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.

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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.

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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.

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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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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.

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Post tags: activists, Gongmeng, Ilham Tohti, Xu Zhiyong
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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.

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Post tags: Gongmeng, Xu Zhiyong, Zhuang Lu
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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.

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Post tags: activists, Xu Zhiyong
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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.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Gongmeng, NGOs, tax evasion, Xu Zhiyong
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