democracy movement in China can organize itself through interlocking “small circles” (小圈子), building a social network that is “formless” and therefore difficult for the government to track. Li has written about his “small circle” theory at Boxun [zh] and Beijing Spring [zh]. Back.

After losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communist army in 1949, the Kuomintang (KMT) perpetuated the Republic of China and martial, one-party rule in Taiwan. The KMT began allowing new political parties to form in the 1980s, and by the 1990s competed among the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and other parties in free and fair elections. Back.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: democracy, New Citizens' Movement, rights defense, Xu Zhiyong
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The language of the open letter is reasoned and constructive, outlining China’s past achievements on human rights, including the Chinese Communist Party’s early pledge to “fight for human rights and freedom.”

We understand from inside sources that this letter was originally intended for a Thursday release through a prominent Chinese newspaper. Authorities, however, learned of the letter by late Monday and the authors had no choice but to release it to the public today.

Current signers of the letter include prominent legal scholar He Weifang (贺卫方), economist Mao Yushi (茅于轼), activist and scholar Ran Yunfei (冉云飞), well-known lawyers Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强) and Xu Zhiyong (许志永), investigative reporter Wang Keqin (王克勤), author Wang Lixiong (王力雄) and many, many others. This is a laundry list of some of China’s most prominent and influential pro-reform figures.

And from CMP’s draft translation of the letter:

As a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council, China has always been an active initiator and participant in the International Bill of Human Rights. China’s government played an important role in the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). International human rights standards are therefore not imported products but in fact include the achievements of Chinese culture and the Chinese people. The signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 15 years ago demonstrated even more our country’s serious commitment to the protection of basic human rights as a responsible world power. Afterwards, both President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao said openly on numerous occasions both at home and overseas that China would immediately take the legal steps to ratify the treaty once the conditions were right. In the beginning of 2008, more than 10,000 Chinese citizens signed a call for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And so there is no longer any need to vacillate. In order to adapt to trends in human rights development, live up to our government’s pledges and answer the demands of the people, in order to behave in a manner consistent with a major power, we must join the treaty without hesitation, with a positive and decisive attitude.

We will post a link to CMP’s full translation once it become available. This is not the first time activists and lawyers in China have called on the government to ratify the ICCPR and the government itself has announced plans for ratification.

UPDATE (11:20 pm PST February 26): The New York Times has reported on the petition:

The petition was the latest display of the demands for political change confronting China’s new leadership. Several people who signed it said they hoped to press Mr. Xi and his colleagues to live up to vows of greater respect for the rule of law and citizens’ rights that Mr. Xi and other officials have made since he became Communist Party leader in November, when Mr. Hu retired from that post.

“This has become increasingly important because on the one hand violations of rights have become so common, while on the other hand citizens’ awareness of their rights has risen sharply,” said Cui Weiping, a translator and essayist in Beijing who signed the petition. “This proposal is really quite mild,” said Ms. Cui, who formerly taught at the Beijing Film Academy. “I see this as giving the government a chance to show that it is willing to make improvements.”

See also a report from BBC.

Tea Leaf Nation has also translated netizen comments on the document, which has been distributed on blogs and other websites inside China:

From comments on Mr. He’s blog as well as scattered discussions on Weibo, it is possible to glean a preliminary sense of Chinese Web users’ reaction to the bold move. Many wrote quick expressions of their “resolute,” “intense,” or “eternal” support.

Others, however, were more cynical. Although the “awakening rights consciousness” the letter describes is real–one netizen’s political manifesto went viral months ago–the phenomenon cuts both ways. As Chinese grow more aware of their legal rights, they also grow more aware of the ways in which those rights are not honored in practice. One commenter wrote, “I think our constitution and our laws aren’t bad, but they haven’t been well implemented.” Another put it less delicately: “Right now, everyone knows that respect for the constitution and protection of individual rights are a joke. ”

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: He Weifang, human rights activists, human rights policy, ICCPR, pu zhiqiang, Ran Yunfei, U.N. human rights, United Nations, Wang Keqin, Wang Lixiong, Xu Zhiyong
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The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.

11 February 2007, 23:27:07

Concerning the fire that occurred in the Yeosu Foreigner Protection Center on Chonnam Island, South Korea

Concerning the fire that occurred in the Yeosu Foreigner Protection Center on Chonnam Island, South Korea, all websites are only to reprint Xinhua copy, close news trackers, do not reprint corresponding images, do not issue it on the main page of websites and the important news section of the news center.

11 February 2007, 23:28:20

Delete the “Joint Statement concerning Sina Blog Deleting Posts” of He Weifang and others

Concerning the “Joint Statement concerning Sina Blog Deleting Posts” of He Weifang and others, this may not be posted in blogs and forums on any website without exception, where it is present, delete it.

12 February 2007, 17:21:10

Notice concerning setting up an advance link for the People’s Bank of China Director Assistant Yi Gang’s conducting an online interview on a steady monetary policy

The China Government Net will, between about 15:00 and 16:30 on 13 February, invite the Director Assistance of the People’s Bank of China, Yi Gang, for an online interview concerning a steady monetary policy, Sina, Sohu, Netease and other main commercial websites are requested to set up an advance notice link (www.gov.cn/zxft/ft3/) at 9:00 on 13 February in the lower part of the important news section of news centers, and timely reprint reports of the interview content.

13 February 2007, 10:13

All websites, concerning reports on the traditional Year of the Pig, it is not permitted to set up special subjects of the type of “Talking Pigs in the Pig Year” without exception, pay attention to letting pictures or images of “Pigs” appear less in reporting, pages with reports involving the “Pig Year” must avoid advertising related to Islam.

13 February 2007, 13:51

All websites: Please uniformly close the text message recommendation window at 14:00 today, only maintain the voting window. Please acknowledge receipt!

14 February 2007, 17:43

All websites: Please do not let He Weifang, Pu Zhiqiang, Xiao Han or Xu Zhiyong open a blog on your websites.

22 February 2007: 23:32:29

Delete the text on 3000 people jointly signing their name to strongly call upon the National People’s Congress to make a decision: correct the privatization of state-owned enterprises, forums, blogs, and other interactive segments are not to discuss this.

17 February 2007, 11:12:29

All websites, please pay attention: Do not reprint negative reports concerning the text message selection event; negative discourse concerning the text message selection event may not be disseminated on forums or blogs; manage trackers for corresponding reports well, do not let negative discourse emerge.

17 February 2007, 10:38:41

Please maintain the special subject of the text message event; put it on the second line of the main page of websites, and the third or fourth line of the important news section; wait for notification on when to remove it.

All websites: Please continue to maintain the special subject on the text message selection event; put it on the second line of the main page of websites daily, and on the third or fourth line of the important news section of the news center; you must absolutely wait for clear notification to remove it.

16 February 2007, 17:31:43

All websites: At present, the State Post Bureau is conducting post reform, and is currently researching new rules for express delivery statistics, all websites are requested to not set up special subjects for these two topics, and not to put corresponding reports in the important news section. Websites who have already set up special subjects are requested to push the special subject to the back stage.

16 February 2007, 08:42:29

We salute an early year to everyone, and wish everyone to have a good year.

(1) The first contact person must ensure that their mobile phone is on 24 hours, all websites’ duty telephones, MSN and RTX must remain online for 24 hours, propaganda management service platforms must ensure someone is on duty.

