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End Dictatorship, March Towards Freedom — A 2019 New Year’s Statement From the China Citizens Movement
December 31, 2018
China is at a crossroads.
History will remember 2018. In March, Xi Jinping amended the Constitution to everyone’s chagrin, paving the way to life in power.
It’s an anachronism to go back to permanent power in the 21st century. More than that, it’s a subversion of civilization; it’s a shame for the country and for all Chinese nationals.
Xi Jinping has imposed his will on the entire Chinese population. In order to hold onto power, he has to strip the Chinese of their rights and dignity and enslave them.
Xi Jinping is building a new model of totalitarianism that directly threatens freedom of movement and property rights. Each person lives in fear.
Xi Jinping attempts to monopolize all the resources and gain the privilege to rule over everything. Such desires threaten to diminish the struggle for freedom, over the last hundred years, for which countless Chinese have worked hard and made sacrifices.
Xi Jinping is quickly sabotaging the legitimate rules of the international community. His actions are leading China into isolation, making China a threat to the global order.
Over the six years of of his administration, Xi Jinping has been bringing China to a destructive point of no return. The entire country is becoming a sacrifice for his delusion of grandeur.
Citizens, this is the crossroads we have come to.
The road, on which Xi Jinping is forcefully taking all Chinese, is a dark road to disaster, a real “evil path.” It’s a road we can’t go down and refuse to go down.
Another way is to end Xi Jinping’s dictatorship and give the Chinese people freedom. It’s a road that will revive and lead this ancient land to greatness. It’s a road of hope and a road to light. It is the road we are determined to pursue.
We are passionate sons and proud daughters of China. We are students; we are artists. We are Chinese citizens everywhere across the country.
We are the victims of concentration camps in Xinjiang; we are private entrepreneurs who have been ripped off; we are victims of poisonous vaccines; we are also investors who have lost everything in the financial bust. We are every citizen who bears the scourge.
We are prisoners of conscience; we are also human rights lawyers facing the crackdown. We are persecuted believers, and we are also netizens whose accounts are censored or deleted altogether. We are every citizen and we hold close our conscience and convictions.
We don’t have guns or canon, but we have our own weaponry and they are more powerful than guns or canon. We use common sense to dispel lies; we use courage to resist violence; we use hope to overcome tyranny.
No matter how thorny the road ahead, it is our firm belief that Xi Jinping’s reactionary rule will inevitably end and freedom lies right ahead of us.
We know very well that we will pay a price that’s too stiff for ordinary people. But we have made our choice, and that is: instead of succumbing to tyranny, we are willing to dedicate ourselves to the cause of freedom.
We want to tell the world that the Chinese people love freedom, pursue freedom, and will enjoy freedom. One day the rest of the world will witness us being free and rejoicing.
As the New Year begins, we, the Chinese Citizens, shout together: End Dictatorship! March Towards Freedom!
December 31, 2018
Weather the Dark Storm, Persevere for Rule of Law in China — A 2019 New Year’s Message From the China Human Rights Lawyers Group
The China Human Rights Lawyers Group, January 1, 2019
2018, the year of Wuxu (戊戌), is slipping into history. Over the past 120 years, Wuxu has always been an eventful year. In 1898, four years after China had lost the First Sino-Japanese War, the Hundred Days’ Reform failed, and six of its chief advocates, among them Tan Sitong (谭嗣同), paid the price in blood at their public beheading. In 1958, another year of Wuxu, the Great Leap Forward and the people’s communes was to bring on the world’s greatest famine that would result in tens of millions of deaths.
Indeed, China in the year 2018 bears little resemblance to the China of 1958 and 1898. Four decades of economic reform have seen China’s GDP rise to second place among the world’s nations. At the same time, there are many deeper issues and structural challenges to face. The Sino-U.S. trade war, coming as an onslaught from without, represents the conflict of universal values in China’s troubled integration with international society. Internally, China has been plagued by serious and chronic social ills — forced demolition, widespread petitioning, “stability maintenance,” wrongful charges, and judicial corruption — at the heart of which lie the inescapable questions concerning rule of law, constitutional government, freedom, and democracy.
Though the circumstances differ, the three years of Wuxu in the last 120 years share one common trait: societal change. And the underlying change is one of transition, from the closed society and “rule by man” (人治, as opposed to rule of law) to an open society, governed by law, that respects the rights of its citizens.
The process of taming power with rights is a long and painful one. Indeed, China has yet to complete its “great shift unseen over the past 3,000 years” (三千年来未有之大变局) described by the late-Qing minister Li Hongzhang (李鸿章) in his desperate attempts to right the ship of state.
2018 saw the outbreak of the Changsheng vaccine scandal, which once again tested the deteriorating moral of Chinese society. We loathe unscrupulous corporations that sacrifice everything for profit, even at the cost of endangering public safety; we abhor even more the authorities, who take taxpayers’ money but fail to perform their duties. The vaccine scandal is the latest of many chilling reminders that we are still far, far away from efficient and uncorrupt administration; and that a comprehensive market economy governed by law has continued to elude us.
