China Change, July 4, 2019
Given the serial nature of Ms. Huang Wang’s Twitter revelations, which began on June 25, we will start our report on her latest revelations with a recap of what she has posted earlier.
Huang Wan (黄婉) is the daughter-in-law of Zhou Yongkang (周永康), one of the nine CCP Standing Committee members during Hu Jintao’s tenure as the General Secretary of the Communist Party from 2002 to 2012. He was investigated sometime in 2013 after Xi Jinping took the helm, and was subsequently tried and sentenced to life in prison. On December 1, 2013, security forces (either police or armed police or a combination of both) stormed Ms. Huang’s home, taking away her husband Zhou Bin (周滨), Zhou Yongkang’s elder son, herself and everyone else on site. She was detained for 10 months and 12 days in a secret location in Beijing and tortured. Then, she was taken to Yichang detention center in Hubei province. Ms. Huang was tried in February 2016. In May 2016, she was released on a three-year probation during which she was required to report to police regularly for “community correction.”
On June 6, Ms. Huang , an American citizen since 1998, completed her probation and was finally free. She had made plans to visit her parents in the United States. But just days before her long-awaited freedom, a civil case involving a lease dispute was brought against her which she described to her lawyer Chen Jiangang (陈建刚) as “fictitious” and designed to prevent her from leaving China.
In her latest revelations posted on July 2, she told her lawyer how the Chinese government has sent judicial officials to her home three times since 2016 trying to confiscate her property. “My entire family has been targeted with the intent to destroy our lives, and we are in danger of losing everything. On top of that, I’m prohibited from leaving China,” she told her lawyer as the transcript of their interview shows.
“I was tried on February 1, 2016, and sentenced on May 27. While waiting for sentencing, an investigator in Zhou Bin’s case named Zhang Ye (张烨) came to see me telling me that all my family assets will be confiscated after I am released from jail. I didn’t believe it, because even though they falsely charged me with embezzlement, the charges have nothing to do with my personal assets. There was no fine leveled, my assets are not involved. Even if they take all that is Zhou Bin’s, my assets are still mine. But after I was released, Zhang Ye called me and said that our family assets will be confiscated as a result of Jiang Jiemin (蒋洁敏) case.”
Ms. Huang only met Jiang Jiemin, a long-time subordinate of Zhou Yongkang, twice. Zhou Bin, according to court documents, was supposed to have benefited from Jiang’s favor, and Zhou Bin was a witness at Jiang’s trial.
“In December 2017, about thirty or so people met me at Wangjing Judicial Office (望京司法所). They were from Yichang Intermediary Court, Yichang Procuratorate, Yichang Public Security Bureau, Yichang Justice Bureau, Wujiagang Court, and they were accompanied by cadres from Beijing Justice Bureau. There they told me that my family assets have to be forfeited. I said, since you are carrying out forfeiture according to the court decision on Jiang Jiemin’s case, can you show it to me? They said they couldn’t show it to me, and they also said it is a state secret. But Jiang’s case was tried publicly and his sentence was announced publicly, how is the court decision a state secret?”
“Furthermore, the Chinese government did not properly try and convict anyone in my family, gave us no legal remedy, did not allow anyone of us to say a word; it came to take our assets without legal basis. Even if in the end our family assets are due to be forfeited, shouldn’t we be given an opportunity to voice our opinion? Shouldn’t we be given an opportunity to defend ourselves? None, nothing. They just came to rob us. They are robbers in official outfits.”
In February 2018, they came again. They were personnel from Yichang Intermediary Court, judges from Hanjiang Intermediary Court, and officials from Yichang Justice Bureau. Again they were accompanied by officials from Beijing Justice Bureau.
“I asked the judge: Did Zhou Bin commit crimes in Jiang Jiemin’s case? They said to me in person: no, they didn’t find any wrongdoing on the part of Zhou Bin in that case. Then the judge said, ‘Do you think it’s reasonable that Zhou Bin has made so much money?’ I said, you are a judge, and you are carrying out the law, so you should be talking about the law with me, not reasoning. They then asked me, ‘How do you want this to be done?’ I said, if it’s legal, you can do it; but if it’s illegal, has no basis, no due process, then you are robbing me. Of course I will not cooperate.”
The officials tried to negotiate with her, asking her to propose an amount for her own keeping. She rejected doing so.
Last time they came on April 22, 2019. Scores of judges and court marshals pried open one of her properties to “assess the value” of it. There was no formal notice, no due process. All Huang had received was a text message from a presiding judge of Yichang Intermediary Court named Shi Zhigao (史志高). He simply asked her to “cooperate.”
Ms. Huang reported everything to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
As far as she knows, no appraiser was involved. No assessment result has been provided to her.
Ms. Huang told her lawyer that, without letting her know, Yichang court had sold a property she and her husband owned in Hainan province for 5 million RMB, although the property’s market value at the time of auction was 12 million. She said she wants to know who bought her house with an instant profit of 7 million.
It looks like the Chinese government could, on any given day, auction her home and evict her. Ms. Huang believes that’s the intent of the Chinese government.
Ms. Huang’s revelations shed rare light on the families of fallen officials in Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. She keeps telling her lawyer that she has a lot to tell him and she needs his help.
Related:
Billionaires And Zhongnanhai Families — China’s Newest Breed Of ‘Rights Defenders’, June 30, 2019.
Torture and Show Trial — Former CCP Security Tsar’s Daughter-in-Law Steps up Twitter Revelations, China Change, July 2, 2019.
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