(2) It is necessary to send many articles building an atmosphere of holiday joy, happiness, and auspiciousness, proposing a civilized, healthy, and upward online mood, which fully reflect the richness and variety of the popular masses’ material and cultural lives and the progress that has been incessantly obtained in building a Socialist spiritual civilization.

(3) It is necessary to earnestly implement the “Internet News Information Service Management Regulations” and strictly standardize news sources, it is prohibited to use articles from small newspapers and periodicals in violation of regulations, and it is strictly prohibited to reprint information from foreign media; prevent playing up of negative news influencing social stability; reports concerning sudden or sensitive incidents must be based on Xinhua or People’s Daily content.

(4) It is necessary to strengthen management over information on forums, trackers, blogs, chat rooms, and text messages; news trackers must be closed on reports concerning sudden or sensitive incidents or mass incidents; forums, trackers, blogs, chat rooms, and other columns that are not managed by anyone must timely cease refreshing.

(5) Do website technology protection well, ensure anti-distortion, anti-attack, anti-suspension, prepare security plans, where problems are discovered, deal with them timely, and resume service speedily.

(6) Concerning major sudden incidents in Beijing, notify our office for agreement before issuance.

(7) During the holiday period, contact us at all times if there is something, we are also online 24 hours.

28 February 2007, 18:19

(1) Concerning the matter of Huarui Company having raised an administrative lawsuit with the National Development and Reform Commission concerning the overall development of hydroelectricity in the middle reaches of the Jinsha River, there are to be no reports without exception, forums, blogs, and other interactive segments may also not discuss this.

(2) Concerning the matter of First Steel Company transferring shares of Peruvian iron mines, there are to be no reports without exception, forums, blogs and other interactive segments may also not discuss this.

28 February 2007, 19:12

All websites: Please clean up negative posts concerning Premier Wen Jiabao’s text talking about the tasks during the primary stage of Socialism and our country’s foreign policy.

2007年2月北京网管办发出的禁令（四）
2007-02-11 23:27:07

关于韩国全南道丽水外国人保护所发生火灾事

关于韩国全南道丽水外国人保护所发生火灾事，各网站只转新华社稿件，关闭新闻跟贴，不转载相关图片,不发网站首页和新闻中心要闻区。

2007-02-11 23:28:20

删除贺卫方等人”关于新浪博客删贴的联合声明”

有关贺卫方等人”关于新浪博客删贴的联合声明”各网站一律不得在博客和论坛中贴发，已有的删除。

2007-02-12 17:21:1

关于做好中国人民银行行长助理易纲就稳健的货币政策进行在线访谈的预告链接的通知

中国政府网将于2月13日下午15：00-16：30约请中国人民银行行长助理易纲就稳健的货币政策进行在线访谈，请新浪、搜狐、网易等主要商业网 站在2月13日9：00前在新闻中心要闻区下部做好在线访谈的预告链接（WWW.gov.cn/zxft/ft3/）,并及时转载报道访谈内容。

07年2月13日10时13分

各网:关于传统猪年的报道,一律不得做”猪年话猪”一类的专题,在报道中尽量少出现有关”猪”的图画及形象,涉及”猪年”报道的页面要回避与伊斯兰教有关的广告.

07年2月13日13时51分

各网:请在今天14时统一关闭推荐短信的窗口,只保留投票的窗口。收到请回复！

07年2月14日17时43分

各网:请不要给贺卫方、浦志强、萧瀚、许志永四人在各自网站开博客。

2007-02-22 23:32:29

三千人联名强烈吁请全国人大做出决议：纠正国企私有化一文删除，论坛、博客等互动环节不讨论。

2007-02-17 11:12:29

各网请注意: 不要转载有关短信评比活动的负面报道; 有关短信评比活动的负面言论不要在论坛\博客中传播; 管理好相关报道的跟帖,不要出现负面言论.

2007-02-17 10:38:41

请保留短信活动专题;放网站首页二条、要闻区第三、四条位置;何时撤下等通知.

各网: 请继续保留短信评比活动的专题; 每天挂在网站首页二条位置,挂在新闻中心要闻区三、四条的位置; 一定要等到明确通知后,再撤.

2007-02-16 17:31:43

各网:目前国家邮政局正在进行邮政改革，并正在研究快递统计新规,请各网不要就这两个题材设立专题，相关报道不放要闻区。已经开设专题的网站，请将专题压到后台。

2007-02-16 08:42:29

给大家拜个早年 祝我们都过个好年

1、第一通知人必须保证手机24小时开机，各网站值班电话、MSN、RTX必须保证24小时在线，宣传管理服务平台必须保证有人值守。 2、要多发营造节日喜庆、欢乐、祥和的气氛的稿子，倡导文明健康向上的网风，充分反映人民群众物质文化生活丰富多彩、社会主义精神文明建设不断取得新的进 展。 3、要认真执行《互联网新闻信息服务管理规定》，严格规范新闻来源，不得违规使用小报小刊的稿件，严禁转载境外媒体消息；制止影响社会稳定的负面新闻炒 作；对突发、敏感事件的报道要以新华社、人民日报稿件为准。 4、要加强对论坛、跟帖、博客、聊天室、手机短信息的管理；突发敏感事件或群体性事件报道要关闭新闻跟帖；没人管的论坛、跟帖、博客、聊天室等栏目要暂时 停止更新。 5、做好网站技术防范，做到防篡改、防攻击、防中断，要准备安全预案，发现问题及时处置，迅速恢复。 6、事关北京的重大突发事件，要报经我办同意再发。 7、节日期间，有事儿随时联系，我们也24小时在线。

07年2月28日18时19分

1、关于华睿公司就金沙江中游水电整体开发向国家发改委提起行政诉讼一事，一律不报道，论坛、博客等互动环节不讨论。

2、关于首钢总公司转让秘鲁铁矿股权项目一事，一律不报道，论坛、博客等互动环节不讨论。

07年2月28日19时12分

各网：请清理关于温家宝总理谈社会主义初级阶段任务和我国对外政策一文的负面跟帖

These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on December 17, 2012 (here). This post is the 40th in the series.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing Internet Instructions, censorship, Censorship Vault, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, He Weifang, Internet censorship, mass incidents, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, pu zhiqiang, social stability, Spring Festival, sudden incidents, Xiao Han, Xu Zhiyong, Yi Gang
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“Pardon me, but do you hate the Hans?” I asked them because Nangdrol had used the term “Han devils” in his suicide note. They’d heard about Nangdrol. When I told them I was there to visit Nangdrol’s parents to express my sadness, they told me more.

They said they’d been to the site, as hundreds of Tibetans had. People had set up white tents at the intersection where he died. “He is our hero,” one said.

It was dark when we arrived in Barma. At a lamppost, one of my fellow passengers asked a man for directions but was waved off. At a crossroads, he asked two men on motorcycles and an argument broke out. A monk came to the window to examine me.

[...]

“We are Tibetans,” he said all of a sudden as we left Barma in silence to spend the night in a nearby town. “We are Buddhists, but we can’t go to Lhasa without a permit.” Years ago, you could see many Tibetans on their pilgrimage to Lhasa, but not anymore.

Xu Zhiyong is the co-founder of Open Constitution Initiative (Gongmeng), a legal advocacy group, and one of China’s most famous human rights lawyers. In recent years he has taken on a number of sensitive cases, and in 2009 he was arrested and charged with tax evasion before the case was dismissed. Read more by and about Xu Zhiyong via CDT.