This year, we have witnessed a number of laws drafted or amended, including the Constitution, Supervision Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Police Law, Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Heroes and Martyrs, Regulation on Religious Affairs, and the like. Put together, they evidence an alarming trend: the government continues to expand its power and suppressing individual rights.
This year, human rights lawyers have suffered another wave of crackdown following the 709 mass arrests of 2015. This time, the crackdown has been more deceptive and underhanded, making use of administrative channels to restrain practitioners of law. Lawyers saw their licenses suspended or revoked. Some were forced to temporarily discontinue their legal practices, submit to investigation, experienced troubles in their annual administrative inspections, or met with interference from the judicial and administrative authorities that prevented their re-employment by other law firms.
From the brazen arrest of lawyer Yu Wensheng (余文生) earlier in the year, to the court hearing at year’s end that saw the revocation of Liu Zhengqing’s practicing license, 2018 has seen a long list of human rights lawyers being disbarred or soon to be disbarred, or otherwise suspended, including Yu Wensheng , Sui Muqing (隋牧青), Wen Donghai (文东海), Ma Lianshun (马连顺), Qin Yongpei (覃永沛), Xie Yanyi (谢燕益), Chen Keyun (陈科云), Li Heping (李和平), Wang Yu (王宇), Zhang Kai (张凯), Liu Xiaoyuan (刘晓原), Zhou Lixin (周立新), Cheng Hai (程海), Hu Linzheng (胡林政), Zeng Wu (曾武), Chang Weiping (常玮平), He Wei (何伟), Chen Jiahong (陈家鸿), Li Jinxing (李金星), Yu Pinjian (玉品健), Liu Zhengqing (刘正清), Lin Qilei (蔺其磊), Yang Jinzhu (杨金柱), and more.
In 2018, we have seen increases in willful use of police summons and arbitrary disappearances.
Dong Yaoqiong (董瑶琼), a woman from Hunan, disappeared without a trace and later ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Another three young women — Shen Mengyu (沈梦雨), a master’s graduate at Zhongshan University who participated in the Jasic labor rights protest; Yue Xin (岳昕), a graduating senior at the Peking University who also voiced her support for Jasic workers, and Yang Shuhan (杨舒涵), a current student at the Renmin University — have been either disappeared or silenced. These young women have stood out with their kindheartedness, determination, independence and courage.
The “re-education centers” in Xinjiang have attracted international condemnation. Without any doubt, these mass violations of personal freedom fly in the face of the human rights guaranteed in the Chinese Constitution. They must be ended.
We have observed more and more incidents of police checking identification or phones at will, or engaging in other so called “law enforcement” activities that are in fact gross violations of human rights. We have also seen police carry out illegal acts, such as breaking into residents’ homes for inspection, summoning individuals on an arbitrary basis, or violently dispersing migrant workers. These acts have left us feeling fearful and apprehensive.
Renowned dissident Qin Yongmin (秦永敏) was given yet another severe sentence, and Ms. Xu Qin (徐秦) was unlawfully detained for months. We have also seen a deluge of farcical trials in the cities of Suzhou and Fuzhou against citizens who sought to defend their rights, and reprisals or abuse against civil rights activists who refused to plead guilty, such as Ge Jueping (戈觉平), Wu Qihe (吴其和), and Zhu Chengzhi (朱承志).
Following the terror of 709 crackdown, Mr. Xu Lin (徐琳) in Guangzhou wrote songs to rally morale and has been imprisoned since; Liu Feiyue (刘飞跃), Zhen Jianghua (甄江华), and Sun Lin (孙林) were punished for citizen journalism. We saw how the 85-year-old mother of another citizen journalist Huang Qi (黄琦) desperately sought support far and near after her son was framed and charged with “provoking quarrels,” and how Zhang Pancheng (张盼成), a security guard at Peking University who came from a humble family, began to speak of an awareness of rights that few students seem to care about or dare to voice.
We have borne witness to the abhorrent behavior of a policeman surnamed Chen working at the Hualin Police Station in Guangzhou, who stripped the clothes off female lawyer Sun Shihua (孙世华) under the pretext of “law enforcement.” We have seen the incident treated with the cover-ups typical of bureaucracies such as the procuratorate, supervision commission, disciplinary inspection, judicial administration, and lawyers’ association, as well as the arrogance of the Liwan police, who instead of going after the culprit, issued administrative penalties to Sun Shihua the victim. We feel pain and helplessness at her plight, yet deep in our hearts is the firm belief that Chen and the officials shielding him will eventually have their shameful acts recorded in the annals of China’s legal history.
At year’s end, WeChat accounts were deleted en masse, Twitter users were forced to delete their feeds and accounts, and freedom of speech in general is coming under more vicious attacks in China. Religious freedom has also suffered, as most recently evidenced by the sudden arrests of Early Rain Covenant Church members in Chengdu, Sichuan, among many other incidents.
