(This article is translated by FBIS. )

The mouthpiece of the party tells the whole world: Now is the time “when China’s human rights condition is at its best…” This is a blessing for the Chinese people. I wish this were true. I hope all my compatriots have human rights: the right to know light and darkness, falsehoods and truths and the right to think with their own minds and speak with their own mouths.

At this moment, it is Dr. Jiang Yanyong that comes to my mind. I want to say a loud thank-you to him, for putting forward an extremely weighty and extraordinary recommendation to the National People’s Congress [NPC] and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference [CPPCC]. But I could not get through to him by phone, maybe because I have no right to make telephone calls or because Dr. Jiang has no right to answer my call. That I do not know.

At this moment, I also think of the chairman and vice chairmen of the NPC Standing Committee and the chairman and vice chairmen of the CPPCC National Committee. I do not know whether or not they are enjoying full human rights themselves and which of them are entitled to read the original text of Dr. Jiang’s letter to them. I do not know which of them has the right to use his pen and write a reply to Dr. Jiang, to either concur with him or to disagree with him.

At this moment, I remember Mr. Zhao Ziyang. Over two decades ago, together with all of us, he hewed out a path of economic reform and put forward a preliminary proposal for political reform against all odds. Then, in 1989, he refused to suppress the students and the public with armed forces and strongly advocated “settling the problem within the framework of democracy and law.” Because of that, he won the public’s deep respect, but was stripped of his civil rights by the authorities. Does he have the right to make and answer phone calls? Does he have the right to meet his friends and relatives on his own without authorization from those who keep watch on him? Does he have the right to go for a walk in the street? Under the rule of the Northern Warlords, when the human rights condition in China was at its worst, people still had the right to “point to mountains and rivers and set people afire with their words.” But does Zhao Ziyang have such a right now? Where are Mr. Zhao Ziyang’s human rights at this point in time? Please note that now is the time when our country’s human rights condition is “at its best!”

Chinese characteristics are indeed inconceivable. I was put behind bars by a decision of the CPC Central Committee, but it was not until two years later that the public security authorities completed the formality for a “lawful arrest” retroactively. All the charges against Bao Tong listed in the report from the State Council to the NPC Standing Committee on the “suppression of the rebellion” in 1989 had been fabricated by the State Council. In the course of investigation and hearing, the procuratorate and the court not only failed to “verify” those accusations, but dared not even mention those lies again. This is proof enough that the State Council, with Li Peng as premier, deceived the NPC Standing Committee and brought a false charge against Bao Tong. (This is a long story.)

Later, I was “released upon completion of the sentence” and came out of the prison. That was eight years ago. In the first year, the party and the government undisguisedly instructed public security authorities to keep me under house arrest against the law for 11 months. During the seven years that followed, I was allowed to go home, but was kept under surveillance every single day of those seven years. The around-the-clock surveillance has been the direct charge of no fewer than 20 civil servants. They are physically strong, well equipped, and well-mannered, but have had a record of “manhandling” nonetheless. It happened when we went to town one day. These people who purportedly “represented the government” and “represented the party” asked for instructions via their walkie-talkie. Under the order from the above, they first pushed my wife, who was 70 and had a heart disease, to the ground and then shoved me alone into their car. They then drove off and took me away from town.

I alerted the police substation, the public security bureau, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Council, and State President Jiang Zemin. They had the right to remain silent for four years and my complaint got nowhere, maybe because China’s human rights condition had not yet reached “the best period” four years ago. Things are looking up now. Four years on, the “NPC” has introduced the solemn provision of “respecting and protecting human rights” into the Constitution. But it so happens that as from the recent session of the “NPC,” I, as a Chinese citizen, once again lost my right to make phone calls, surf the Internet, and communicate with society. What is this? This is going backward. The condition of my human rights is worse in 2004 than it was in 2003 (as I could use the telephone and surf the Internet when the “NPC” was in session in 2003) and even worse than in 1998 and 1999 (in those years, although the telephone line and Internet access in my home were cut off as usual during the “NPC” sessions, they were restored as soon as the sessions were over.)

But now, the “NPC” session has long been over, but the telephone and computer in my home are still for decoration only. Making telephone calls and surfing the Internet is part of daily life in modern society, just like reading newspapers, listening to radio, visiting a library, eating in a public canteen, and taking an underground train. Government organs should make life easy for all members of the public and should not put up obstacles for any citizen. Is it a “people-centered” practice to be hard on some of the citizens and disrupt their daily life in a planned and orchestrated manner? Can one call this the “best” period for human rights? Is this something that can meet the requirements of the WTO [World Trade Organization]? Is it possible to host the Olympic Games successfully under such circumstances? In order to strip a citizen of his human rights illegally, they did not scruple to discredit the Constitution and the state. I know that I am only one of many individuals who have been treated with this kind of illegal privation. I prefer to interpret this phenomenon by assuming that some people must have done this “behind the back of” the party and the government and that they did not “represent” the party and the government, for the party’s mouthpiece is broadcasting to the whole world: Now is the time when the human rights condition in the People’s Republic of China is at its best….

Official powers (or party powers) are not the same thing as civil rights. In China, civil rights are often the target of infringement and trampling by official powers. The defeat of civil rights is usually a result of the unbridled expansion of government power. When the government is feeling “good,” the human rights condition is not necessarily “good.”

China’s human rights condition should be judged by the “complainants” who run around trying to safeguard their rights and interests on the lengthy journey of lodging complaints with higher authorities year in, year out; by the lawyers who are found “guilty” for exposing corruption in the officialdom; by the citizens who were imprisoned for safeguarding civil rights; by the political offenders, speech offenders, and ideological offenders in prison and the “dissidents” outside prison under illegal house arrest and torture by the authorities; and by the victims of the Tiananmen incident and their brothers, sisters, parents, wives, and children.