Hong Kong-based iSunAffairs Magazine featured a a graphic photo of a self-immolation on its cover accompanied by an article by writer Wang Lixiong, who is married to Tibetan writer Woeser:

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ethnic, self-immolations, Xu Zhiyong
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The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.

10 August 2006, 9:09, Chai Yue

Today at 9:30 in the morning, Guangming Net will broadcast the Expert Forum on Preventing Online “Wrongdoing” Becoming Common Practice, all websites are requested to link to corresponding reporting of Guangming Net on the front page of websites, please use the content of this Forum to replace the article on “Rubbish Short Message Reporting Hotline” in the important news section of the front page of the news section.

10 August 2006, 14:00, Chai Yue

All search engines are requested to direct all search results including the three characters of “baby soup” to news websites, and manually delete harmful content in search results.

10 August 2006, 16:17, Chai Yue

“Clash Between Shanxi Taiyuan Railway Bureau and Commissioned Selling Points – 2 Yuan to Be Received Per Ticket” is false information, all websites are requested to delete this article.

10 August 2006, 17:52, Chai Yue

Recently, media reporting on the excessively high income in some monopoly sectors has been relatively concentrated, netizen discussion has been extremely ardent. After inspection, some reports and discussions do not completely conform to facts, and furthermore, continued reporting and hot discussion brings a certain influence on social stability. Against this, all websites are requested to achieve the following few points:

I. On reports and articles concerning excessively high income in monopoly sectors, only transmit Xinhua and People’s Daily articles, no longer transmit copy from other sources.

II. Do not actively guide netizen discussion in forums, do not conduct themed discussion, also, do not organize VIP interviews concerning this issue.

III. Existing reports, articles and forum posts online are to be pushed to the backstage without exception.

IV. Rumors, incitement as well as harmful information attacking the Party and the government must be timely blocked and deleted.

11 August 2006, 14:09, Chai Yue

All websites and forums are requested to make “selected works” into a keyword for screening.

11 August 2006, 17:30, Chai Yue

It is reported that the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi is preparing to visit the Yasukuni Shrine again within the next few days. Concerning this visit, all websites are requested to achieve the following few points when reprinting or reporting: (1) Timely reprint the consistent position of our country’s government in opposing the visit of Koizumi and facing up to historical issues. In the near future, information related to Japan is not to be put in headers, do not make special subjects, do not open trackers, do not issue mobile short messages; (2) Timely reprint relevant comments from Xinhua, People’s Daily, Global Times and the China Youth Daily; (3) Public opinion is only to be directed at Koizumi individually, persons other than Koizumi or successors may not be involved, and the talks or writing of the Japanese Emperor may not be involved; (4) Strengthen effective supervision and control over forums, blogs, news trackers and other interactive columns. Discussions that incite troublemaking, successive name-signing, rumor-mongering, abuse and other extreme discussions must be timely deleted and blocked.

At the end of August, the president of Venezuela, Chavez, will conduct the 4th State Visit to our country, all websites shall stress the objective reporting of the visit activities itself when they reprint or report this. The anti-American discourse of Chavez may be appropriately and objectively reported, but it may not be excessively played up, do not comment on it, do not link it up with formulations of the sort of “Great Anti-America Link-Up.” All websites must, at the same time as timely reprinting copy form main central news work units, strengthen management over forums, news trackers, blogs and other interactive columns, timely block and delete all sorts of harmful information that do not conform to the above requirements.

11 August 2006, 22:03, Chen Hua

Everyone, posts related to “secret of Lin Biao’s diaries and files uncovered” are to be deleted, and it is to be made into a keyword for screening; concerning the matter of achengguancadre in Haidian, Beijing being stabbed, no reports are to be made without exception. This has already been sent to online service platforms, please receive this and deal with it.

12 August 2006, 11:20, Huang Jing

Recently, a few overseas media reported some information concerning the Beijing Municipal Grain Bureau purchasing 290,000 tons of old grain, and selling it again in 2006. The Beijing Municipal Grain Bureau news spokesperson pointed out: this information is gravely inconsistent with the facts. All websites are required to timely investigate whether or not rumors with corresponding information are present on their sites, and timely delete it. Keywords include “Beijing Municipality,” “Grain Bureau,” “old grain,” “Lu Hao,” etc.

12 August 2006, 12:00, Huang Jing

Everyone, please immediately begin to clean up classifieds concerning illegal installation of household satellite television in your websites, forums and blogs. All search engines will make “Beijing household satellite television installation” and “household satellite television installation” into keywords for screening.

13 August 2006, 12:50, Chai Yue

Everyone, please speedily clean up rumors concerning Vice-Mayor Lu Hao purchasing old grain according to propaganda requirements, at present, large amounts of rumour articles can still be searched for on many websites, please use keywords to screen for this in searches, naturally keywords cannot only be “old grain,” the propaganda requirements for platforms have been written clearly, these are also “Beijing Municipal Grain Bureau” and “Lu Hao.” Deal with discussions related to Lang Xianping, etc.

13 August 2006, 13:03, Chai Yue

1. All websites are requested to change “Hunan Provincial Committee Collects the Popular Will from the Entire World” into “CCP Hunan Provincial Committee Collects the Popular Will Broadly from the People in the Entire Province.”

2. Concerning the matter of a chengguan cadre being stabbed in Haidian, Beijing, please strictly control posts, the orientation absolutely must be to condemn the murderer, fingers may not be pointed at urban management cadres.

13 August 2006, 15:50, Chai Yue

“Private Reception of Foreign Television in Beijing May Be Subject to Criminal Liability”

Please control negative comments on trackers concerning this news item.

14 August 2006, 16:34, Network Management Office

All websites are required to pay attention: please do not transmit reports concerning ticketing issues during the Beijing Olympics Period; if ticketing issues are touched upon in reports concerning the Olympics, please only transmit them after deleting the part concerning the issue of ticketing; where it cannot be deleted, do not reprint the said report with the part involving ticketing issues.

15 August 2006, 8:30, Network Management Office

All websites are requested to publish this article on the top of the domestic news section of the main page of the news centre, and manage posts well. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-08-14/14009745137s.shtml, Beijing Municipal Party Committee Secretary Liu Qi visits the relatives of chengguan personnel who died in the line of duty.

15 August 2006, 9:01, Network Management Office

All websites are requested to put the two articles “Koizumi Visits Yasukuni Shrine Again Today” and “Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Protests Strongly” on the main page of websites and a large header in the news centre. Only use Xinhua and People’s Daily copy. Manage trackers well.

15 August 2006, 11:23, Network Management Office

All websites are requested to add the following keywords again: large dish receiver, large dish, large satellite dish, television reception dish, television dish, non-dish receiver, non-dish satellite receiver, satellite dish, little ear satellite aerial, satellite antenna installation, please ensure that there are no search results for all keywords that require to be screened.

18 August 2006, 9:14, Network Management Office

Information concerning Jung Chang’s book Mao: The Unknown Story is to be deleted without exception!

18 August 2006, 17:23, Network Management Office

Please search for and delete the post “Statement Concerning the Demand to Immediately Cease the Detention of Doctor Xu Zhiyong” in forums.

18 August 2006, 19:58, Network Management Office

Matters related to the book The Spring of Weeping Blood of which the Beijing Municipal Ruibo Times Cultural Center organized the compilation, are not to be disseminated or reported, all search organs shall make “Beijing Municipal Ruibo Times Cultural Center” and “The Spring of Weeping Blood” into keywords for screening.