The day after Christmas, Tianjin No.2 Intermediate People’s Court held a closed trial of lawyer Wang Quanzhang (王全璋) citing state secrets, eschewing all pretenses of law. This forms a sharp contrast to the creative protest of the 709 wives—Li Wenzu (李文足), Wang Qiaoling (王峭岭), Yuan Shanshan (原珊珊), and Xu Yan (许艳). Their slogan “We can be hairless, but you can’t be lawless” will become a legal maxim for the ages. [发, hair, has a similar sound to 法, law]
2018, this year of Wuxu, was a year filled with extreme challenges.
What’s to be done? Shall we cower the corner and find solace in temporary efforts, or shall we confront the reality and pursue the rule of law regardless how the storm of tyranny rages? We are faulted and accused at every turn, thwarted before even taking a single step. Yet as pioneers of our time, we must march on, making the best of the situation. Like the sun and moon moving on their celestial courses, like rivers flowing to the ocean, we stand firm in our conviction that constitutional government, democracy and human rights will become reality in the face of adversity. The ideal of rule of law is our motivation and what keeps us from despair.
Because of our ideals, human rights lawyers didn’t shy away from pressure and continued to defend Qin Yongmin,Tashi Wangchuk (扎西文色), Huang Qi, Jin Zhehong (金哲宏) and other cases deemed politically sensitive. For us human rights lawyers, there are only legal cases, and there are no such thing as “sensitive cases.”
In 2019, four years after the 709 crackdown, we will welcome the release from prison of two human rights lawyers, Tang Jingling (唐荆陵) and Jiang Tianyong (江天勇).
In 2019, we hope to see the freedom of another four human rights lawyers: Wang Quanzhang, Yu Wensheng, Li Yuhan (李昱函), and Chen Wuquan (陈武权). Whether in terms of Chinese law or international conventions, there’s no legal ground for the accusations they face.
We hope that the laws on the books can be followed, and not manipulated by those in power.
We hope that no more human rights lawyers find their practicing licenses revoked for any excuse.
We hope to put an end to the arbitrary summons, detentions, forcible disappearances, and other gangster tactics employed by the authorities. We hope that police can exercise self-control and refrain from acting on their whims. We request that police officer Chen at Hualin Police Station turn himself in, that the Guangzhou police remove him from his post, and that he face a penalty appropriate to his misdeed.
Going into 2019, we look forward to the vindication of moe, and hopefully all wrongful charges. We hope that an effective mechanism can be established to eliminate and correct unjust rulings. We hope that “picking quarrels” and “extorting government” will no longer be used as grounds for prosecuting petitioners and human rights activists. These charges are absurd, unreasonable, and an assault on the rule of law. While these actions of the authorities may have some immediate suppressive effect, in the long run it will serve only to intensify conflicts between the government and the governed. The consequences will be disastrous.
The life mission of any lawyers is to uphold justice in their cases. We as human rights lawyers will continue to practice, representing all kinds of clients, including those deemed politically sensitive. We will use our work to promote the causes of constitutional government and rule of law. We face many storms ahead and the path is fraught with peril and uncertainty. Yet we forge on, duty-bound to the mission of justice. There is no going back! Our determination in the face of impossible odds will drive us forward, persevere through the storm for the sake of a better China. This is the choice we made, our predestination and mission.
Hello, 2019!
The China Human Rights Lawyers Group
December 31, 2018
The China Human Rights Lawyers Group was founded on September 13, 2013. It is an open platform for cooperation. Since its founding, members of the group have worked together to protect human rights and promote the rule of law in China through issuing joint statements and representing human rights cases. Any Chinese lawyer who shares our human rights principles and is willing to defend the basic rights of citizens is welcome to join. We look forward to working with you.
Contacts:
Lawyer He Wei (何伟), Tel: 18523069266
Lawyer Lin Qilei (蔺其磊), Tel: 13366227598
Lawyer Shi Ping (施平), Tel: 15515694755
Lawyer Wang Qingpeng (王清鹏), Tel: +1 (425)7329584
Lawyer Xie Yang (谢阳), Tel: 18673190911
The Crackdown on Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church: A Backgrounder
China Change, December 21, 2018
Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church. Photo: online.
On Sunday evening, December 9, while worshiping with members, Wang Yi (王怡), the lead pastor of Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church was seized and taken away by police. The church was raided; books and other items were confiscated. In the same evening, police descended on homes of many members, demanding that they sign a pledge not to participate in “illegal gatherings of the Early Rain church” anymore. Over one hundred were taken away for refusing to sign. The church’s WeChat group was shut down, so were the personal accounts of many churchgoers.
The authorities outlawed the church, the church’s elementary school and its divinity school.