2006年8月北京网管办发出的禁令（二）
2006年8月10日09时08分 柴玥

今天上午9：30，光明网将直播“防止网上‘恶搞’成风专家座谈会”（http://www.gmw.cn/content/wseg.htm），请各网站在首页链接光明网的相关报道，并用此座谈会内容替代现新闻中心首页要闻区中“垃圾短信举报热线”一稿。
2006年8月10日14时00分 柴玥

请各搜索引擎将包含有“婴儿汤”三个字的所有搜索结果全部指向新闻网站，并手工删除现结果中的不良内容。
2006年8月10日16时17分 柴玥

《山西太原铁路局与代售点起冲突 每张票要收2元》为假消息，请各网删除此稿。
2006年8月10日17时52分 柴玥

近期以来，媒体对某些垄断行业收入过高问题报道比较集中，网民讨论十分热烈。经核实，有些报道和言论并不完全符合事实，而且，持续的报道和热议给社会稳定带来一定的影响。对此，请各网做到如下几点：

一、关于垄断行业收入过高之类的报道和文章，只转新华社和人民日报文章，不再转发其他来源稿件。

二、论坛中不主动引导网民讨论，不要进行点题讨论，也不组织有关此问题的嘉宾访谈。

三、网上现有有关报道文章和论坛帖文一律压至后台。

四、对造谣、煽动以及攻击党和政府的有害信息，要及时封堵和删除。
2006年8月11日14时09分 柴玥

请各网站论坛都把“文选”设为关键字屏蔽
2006年8月11日17时38分柴玥

●据悉，日本首相小泉准备于近日再次参拜靖国神社。对此次参拜请各网在转载报道时做到如下几方面：（一）及时转载我国政府反对小泉参拜、正视历史问 题的一贯立场和日本社会各界健康的声音。近期涉日消息不作头条、不作专题、不开跟帖、不发手机短信；（二）及时转载新华社、人民日报、环球时报、中国青年 报的有关评论；（三）舆论矛头只对准小泉个人，不要涉及小泉以外的人或继任者，不要涉及日本天皇谈话笔录等。（四）加强对论坛、博客、新闻跟帖等互动栏目 的有效监控。对煽动闹事、串联签名、造谣谩骂等过激言论要及时删除和封堵。

●8月下旬，委内瑞拉总统查维斯将对我国进行第四次国事访问，各网在转载报道时应侧重对访问活动自身的客观报道。对查维斯的反美言论可作适当客观报 道，但不要过分渲染，不作评论，不与”反美大串联”之类说法挂钩。各网站在及时转载中央主要新闻单位稿件的同时，要加强对论坛、新闻跟帖、博客等互动栏目 的管理，及时封堵和删除与上述要求不符的各类有害信息。
2006年8月11日22时03分 陈华

各位，有关“林彪日记档案揭秘”相关贴文删除，各搜索设为关键词屏蔽; 有关今天北京海淀一城管干部被刺伤一事一律不报道。已发网上服务平台，请查收并办。
2006年8月12日11时20分 黄婧

近期,海外个别媒体报道了一些关于北京市粮食局采购29万吨陈化粮,又在2006年售出的消息.北京市粮食局新闻发言人指出:此消息与事实严重不符.请各网站及时清查本网站是否有相关内容的谣言,并及时删除.关键词有”北京市”\”粮食局”\”陈化粮”\”陆昊”等.
2006年8月12日12时00分 黄婧

各位，请马上开始清理各自己网站、论坛、博客中关于非法安装家用卫星电视的小广告。各搜索将“北京家用卫星电视安装”、“家用卫星电视安装”设为关键词屏蔽。
2006年8月13日12时50分 柴玥

各位，关于陆昊副市长购进陈化粮的谣言，请按照宣传要求迅速清理一下，目前多家网站还能搜索出大量谣言文章，请用关键词在搜索里屏蔽一下，当然关键字不只是陈化粮，平台的宣传要求写清楚了，还有北京市粮食局、陆昊。朗咸平的有关言论都处理一下。
2006年8月13日13时03分 柴玥

1．请各网将将《湖南省委向全球征集民意》改为《中共湖南省委面向全省民众广泛征集民意》。

2．有关北京海淀一城管干部被刺伤一事，请严格控制跟帖，导向一定要谴责凶手，不要把矛头指向城管干部。
2006年8月13日15时50分柴玥

北京私接境外电视可被追究刑事责任

这条新闻的跟帖请控制负面评论。
2006年8月14日16时35分 网管办

请各网注意：请不要转载有关北京奥运会期间票务问题的报道；如有关奥运会的报道中涉及票务问题，请删除关于票务问题的部分再转载；如无法删除，就不转载部分涉及票务问题的该篇报道。
2006年8月15日08时30分 网管办

请各网站将此稿发在新闻中心首页国内新闻上部，管好跟贴http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-08-14/14009745137s.shtml 北京市委书记刘淇看望殉职城管家属
2006年8月15日09时01分 网管办

请各网将《小泉今日再次参拜靖国神社》、《 中国外交部强烈抗议》两稿放在网站首页，新闻中心大头条。只用新华社、人民日报稿件。管理好跟帖。
2006年8月15日11时23分 网管办

请各网再添加以下关键词：大锅接收器 、大锅、 卫星大锅 、电视接收锅、 电视锅 、无锅接收器、 无锅卫星接收器、 卫星锅 、小耳朵卫星天线、 卫星天线安装，请将所有要求屏蔽的关键词做到搜索无结果。
2006年8月18日09时14分 网管办

关于张戎著《毛泽东不为人知的故事》的消息一律删除!
2006年8月18日17时23分 网管办

请在论坛内查并找删除〈关于要求立即解除对许志永博士羁押的声明〉的帖文。
2006年8月18日19时58分 网管办

有关北京市瑞博时代文化中心组织编写《泣血的春天》一书相关事宜不传播不报道，各搜索引擎将”北京市瑞博时代文化中心”、《泣血的春天》设关键词屏蔽

These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on December 3, 2012 (here).

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Beijing Olympics, Beijing, Beijing Internet Instructions, CCP, censorship, Censorship Vault, Chai Yue, Chen Hua, chengguan, china youth daily, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Global Times, Haidian, Hugo Chavez, Hunan, Internet censorship, Japan, jung chang, Junichiro Koizumi, Lang Xianping, Lin Biao, Liu Qi, Lu Hao, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Truth, people's daily, satellite TV, Shanxi, venezuela, Xinhua, Xu Zhiyong, Yasukuni Shrine
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A story Monday by the Xinhua news wire reported that a senior security official had recently been “inspecting a security ‘moat’ project created in areas encircling Beijing for the congress’ smooth holding.” There was apparently no water involved, just a lot of police.

The story quoted Zhou Yongkang, a standing committee member who oversees domestic security, as urging authorities in Beijing and surrounding regions to form a “solid defense . . . thus creating a safe, orderly, auspicious and peaceful environment for the successful holding of the 18th National Congress.”

Amnesty International released a statement last week that gave an idea of what that might mean: More than 100 activists have been rounded up so far.

“The police have placed dozens of activists under house arrest, forcibly removed individuals from Beijing and have closed down the offices of community groups in attempts to suppress peaceful dissent,” the group said. “Scores of activists are believed to be held in ‘black jails’ across the country. . . . Hotels, hostels, basements of buildings and farm centers have all been reportedly used as black jails.”