According to the latest report, 25 church members have been detained so far. Of the 15 who have been criminally detained, Pastor Wang Yi and his wife Jiang Rong (蒋蓉) were arrested for allegedly “inciting subversion of state power;” the other 13 (elders, deacons, or members) were detained for “illegal business operation” or “provoking disturbances.” Seven have been disappeared and 3 given administrative detention.
The Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu is one of the best known house churches in China. Unlike any other Chinese house churches, Pastor Wang Yi and some of the church’s key members have been part of China’s emerging civil society since the early 2000s. Over the past few years, the church has attracted many human rights defenders and dissident intellectuals. In 2011, the church established a fund for families of political prisoners in Sichuan. Each year on June 4th, the church holds a prayer for the country to commemorate the Tiananmen democracy movement.
The church operates schools. “Each family, each church must defend the God-given sovereignty over the education of its children,” said Pastor Wang Yi, “even if we have to go to jail for it.” The church has a divinity school, an elementary school for 1st to 6th graders, a school of humanities, as well as a Sunday school.
The church has a Facebook page, and their YouTube channel has 130 videos.
(Members preaching on the streets of Chengdu.)
Pastor Wang Yi, who is 45 years old this year, is a Sichuan native who was born and raised in Santai county, Mianyang city. He graduated from Sichuan University law school in 1996, and taught at the business school of Chengdu University for a number of years. When Internet forums sprang up in China at the turn of the century, Wang Yi distinguished himself in a vibrant forum known as “Guantian Tea House” (关天茶社) where a new generation of intellectuals met, debated and made names for themselves. Wang Yi hosted a constitutional democracy forum that discussed China’s political transition.
In 2004, Wang Yi was selected by Nanfang People Weekly (南方人物周刊) as one of the “Most Influential Public Intellectuals.” Reporter He Sanwei (何三畏) described Wang Yi this way: “This young man is a bright sight to behold. His thoughts are sharp and deliberate, and his expressions well-formed and witty.”
The list included economist Mao Yuxi (茅于轼), lawyer Zhang Sizhi (张思之), political scholars Liu Junning (刘军宁), Zhu Xueqin (朱学勤), Xu Youyu (徐友渔), poet Bei Dao (北岛), rock singer Cui Jian (崔健), founder of Caijing magazine Hu Shuli (胡舒立), legal scholar He Weifang (贺卫方), and so on.
In April 2005, Wang Yi and his wife Jiang Rong started the Early Rain Blessings Fellowship in their home in Chengdu. Three years later in May 2008, the Early Rain Blessings Church was established. The Early Rain Covenant Church Currently has more than 500 members, and it is said that, on some weekends, there could be as many as 2,000 flocking to the church on the 23rd floor of the Jiangxin Building, in downtown Chengdu by the Jinjiang River.
Church elder Li Yingqiang (李英强), also a Sichuan native, is only 39 years old, but he was a prominent figure in China’s now-shattered scene of independent NGOs. He and a few friends founded the Liren Library (立人图书馆) in 2007 that brought books to the countryside. The idea was to “help rural youth grow to be healthy and normal citizens.” Liren Library had attracted many volunteers and donors. Over the seven years of its existence, they established 22 libraries in 12 provinces. But in 2014 at the onset of a sweeping crackdown on independent NGOs in China, Liren Libraries were forced to close down.
A Liren library (unclear where). Photo: online.
Another illustrious member of the church is Ran Yunfei (冉云飞), a prolific writer and an independent intellectual whose political and historical writings have influenced many readers of the internet age. He was baptized in 2016. He has been a key player in the church’s educational programs, and he is seen to give lectures on Chinese culture and Christianity during regular church gatherings.
Church activities have been for years surveilled and harassed. On May 11 this year, Chengdu authorities deployed over 300 people to prevent the church from holding a prayer for the 10th anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquakes.
The attack on Early Rain Covenant Church is part of the Chinese government’s broad and determined crackdown on house churches, and even some state-sanctioned churches, across the country since 2012. But it’s much more. On September 9, the government outlawed Zion Church, one of the largest house churches in Beijing. While church leaders have been under heavy surveillance, no arrests have been made.
In September 2017, the State Council issued revised Regulations on Religious Affairs (《宗教事务条例》), furthering tightening control of religious activities. The government has stepped up administrative measures to “sinocize” Christianity, and demolition of crosses and church buildings themselves. Churches are forced to display the national flag and sing praise of the Communist Party. China Change collected videos posted by churchgoers around the country and put them into one video to give our readers some visceral sense of the crackdown.
On September 1, 2018, under mounting pressure, 29 pastors in mainland China, led by Pastor Wang Yi, issued “A Statement for the Christian Faith.” As of now, more than 400 church leaders have signed it. The statement makes clear that the churches led by the signatories will only acknowledge, and submit to, the highest authority that is God, and that they will thus teach their members. The church leaders said that they would accept the government’s lawful regulation on civil organizations, but their churches would refuse to be co-opted by state-controlled religious organizations, nor would they register with religious management offices. Outlaw orders and fines levied on the churches, they said, would not be recognized or accepted. “For the sake of the gospel, we are ready to shoulder losses, and if we have to, pay the price of losing freedom and even life.”