A major thrust of the campaign has been to block petitioners from reaching the capital. The Telegraph’s Tom Phillips visited Lü Number 3 Team Village on the outskirts of Beijing:

Lu is home to around 700 permanent residents, many of whom supplement their incomes by renting shoddily built shacks to aggrieved men and women bound for Beijing to seek assistance from the central government.

“I don’t care who the tenants are, as long as they pay,” said the owner of one of dozens of cramped guesthouses, who rents rooms for 10 yuan (£1) a night or 200 yuan (£20) a month.

But the village’s once-crowded guesthouses stand largely empty this week after police and security forces moved in to weed out potential troublemakers ahead of the highly sensitive leadership transition.

The state media has dubbed the crackdown the “zero petitions” policy. A report in the Global Times newspaper last month claimed”petitioning cases” in Beijing had fallen 12% since August, after 10,000 detentions.

Activists already in Beijing have faced house arrest or strong pressure to leave the city. From Gillian Wong at The Associated Press:

The crackdown has extended to lawyers such as Xu Zhiyong. He said Beijing authorities have held him under informal house arrest since mid-October, stationing four or five guards outside his apartment in Beijing around the clock.

[…] Even dissidents’ relatives have come under pressure. Beijing activist Hu Jia said he was warned by police to leave town, and that even his parents told him that police had told them to escort him to his hometown.

“My parents said to me: ‘Hu Jia, you don’t know what kind of danger you are in, but we know,’” he recounted in a phone interview from his parents’ home in eastern Anhui province. “They said: ‘Beijing is a cruel battlefield. If you stay here, you will be the first to be sacrificed. Don’t do this.’”

Also pressured to leave Beijing was writer Wang Lixiong, whose Tibetan wife Woeser had already left for Lhasa. Wang wrote in a New York Times op-ed, translated by Perry Link:

The Communist Party has, for the sake of its own meeting, asked that my wife leave me and that I leave my elderly mother, who is too old to live without someone to care for her. Incidentally, she joined the Communist Party in 1947 (two years before the founding of the People’s Republic, and a time when joining was still dangerous) and did so in order to oppose the reigning Nationalist government, which she saw as “lacking humanity.”

Now, I want to ask her, “What do you think of the humanity of the Communist Party today?” but cannot bring myself to inflict on her the pain that the question would bring.

I have replied to State Security that a party conclave is no reason to disperse a family. They, in turn, threatened that if I refused to leave, things would become “uncomfortable” for me. They did not say how. I have decided to wait at home and see. What does a party that vows before the entire world that it follows the rule of law have in mind for my discomfort?

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, activists, Amnesty International, CCP, dissidents, Global Times, house arrest, Hu Jia, perry link, petitioners, security crackdown, stability preservation, Wang Lixiong, Woeser, Xu Zhiyong, Zhou Yongkang
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At the end of December, on the day of the Laba Rice Congee Festival, when Chinese families typically eat congee, a type of rice porridge, Mr. Song wanted to deliver some congee to the petitioners. I told him that if he distributed it in the evening, I could go with him. But he said that in accordance with Northern custom, the congee should be eaten at lunchtime and so Mr. Song did it on his own. On his way, he was stopped by the police, and the porridge was confiscated. On the day of the Lantern Festival, which marked the end of the annual Chinese New Year holiday, Mr. Song was detained once again, because he gave the petitioners glutinous rice dumplings.

[...] After the coldest months of the winter had passed, I contacted Mr. Song and learned that he’d turned his focus toward rescuing petitioners who were being illegally detained in the infamous black jails, ad hoc detention centers that were set up in hotels to hold “troublemakers” from outside of Beijing until they could be returned forcibly to their hometowns.

[...] After the escape of the blind, barefoot lawyer Chen Guangcheng from his farmhouse in Shandong Province, where he’d been under illegal house arrest, Mr. Song took an even more dangerous risk. He drove to Dongshigu, Mr. Chen’s village, and helped the wife of Mr. Chen’s nephew, who had also been arrested, to escape to Beijing, where she went into hiding to avoid being abused by the local government.

Song's lawyer Liang Xiaojun gives a detailed account of their meeting in a detention center before Song's disapperance. From Yaxue Cao at Seeing Red in China:

I asked how he had been taken to custody and what the interrogation had been like. He spoke fast and clear: He was seized by policemen in the morning of May 4th while waiting in Beijing South Railway Station for a petitioner who had called and asked for his help in what now looked like a premeditated trap. He was then interrogated by policemen from Fengtai District Public Security Bureau and Beijing Headquarters respectively from the afternoon to early next morning. And as Xu Zhiyong predicted, it was about his visit to the black jail in Beijing set up by Chenzhou municipality, Hunan (湖南郴州) and his rescue of petitioners there, but also his online posts to help the petitioners. He was also asked his relationship with Xu Zhiyong—how he met him and how he became a volunteer for Citizen. On May 5, he was charged with “provoking disturbances” (寻衅滋事罪) and transferred to the Fengtai detention center.

[...] After that I was taken up by other obligations. I felt that Song Ze would be released soon, because, legally I couldn’t think of anything that he could possibly be convicted with. His detention was based on charges of “provoking disturbances” (寻衅滋事) as defined by Article 293 of China’s Criminal Law. They refer to the followings: beating another person at will; chasing, intercepting or hurling insults to another person; forcibly taking or demanding, willfully damaging, destroying or occupying public or private property; creating disturbances in a public place. As far as I could see, Song Ze had simply done what a citizen should have done, and he displayed no behaviors punishable by law.

Looking back now, I was too optimistic.

[...] On June 12 I went to Fengtai District detention center again. The officer in charge of the case told me that Song Ze had been switched to residing under surveillance and taken away by people from Beijing PSB a few days ago. He said he didn’t know which department of the PSB they were from, nor did he know where they had taken Song Ze. All he could tell me was that Fengtai District was no long on the case anymore.

Xu Zhiyong also expresses his concern about Song Ze's plight and explains the operation of black jails and surveillance in China. Translation by Hannah at Seeing Red in China:

Black prisons are places where local governments illegally detain petitioners. If the petitioners try to go to the Prime Minister’s house or foreign embassies near Dongjiaominxiang (东交民巷), Wangfujing Street (王府井大街) or other places where they are not supposed to petition, they could be taken away by police. During the so-called sensitive time of Two Meetings each year, they could be apprehended just passing through Chang’an Street (长安街) and being found carrying petitioning materials. All these are labeled “irregular petitioning” and the petitioners who have been rounded up are sent to Jiu Jing Zhuang (久敬庄), the detention and deportation center run by the State Bureau of Letters and Calls. Jiu Jing Zhuang would order local governments’ Beijing offices to take away petitioners from their jurisdictions on the same day they arrive in Jiu Jing Zhuang. However, most petitioners cannot be dispatched back to their homes that same day. They must wait to be sent home, perhaps needing a few days or a few weeks, and this turns into a profiteering opportunity for some people.

People running the black prisons are those who have connections with officials in the State Bureau of Letters and Calls or local governments’ Beijing offices. They rent hotel basements, hire thugs, forcibly take the petitioners from Jiu Jing Zhuang, illegally detain them, and then order the local governments to come to get the petitioners and pay a fee for the latters’ stay. They fetch 80 to 200 RMB per petitioner per day.

[...] In reality, residing under surveillance is more formidable than imprisonment. According to the new Criminal Procedure Law, the authority may designate the location for residing under surveillance, but it shall notify their relatives. But China being China, Song Ze’s family has not received any notification. He can still meet with his lawyer when detained in the detention center, but it’s been more than 40 days since he was put under residential surveillance, no one has been able to see Song Ze; and the PSB has refused to answer any questions on his whereabouts.