On the day when Zion Church was shut down, Pastor Wang Yi delivered a forceful sermon: “We believe we have the responsibility to tell Xi Jinping that he is a sinner, and that the government he leads has greatly offended God, because he has used force against the church of Lord Jesus Christ. If he does not repent, he must perish. We have to tell evil men like him that they still have a way out, that there is only one way out, that way is the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ.” (Watch the full sermon here.)
Pastor Wang Yi was prepared for his arrest. Forty-eight hours after he was detained, his statement titled “My Declaration of Faith-based Disobedience” was posted online (a China Change translation is forthcoming).
He wrote: “The persecution of the church by the CCP regime is an extremely wicked criminal conduct. As a pastor of a Christian church, I must issue a severe and public condemnation of such sins.”
He said that his and the church’s actions of nonviolent disobedience are not in any sense rights defense actions or political acts of civil disobedience.
“As a pastor, the only thing I care about is faithful disobedience, a resistance that can bring a jolt to mortal sinners and serve as a testimony of the Christian cross.”
Just how the Chinese government is treating the case of the Early Rain Covenant Church is laid bare in the subversion charge.
Church elder Li Yingqiang issued a video for church members on December 10 while “on the run.”
Li Yingqiang. Photo: Amnesty International
“What do we do next?” According to their plans, the church will not compromise on its principles and determined path: While Pastor Wang Yi is away, the elders will take up the responsibility to shepherd the church. The church will not subject itself to government or Party control. The church members will stay together and worship together – if they can’t do so in their own church, they will rent a new venue; if they can’t rent a venue, they will worship outdoors. The church members will do everything they can to resist being forced to break up into small groups and to meet in homes of church members. If, in the end, they can’t even worship peacefully at
home, they are “ready to pay high prices.”
“We are not afraid of having two hundred, three hundred, or five hundred of us being arrested,” said Li Yingqiang. “We will let the world know that we are willing to go through such hardship for our faith. Dear brothers and sisters, I’m speaking to you while on the run. I hope you will be joyful because of the Gospel of Christ, that you will look forward to embracing a heavier cross and a more difficult career ahead.”
Follow us on Twitter @ChinaChange.org
Related:
The Burning Cross, a video compilation of church persecution in China, Sept. 24, 2018.
The Shepherds of Living Stone Church, Yaxue Cao, Dec. 25, 2016.
Interview with a Wenzhou Pastor: The Chinese Government’s Large-Scale Destruction of Crosses in Zhejiang Province, China Change, July 29, 2015.
Second Interview With the Wenzhou Pastor: After the Demolition Comes the ‘Transformations’, China Change, Dec. 15, 2015.
The Ongoing War Against Religion in China, by Zhao Chu, China Change, August 4, 2015.
International Human Rights Day: Presenting the 2018 Outstanding Citizen Award to Pu Wenqing
China Citizens Movement Outstanding Citizenship Award Selection Committee, December 10, 2018
Pu Wenqing, middle, outside the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing on October 11, 2018. Photo: Twitter.
Today, we offer our respects to an outstanding citizen. She is a loving mother, a strong mother, and a great mother. She is eighty-five years old this year, an age at which she should have been enjoying a peaceful retirement with her family. Instead, at her venerable age, she has been thrust into a situation that no mother should be forced to experience: she has had to see her son imprisoned and brought to the verge of death for committing no crime at all. In her quest to protect and support him, she stakes out a trail of blood and tears upon the great but troubled land that is China.
Using all the strength that her frail person has to offer, she has stood up against constant harassment, surveillance, and intimidation from the state. She overcomes tribulations using gentleness, patience, and tolerance, acting with firm yet nonviolent determination.
Courageously, she persisted in seeking all possible help to gain her son’s freedom and is praised by all for her conscientiousness. She has demonstrated the best example for all citizens who are dedicated to justice, and will inspire more citizens to pursue justice.
Her pure love has awakened a humanity that is in shackles: no matter how society changes, no matter how cruel the world is or how deluded the people are, a mother’s love is the eternal light of spring that consoles the hearts of every citizen and illuminates their path.
This admirable mother is Ms. Pu Wenqing (蒲文清), and her son is Huang Qi (黄琦), a prisoner of conscience who is currently serving a third sentence for his unyielding determination to expose human rights abuses in China.
In thinking of Ms. Pu Wenqing, we are reminded of Themis, the Greek goddess of divine justice, and her son Prometheus, a hero who sacrificed his eternal freedom so that humanity could learn the secret of fire.