See more on China's criminal procedure law and black jails via CDT.

© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: activists, black jails, civil society, criminal procedure law, illegal detentions, lawyers, surveillance, Xu Zhiyong
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Today, China still has not been able to leave behind authoritarianism, power monopolies, rampant corruption, the wealth disparity, violent housing demolitions, education imbalance, and the black hole of social security … the root of these weighty social problems is autocracy; the Chinese nation needs to move with the historic tide of great civic movements, moving from bottom to top, from political and social to cultural, from the awakening of individual citizens to the revitalization of the entire Chinese civilization.

[…] The goal of the New Citizens’ Movement is a free China ruled by democracy and law, a just and happy civil society with “freedom, righteousness, love” as the new national spirit.

The core of the New Citizen’s Movement is “the citizen.” This is an individual concept as well as a political and social concept. The citizen is not a subject; the citizen is an independent and free entity, and he or she obeys the communal contract and legal process. He or she does not have to kneel down to any given person. The citizen is not a layman — the citizen is the master of the country. The ruler’s power must come from election by the entire citizenry, bidding farewell to the barbaric logic of the “barrel of the gun regime.” Citizens are neither docile nor a mob; citizens are happy to share in the order of justice and the responsibility to have integrity, magnanimity, moderation, and rationality.

Read more about Xu Zhiyong via CDT.

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Post tags: citizens' movement, civil society, lawyers, Xu Zhiyong
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Having traveled for about half an hour, first on highway and then over a bumpy road, we arrived and got out of the car. Intuitively I tried to remove the black cover over my head when a man huffed, “Don’t!” and two men seized me by the arms.

We got into a room, as I sensed, and I was pressed down into what seemed to me like the corner of a sofa. I was stripped of my belt, my shoe laces and everything I had with me. People were shuffling in and out of the room. One voice said to me, “For now, think what you have done lately. Think hard! We’ll ask you questions in the afternoon!” I sat still and said nothing.

Xu recalls that last year he was detained by security police for organizing “a relatively large-scale petition for equal rights for education”. He was taken to a hot-spring resort but refused to cooperate with security police in this so-called “tourism”. On both occasions, Xu protested his illegal detention by refusing to accept the meals provided by security officers.

After an officer threatened to prosecute Xu for “inciting subversion of state power”, Xu argued that “all of our efforts are to protect the liberty and human rights of each and every Chinese …. No one will be able to reverse the historical tide, so don’t overdo it.”

Xu attributed the relatively humane treatment he received to “wide attention” from the outside world, contrasting this with other cases of illegal detention involving physical abuse and even deaths. He expressed gratitude towards the “new citizens” who are concerned with human rights conditions in China. He ascribed his detention and harassment to his endless efforts to promote civil rights and stated that he would be willing to “pay a price for the freedom of the people”. From Seeing Red in China:

The new civil movement calls individual citizens to spread the principles of democracy and rule of law, to abide a civil code of actions, to reject privileges and corruption. And we advocate liberty, justice and love, which is the spirit of the new civic movement. Our mission is to end, from the root, the cycle of regime change through violence and give freedom back to each and every Chinese. This is the reason for which I lost my own freedom for the time being.

Xu signed his blog post “Citizen Xu Zhiyong”: his organisation, ‘Citizen’, has been distributing pins bearing the Chinese characters for the term, 公民 gongmin, in Sun Yat-sen’s handwriting. A recent post on CDT described the “decapitation” of Sina Weibo users who had adopted these characters as their avatars.

Xu was accused of tax evasion in 2010, but the case was dismissed soon afterwards. Read more about Xu Zhiyong on China Digital Times.

© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: civil society, Human Rights, illegal detentions, lawyers, Xu Zhiyong
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Reuters reported last week that, faced with intransigent officials and empty guarantees of safe passage in Linyi, some of Chen’s would-be visitors have taken their complaints to Beijing:

Some of the supporters were beaten by dozens of men in plain clothes while trying to visit Chen on Sunday, and their complaints were later ignored by the local police, said Mao Hengfeng, a petitioner from Shanghai.

She said the petitioners then went to Beijing’s Ministry of Public Security, but it was not clear whether officials accepted their petition expressing concerns about Chen’s treatment.

“We were roughed up and pushed around, and some of us were hurt, but the police didn’t lift a finger and ignored our complaints,” Mao told Reuters about the weekend incident in Linyi.

“Now we want the Ministry of Public Security to do something about Linyi — it’s a place without any law or rights.”

But Jerome Cohen, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed based on his Nov. 1 testimony to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote that the image of the Linyi government as a rogue, independent actor is a misconception. While limited aspects of the story may indeed be cases of local-vs-national government, he argues, the situation as a whole is part of a broader program in which Beijing is entirely complicit.

There are three myths about Mr. Chen’s plight that must be dispelled. One is that such cases of persecution and abuse of lawyers and legal activists are rare in China, and only occur when a few heroic dissidents openly invoke the law to confront injustice rather than rely less confrontational methods ….

A second myth is that Mr. Chen’s recent suffering is merely another example of local government run amok, neither approved nor condoned by the central government. Many attacks on lawyers are indeed local in origin, and Mr. Chen’s case started out that way in 2005 when local authorities first sent thugs to illegally confine him and his family at home. However, the case soon came to the attention of national leaders. After representatives of the Ministry of Public Security reportedly met with local officials to discuss the situation, the authorities launched a criminal prosecution against Mr. Chen, a more conventional type of repression.

A third myth is that there must be some purported legal justification for the suffering that the Chen household has endured since his release from prison last year. Governments, even the Chinese government, normally like to maintain some veneer of plausible legitimacy for their misconduct, however thin it might be. Yet no such justification has come to my knowledge in this case, which seems to have exceeded the bounds of police ingenuity.

See also Andy Yee’s post on Chen’s house arrest as a facet of China’s stability maintenance machinery at Global Voices Online, a slightly different adaptation of Cohen’s testimony at The New York Review of Books, and Human Rights in China Executive Director Sharon Hom’s testimony to the same Congressional-Executive Commission:

It is important to note that Chen Guangcheng’s situation reflects the fate of countless other human rights defenders in China subject to extra-legal measures, including being restrained under constant surveillance within closed premises – in their homes, temporary residences such as boarding houses or hotels (also known as “black jails”), or other undisclosed locations – where they are not permitted to leave. As distinguished from formal sentences of imprisonment, in which authorities officially charge and detain individuals pursuant to cited criminal laws and procedures, Chinese government officials have articulated no specific legal basis for these detentions. As a result, extra-judicially detained rights defenders are left entirely outside the protection of the law, without any recourse to procedures to challenge their detention, under circumstances that could permit serious rights violations – including the use of torture or other ill-treatment.

The commission’s chairman, Representative Chris Smith, announced his intention to visit Chen if possible, and to pursue other avenues if not. From the AFP:

“Enough is enough. The cruelty and extreme violence against Chen and his family brings dishonor to the government of China and must end,” said Representative Chris Smith, chairman of the Congressional Executive Commission on China.

Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who is active on human rights issues, said he would shortly ask China to allow a US congressional delegation to travel to Chen’s village of Dongshigu in eastern Shandong province.

“I am trying to put together a trip to go there and go to his house. We’re already checking flights,” Smith told AFP after the hearing, saying that the lawmakers “desperately hope” that Chen is still alive.