Today, we are honored to present this year’s Outstanding Citizen Award to Ms. Pu Wenqing in acknowledgement of her efforts to live as an upright citizen in the pursuit of her civil rights. In her extraordinary efforts, we see the warm strength of humanity overcoming the forces of tyranny, moving us ever closer to a society of freedom, justice, and love.
Here, on the International Human Rights Day, we express our sincere wishes: that Ms. Pu Wenqing may enjoy good health and longevity, and that Huang Qi may regain his freedom and be reunited with his family!
Related:
85-Year-Old Mother Fights For the Release of Her Son, Renowned Human Rights Defender, Yaxue Cao, October 15, 2018.
China Steps up Nationwide Crackdown to Silence Twitter Users – the Unmediated Story
Yaxue Cao, December 5, 2018
I printed the tweets that are translated below for my record, for they can be disappeared any time.
If you have been with Twitter’s simplified Chinese community long enough, you know it’s nothing new that handles disappear and in some cases the persons behind them go to jail – it’s a freedom tunnel that the Chinese Communist regime is leery of.
But over the last few months, and still ongoing, we keep hearing mainland tweeps reporting that they have been summoned by police who ordered them to delete tweets or accounts altogether. AFP’s Eva Xiao and Human Rights Watch’s Yaqiu Wang reported on the trend early on. I myself reported one particular instance – the deletion of Wu Gan (吴淦)’s account.
As of today, I collected 42 tweets from users themselves tweeting about what had happened to them. Some are well-known journalists, dissidents and intellectuals. Others are average tweeps who may or may not be anonymous. Some have been on Twitter for several years, others are new to it. In a few cases, tweeps were given administrative detention of 10 or more days; in at least one case, a user in Chongqing has been criminally detained awaiting charges. Some faced the run-in with police with composure, and others with defiance; still others were scared and quit, or made to quit. Together they tell the unmediated story.
The tweets are arranged chronologically. A few are excerpted for brevity. Necessary explanatory information is provided in [brackets and italic]. A link to the original tweet in Chinese is embedded in the last two words of the translation. If the link is broken, it means, in most cases, that the police came back to the tweep pressuring him or her to delete it.
9/17/18
Today I was summoned to my neighborhood police station for retweeting political rumors. I was reprimanded, and made to write a statement of repentance and another statement guaranteeing that I wouldn’t do it again. They deleted my tweets. This handle is going to be abandoned. Goodbye friends. I love you all.
9/19/18
Just moments ago, a policeman from my hometown (Chengshuang Township police station, Dangshan county, Suzhou municipality, Anhui province) called me and said they are going to come to Shanghai to look for me again (they did during June 4th). I guess it’s about my Twitter. Now, since they are monitoring my posts, let me tell the internet police and the domestic security police right here and now: It’s impossible for me not to speak. Speech is my last line说话是我的底线. You can come to arrest me if you want to charge me for my expressions. It’s no use to come to talk to me. Why don’t you save the money and use it on keeping people safe.
9/21/18
Beijing tweep Quan Shixin (全世欣 @Sarah_chinaBJ) has been administratively detained for 10 days for “attacking leaders of the communist party and the state.” She was released around noon and returned home on September 21.
10/01/18
On October 1, 9 am, two guobao police summoned me to the neighborhood police workstation for a talk, which was transcribed and also video recorded. Their key points are: 1). Recently I posted too many original tweets and retweets on Twitter as well as WeChat, and the content is all negative; 2) Who called for the group trip to Tiananmen Square on Sept. 20? 3) They once again issued a warning and criticism.
[He Depu (何德普) is a veteran dissident and served an eight-year sentence during 2003-2011 on charges of inciting subversion.]
Update: A cartoonist in Nanjing @blogtd marks his 10th anniversary with this cartoon. He describes his Twitter experience as “like bathing in a hot bath, enjoying momentary peace and freedom.”
10/23/18
A police officer from my hometown called, asking me to delete tweets. He said the higher authorities investigating internet speech found my posts. I was somewhat puzzled because I had hardly said anything. The call was made to my father’s house, so my old father, who is in his 70s, was frightened once again. Feeling so bad about it, I called home to comfort him.
[Li Xuewen is a Hubei-based dissident writer. He was detained for taking part in the seaside commemoration of Liu Xiaobo in Guangdong in 2017. ]
10/27/18
On the afternoon of October 27, three police officers from the neighborhood police station made a surprise visit. The guests and the host quickly exchanged views about Twitter. The police asked me to “delete account” and stop using Twitter. I said that is unacceptable, but I voluntarily promised to self-censor what I say in order to reduce the waste of police resources and avoid upsetting loved ones so frequently. After communicating for an hour, the meeting ended in an awkward but still friendly atmosphere. For the record.
[Wen Tao (文涛) is a journalist who was disappeared for 83 days and subjected to torture in 2011 for his association with artist Ai Weiwei.]
10/29/18
Per appointment, I met with Shenzhen guobao this afternoon, and the subject was not to badmouth the Party and state leaders. We also exchanged views on international and domestic affairs. This must be a nationwide operation. Now, my question is: what move is this preparing for?
[This is one of the earliest Chinese Twitter users – since May 2009.]
10/31/18
October 21, 2018, lunar calendar Sept. 13, was my birthday. It was unforgettable! Goodbye, Twitter.
[Wang Yajun describes himself as a “renowned joke teller, independent commentator, Taobao store owner, and internet Big V verified by CAC.” He’s been an active presence in Beijing’s intellectual circles for years. He was detained in Keshan county, Heilongjiang province, from Oct. 20 to Oct. 30 for “provoking disturbances. A couple of days after he posted this tweet on Oct. 31, his account was deleted. ]
11/2/18
Liu Jichun (刘继春, @wugefy1) is formally arrested this morning after being detained for 30 days. Lao Liu ran a small, 40 square-meter eatery in Shapingba area in Chongqing. He was the chef and his wife the assistant. A lawyer has met him a couple of times, and found out that the charges against him have to do with him retweeting various news. Request for bail was denied by the public security bureau, and a request for dismissal was denied by the prosecutors. It’s pretty clear that his is speech crime.
11/4/18
How do you speak freely on Twitter from the evil Communist-ruled land without being summoned by the police for ‘drinking tea’?
I drank tea just two days ago.
[Zhan Lifan is an independent historian and commentator in Beijing.]
11/6/18
Hometown police called and said I cursed the leaders on Twitter. I only have a few posts and they were not posted on Twitter. I hereby state: I have not cursed them!
11/7/18
野渡 @ye_du
For the last year or so, I have posted nearly nothing on Twitter. Lately there have been tweeps I know who were summoned and forced to delete their Twitter, including quite a few of my friends. So I’m compelled to talk again. Throughout history, in China or elsewhere, the tyrants always think the day will not break if they kill all the roosters that crow at the dawn; everything will be fine if they could make people too afraid to speak. No matter how long the night, we will live to see the dawn.
[Ye Du is a dissident and writer living in Guangzhou.]
11/08/18
I was detained, and made to sit through the night in the cold. Goodbye, Twitter, be safe. Maybe I should just be one of those people who think life in China is peace and quiet.
[I spoke to @zwitterion2018. He lives in a central province. “I don’t know how they found me,” he said. “They came all of a sudden. They asked me questions, took me, and detained me for a night. Then they investigated me and found that I had no associations. So they let me go. At the same time they deleted my Twitter feed.” He said they threatened him that if he tweets again he’d be put in jail. They also explained that they were local police carrying out an order from the national security, and they themselves don’t want to detain him. “It was my first time,” he said, “I’m very afraid.” I asked why he was still on Twitter, he said the worst that could happen to him is jail.]
This was end-of-the-world maniac: I received a call from guobao who demanded that I pledge not to get on Twitter anymore. How is it possible for me not to get on Twitter? They may as well kill me.
[This is a new tweep joined in May, 2018. In another tweet, he said that, to avoid being harassed by the “Zhao family’s dogs”, he took out his sim card and uses only Wifi to surf internet.]
Officer Zhou, of Donghu police station in Chaoyang District, Beijing, do you call yourself the ‘people’s police’ when you prohibit people from speaking out about their thoughts, their grievances, their call for justice so that you can serve the Party you belong to and its leaders with all your heart and mind? When you shut people up, how are you different from the Nazis during 1937 – 1945?
11/9/18
Lately Chinese tweeps have encountered a widespread crackdown. No wonder they went to my former employer to look for me in early September. Thank goodness I have left.
[This tweep seems to be living in Florida now.]
11/10/18
Guobao had an appointment with me this evening. I was forced to pledge that I would not post any political expressions on any online platform anymore. The fact is I haven’t for the past year or so, but still there have been so many eyes staring at me. Huh, we all know it anyway. So I’ll just leave it now.
Friend said to me privately that the whole country is campaigning to extinguish Twitter. Guobao twice asked me to delete all my tweets. I promised I won’t retweet anymore and deleted retweets of the last two days. Guobao said I ought to pay attention to my own safety. I said, “Unless you physically cut off the internet or put me in jail, or I’m going to follow the teachings of Deng Xiaoping. That is, the horse will run as usual, the dance will go on, and the one-country- two-systems will be upheld.”
[Shen Liangqing is a former prosecutor and dissident living in Hefei, Anhui.]
11/11/18
I have written more than 4,000 commentaries of current affairs over the past 15 years using my real identity. But now, to live on, I have to give up writing and thus bid goodbye to hundreds of thousands of readers in China and beyond. I don’t know when I will be writing the most timely and accurate commentaries again. I hope it won’t be too long, won’t be too long; I hope the night will pass soon.
This is my chat with tweep @419041838 in a WeChat group. We have known each other for a long time.
@419041838: “They deleted all my tweets. Several thousands of them. While deleting, they also videotaped the process. They had talked to me twice about it, and almost took me to jail.”