Even if China does not allow the trip, Smith said that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or the US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, should raise the case at the highest levels.

Locke told GlobalPost last Friday that he had actually already expressed his concerns:

“We are very concerned about his treatment and, for instance, the reports his daughter was not allowed to go to school. Although he’s been freed, he is still under severe restrictions on his movements,” Locke told GlobalPost in a private interview Friday. He said the Chinese government has not yet responded to the letter he sent in September ….

Since Locke sent the letter, Chen’s 6-year-old daughter has been allowed to leave her home to attend school, under guard.

The ambassador, who arrived in Beijing in August, added his voice to the chorus calling for China to ease its extreme treatment of the self-taught lawyer, who is known for exposing forced abortions in his hometown in Shandong province.

A new report from the Committee to Support Chinese Lawyers, ‘Legal Advocacy and the 2011 Crackdown in China: Adversity, Repression, and Resilience‘ (PDF) describes earlier interference with efforts to help Chen (pp. 9-10):

On February 16, 2011, a group of activists and lawyers gathered over lunch to strategize about how to come to the aid of Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught legal activist facing an extraordinary level of government abuse. A week earlier, on February 9, Chen and his wife Yuan Weijing publicly released a series of videos describing the 24-hour surveillance and house imprisonment he and his family had been subjected to since his release from prison on September 9, 2010. There was absolutely no legal basis for these measures or the ongoing deprivation of liberty of Chen and his family. The following day, Chen and his wife were beaten in their home in retribution for releasing the videos online. (For more details on Chen’s case, see Box B. [p. 23])

Authorities barred seven individuals from leaving their homes to attend the February 16 meeting, including Li Xiongbing, Li Heping, and Xu Zhiyong, three lawyers whom authorities would proceed to illegally detain at various times in the following months. Another person prevented from attending the meeting, Internet activist and rights defender Wang Lihong, was detained sometime before March 26 and has since been convicted for “assembling a crowd to disturb social order” and sentenced to nine months imprisonment. The February 16 meeting mirrored other gatherings held during the period of Chen’s pre-trial detention in 2006, making Chen’s case notable because it inspired lawyers, human rights defenders, and activists to coalesce as a community in his support.

Enforced disappearance is defined under international law as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty of a person either by state agents or with official support, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the detention or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. Chinese authorities proceeded to employ this illegal measure against many of the lawyers who managed to attend the meeting. Police seized lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jitian that afternoon. Tang was disappeared for three weeks, while Jiang was interrogated and beaten before being released in the evening, only to be disappeared for 2 months from February 19 to April 19. Beijing-based rights lawyer and university lecturer Teng Biao was disappeared for 69 days between February 19 and April 29.

The Economist cited Chen’s would-be visitors as a key demonstration of the Internet’s potential for coordinating activism in China:

The use of the internet to mobilise people to visit Mr Chen has rattled officials far beyond Shandong province. It is the first time in China that activists have made such a persistent effort to show up in solidarity with someone under house arrest. It also coincides with attempts to use weibo, or microblogs, to gain support for independent candidates in elections to low-level “people’s congresses” that have been taking place around the country. Though the congresses have little power, and it is very difficult for truly independent candidates to stand, the polls still make the Communist Party nervous.

Activists know they have little chance of meeting Mr Chen, whose house is floodlit at night and cut off from mobile-phone networks. But there have been numerous quixotic forays. On October 14th a number of disabled men and women from neighbouring Anhui province were turned away. On October 30th, says Human Rights in China, an NGO based in New York, a group of 37 people who made the attempt to get through was attacked by around 100 thugs.

The Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon sees Chen’s predicament as akin to the death of Yueyue and the authorities’ pursuit of Ai Weiwei in reflecting an underbelly sometimes concealed by the bright plumage of China’s economic hi-scores and scientific leaps.

His neighbours stand aside and let it happen. “These people must have known Chen Guangcheng. They might have even been his student, friends, or relatives. But in this place, at this time, no one cared about what was happening to him. These villagers treated him as if he were a stranger, or an enemy. All these villagers had gotten together to gang up against one blind man,” writer Murong Xuecun wondered after he and four friends were roughed up and prevented from seeing Mr. Chen ….

The Communist Party’s supporters will say that dissidents like Mr. Ai and Mr. Chen don’t matter in the big scheme of things. The argument goes that the persecution of these few is a small price to pay for ensuring the stability that allows the People’s Republic to get wealthier, to build a space program, and to experiment – a little – with civil society.

Reading that half of the headlines, it’s hard to argue that progress isn’t being made. But as little Yueyue’s case illustrated so vividly, the costs of that stability – the institutionalized injustice and indifference – are still being tallied.

Italy’s Post Internazionale has interviewed “Crazy Crab”, the cartoonist behind ‘Hexie Farm‘ (which was included in CDT’s recent list of search terms blocked on Sina Weibo) and the ‘Dark Glasses. Portrait‘ project in support of Chen Guangcheng:

The CCP has a long history of using art as a powerful propaganda tool. However, artists can also use art to protest against the one party dictatorship and censorship. If an art work shocks the audience, give them a new perspective and let them think in a different way, then it can help to change the system gradually …. One month ago, I started ‘Dark glasses. Portrait’ campaign to support a blind lawyer, Mr. Chen Guangcheng, who is under house arrest in a village. I received hundreds of photos from unknown people already. Reading their emails I can feel their fear, even from people who are thousands kilometers away from China (in Europe or the US ). But the more I read from participants’ words is still courage and strength.

See more on the Crazy Crab interview via CDT.

Meanwhile, in the Relativity Media Linyi film shoot subplot, Relativity CEO Ryan Kavanaugh was due to appear at the Asia Society’s US-China Film Summit in Los Angeles last Tuesday. He cancelled at the last minute, however, possibly calculating that continued celebration of his firm’s valuable business relationships in China might be derailed by awkward questions about his partners’ other activities. The Washington Post, though, talked to a Linyi official whose enthusiasm for the city’s cinematic prospects remained undented:

In a telephone interview, Su Guiyou, director of the Linyi Propaganda Department’s Culture Industry Office, said that the district hoped to become a center for movie-making and that the American comedy “will be a good chance to publicize Linyi and will help make Linyi famous not only in China, but also the world.” The Hollywood team, he said, filmed for four days last week and shot a “dream scene” in a local quarry.

Asked about Chen and complaints about his treatment, Su said he had never heard of the activist and hung up.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, black jails, cartoonists, Chen Guangcheng, Christopher Smith, congress, congressional hearing, detention, Gary Locke, Hillary Clinton, house arrest, human rights in china, illegal detentions, Jerome cohen, lawyers, Li Heping, Li Xiongbing, linyi, local government, Mao Hengfeng, Murong Xuecun, petitioners, Shandong, Tang Jitian, Teng Biao, United States, Wang Lihong, Xu Zhiyong
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The report of the detention of Xu Zhiyong, a civil rights lawyer, was a reminder that, for all the attention given to Mr Ai’s release, many more activists are still being held.

The scores of formal arrests, unofficial detentions and unexplained disappearances in recent months mark China’s most intense period of repression since the crackdown following the Tiananmen protests in 1989, campaigners say ….

“There is no doubt that, after the Arab spring, the authorities launched a comprehensive effort to redefine the limits of permissible expression,” said Nicholas Bequelin, of Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. “The government came to the conclusion that the only way to rein in criticism was to physically take the critics off the grid,” he said ….

Mr Xu, the lawyer, went missing on Wednesday, according to Human Rights Watch. A news official in the national public security bureau said she was not aware of any arrest. Mr Xu’s phone was turned off. Previously jailed in 2009, Mr Xu had been helping people trying to run as independents in local elections.

Xu himself successfully ran for the People’s Congress in Beijing’s Haidian district in 2003. He has been involved in an extremely wide range of issues, most recently the pursuit of equal education rights for students regardless of their hukou status. From a 2009 LA Times article published following an earlier detention in 2009:

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.

Xu’s organisation, like Ai Weiwei’s, was accused of tax evasion, but the charges collapsed last August. Read more about Xi Zhiyong via CDT.

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Post tags: Ai Weiwei, detention, Green Dam, Haidian, human rights watch, lawyers, milk contamination, Xu Zhiyong
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The Beijing police department said Wednesday that Ai Weiwei has been released on bail because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from.

The decision comes also in consideration of the fact that Ai has repeatedly said he is willing to pay the taxes he evaded, police said.

The Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., a company Ai controlled, was found to have evaded a huge amount of taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents, police said.

From The Guardian:

Ai’s younger brother Ai Dan told the Guardian he had no information on his brother. The artist’s wife and mother could not be reached immediately and Ai’s phone remained switched off.

NPR’s Louisa Lim, however, reported on Twitter that:

Ai Weiwei’s mother Gao Ying said she’d only heard about his release through the media, no idea when he’d be back. “We won’t sleep tonight”

…and:

Ai Weiwei’s mother Gao Ying said she didn’t want to comment on Ai’s confession until she’d talked to son, and seen his condition

Further details will be posted as they emerge.

Update: Independent confirmation of Ai’s release has come, first from his lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, who tweeted “I sent Ai Weiwei a text message at 11 o’clock. He just replied: he’s out!” Liu also stated (via Louisa Lim) that tax evasion need not carry criminal liability as long as due taxes are repaid.

Ai has arrived back at his studio, apparently looking thinner than before.

ITV’s Angus Walker pointed out that the release comes on the eve of Wen Jiabao’s trip to Germany and the UK; it might therefore have been intended to set a favourable tone for the visit.

There is no news of other missing members of Ai’s circle.

Update: The Telegraph recounted a carefully guarded conversation with Ai following his return home:

“I’m out, I’m back at home,” Mr Ai told The Daily Telegraph by phone, his voice notably softer than before his incarceration, “please understand, however, that I cannot accept interviews”. Asked how he was treated while in detention, Mr Ai again deferred to his bail conditions, but hinted that there were no imminent court proceedings against him. “I am out on bail for one year, that is all I can say,” he added.

Asked whether his bail would also prevent him using Twitter – a medium he used prolifically before his arrest – Mr Ai only managed a tired laugh, repeating apologetically that he was unable to speak further.

The New York Times provides more detail on Ai’s legal situation, as well as current photographs of the artist:

“Bail” is the shorthand commonly used as an English translation of the Chinese term “qubao houshen,” which means obtaining a guarantee pending trial [but see Siweiluozi's proposed alternative translation, "obtaining a guarantee pending further investigation"]. It generally means that prosecutors have decided to drop charges against a suspect on certain conditions, including good behavior, and subject to monitoring during over a period of time during which charges could be reintroduced.

“This is a technique that the public security authorities sometimes use as a face-saving device to end controversial cases that are unwise or unnecessary for them to prosecute,” Jerome A. Cohen, a scholar of the Chinese legal system, said in an e-mail. “Often in such cases a compromise has been reached in negotiation with the suspect, as apparently it has been here.”

Mr. Cohen said Mr. Ai’s release “is very good news and perhaps the very best outcome that could have been expected in the circumstances of this difficult case ….”

Mr. Cohen said the circumstances of “qubao houshen” usually meant that the detainee had agreed to limitations on his or her behavior, and that the case could be quietly dropped if the detainee adheres to that agreement and other compromises made. Legally, the police can continue to pursue the case for up to one year. During that time, the suspect is allowed freedom of movement, but the police generally hold on to the person’s travel documents.

Cohen discussed the situation at greater length on the U.S. Asia Law Institute site:

It is important to remember that, although the announcement claims Ai has “confessed his crimes”, no formal charge has ever been made against him; he was apparently not even formally arrested” (逮捕), not to mention indicted (起诉). Ai has thus not had to plead guilty to any crimes, although the term “renzui” (认罪), or admitting guilt, has been used in the press report. He can end the tax obligations by payment with interest, and perhaps a fine, as the press report says he is willing to do.

The decision to grant QBHS has little to do with the rule of law, but everything to do with the untramelled exercise of discretion enjoyed by Chinese authorities. This outcome makes clear that great international public pressure plus significant domestic and personal guanxi (关系, connections) can be a potent combination even in the case of someone who went further than anyone before him in openly thumbing his nose (and other body parts) at the Communist regime. Undoubtedly, Ai’s star talent, his family history and global support from the artistic community helped a lot.

An article in the Guardian was dismissive of suggestions that Ai’s release deliberately coincided with Wen’s Europe visit:

“I think the timing is one of coincidence rather than a deliberate signal,” said Roderic Wye, a China analyst from the Chatham House thinktank. “In the post-Tiananmen days, there was the occasional high-profile person released, but usually before a US presidential visit rather than a trip to Europe, with all due respect to our leaders. The whole point for China is: we don’t give in to pressure these days, China is big enough to make its own decisions without taking foreign pressure into account.”

Elsewhere at the Guardian, however, Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin placed greater weight on the role of international pressure:

“His detention was political and his release is political. It is the result of a huge domestic and international outcry that forced the government to this resolution … I think Beijing realised how damaging it was to hold China’s most famous artist in detention,” he said.

Amnesty International similarly noted the timing, along with the continuing detention of Ai’s associates and the risk that his release might lead into a long and harsh period of house arrest like that of Chen Guangcheng.

“His release on bail can be seen as a tokenistic move by the government to deflect mounting criticism.” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia Pacific.

“It is vital that the international outcry over Ai Weiwei be extended to those activists still languishing in secret detention or charged with inciting subversion.”

Amnesty International is calling for the immediate release of Ai Weiwei’s four associates Wen Tao, Hu Mingfen, Liu Zhenggang and Zhang Jinsong, who all disappeared into secret detention after Ai was detained ….

“While Ai Weiwei’s release is an important step, he must now be granted his full liberty, and not be held in illegal house arrest as has been the pattern with so many others recently released from arbitrary detention.” said Catherine Baber.

In keeping with the “one out, one in” pattern of releases and detentions, Beijing human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong has now been detained, according to Weibo reports. Xu has recently been quoted in connection with China’s independent candidate movement, having successfully run for the People’s Congress in Beijing’s Haidian district in 2003. He has been involved in an extremely wide range of issues, most recently the pursuit of equal education rights for students regardless of their hukou status. From a 2009 LA Times article published following an earlier detention in 2009:

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.

Xu’s organisation, like Ai Weiwei’s, was accused of tax evasion, but the charges collapsed last August. Read more about Xi Zhiyong via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei detention 2011, detention, Gongmeng, Green Dam, Haidian, milk contamination, Southern Metropolis Daily, Xinhua, Xu Zhiyong
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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.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: defending rights, open constitution initiative, Xu Zhiyong
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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.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corruption, ethics, open constitution initiative, Teng Biao, Xu Zhiyong
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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.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Hu Jintao, Tan Zuoren, Xu Zhiyong
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