@oubiaofeng: Why?
@419041838: Deleting all was not enough; they took it to the municipal government for their superiors to check in person.
@oubiaofeng: When? What were the reasons they gave?
@419041838: You guys still don’t get it: using Twitter is very dangerous, more dangerous than street demonstrations.
@419041838: Not me; they did the deletion. They took it away for a night. A few days ago. Several people came from higher level government.
Sun Desheng (孙德胜 @sds8964 )’s tweets were all deleted. The Party-state have never relaxed control of online expression, but recently it has become even more pronounced. Weibo was once a bustling platform but it’s no more. Deletion of post or account has become a commonplace on WeChat. Lately a lot of tweeps have been summoned by police. Some announced quitting Twitter, others were forced to delete their tweets, and still others went silent. There are more than a few who have been detained for tweeting!
[Sun Desheng is an activist who was jailed for 2.5 years from 2013 to 2016.]
11/15/18
According to the latest news, Xiamen tweep Pan Xidian (潘细佃 @congweiyonghu) has been given 15 days of detention for refusing to delete his account. He’s in Houxi Detention Center, and his account has been deleted.
11/18/18
Around noon, I drank four liang (两) liquor. In the evening I drank again. When I got to six liang (两), I heard knocking on the door. It was cold, so I opened it promptly. What should come would come – three police officers from Shuangjing police station, Beijing Chaoyang District, came for a talk. Officer Gao alone asked questions; another videotaped the entire visit, and the third one stood aside. I said I hadn’t attacked the Party and state leaders since March last year, nor had I defaced the image of the country. I forgot to say that I hadn’t even registered a Twitter account March last year. They didn’t beat me, nor threaten me. I was much relieved. After they left, I finished drinking the remained two liang (两). Now I can sleep in peace. [Edited for clarity. Links are here and here]
That was a fright. Next time I will remember to video record them and also ask to see and photograph their police ID and search warrant. (What about governing the country according to the law that you have been touting?)
[He Jiangbing is a Beijing-based economist who came to Twitter in July 2017 and has been commenting on the Chinese economy since then.]
The storm has come indeed. I was asked to delete a total 802 tweets.
[Ye Du told Deutsche Welle that, “Guobao showed me a form with 802 tweets of his that have been put together by internet police. They were categorized into ‘promoting western democracy,’ ‘concerning June 4th,’ ‘inciting social movement,’ and etc. Very detailed. They demanded that I delete these tweets. Ye Du said that he was not the only person who was asked to delete tweets.]
11/19/18
Ms. Wu Huaiyun from Huoshan County, Anhui Province was given 10 days of administrative detention on Nov. 1. The Public Security Bureau’s written decision on the punishment said, “Since May 2018, Wu Huaiyun used her mobile phone and computer to publish statements defaming our Party and major national leaders on the overseas social platform ‘Twitter’ via her account, @xybaiyun2018. The remarks are serious.” The following is Wu Haiyun’s own account of the event, which she published on Twitter after her release.
On October 31, 2018, the Ministry of Public Security and the Anhui Provincial Public Security Department issued an order, and twenty or thirty domestic security police officers (guobao) from Liu’an city came to my home and duped me into handing over my mobile phone. Then several of them forcibly put handcuffs on me and took me away; they also beat me in the police car. Then I was taken to the Liu’an detention facility, where I was detained for 10 days. The police also searched my home, took my computer’s hard drive, pried open my suitcase, and even the mattress on the bed was turned upside down. I hereby request help from international human rights organizations and caring people!
They also found the password for my Twitter account on my computer hard drive, and deleted all the content from my Twitter. After I was detained, they only notified my family by phone, no written notice of detention was given. My family members asked the police for the detention notice, but they refused to provide it. I obtained this written punishment decision by insistence. If they’re reasonable and lawful, then why were they unwilling to give a written detention notice and written punishment decision? And detain me without trial? I never mentioned the names of national leaders on Twitter, how could I have defamed anyone? If I disappear again, it’s them–– it’s what they do.
I said that my Twitter content was basically all retweets, and that I just had a few original tweets, which did not involve the content they claimed. They said that reposting is also illegal, especially when retweeting Guo Wengui’s posts–– that was even more unlawful. I asked them, doesn’t the law stipulate that false information must be retweeted at least 500 times before the security punishment regulations apply? Not one of my retweets reached the “500 times” threshold. They actually said that mine were different.
During the interrogations, they assumed I used Twitter on my computer. The written punishment decision also stated that I used Twitter on my computer. When I said that I used Twitter on my mobile phone only, and not on the computer (my computer could not scale the Great Firewall), they all seemed a little surprised! This shows that they found me (on Twitter) by monitoring my mobile phone; the whole thing was a fucking trick!
A few days ago, I received a threatening text message from someone claiming to be the police, demanding that I delete my Twitter account.
The day before yesterday [on Nov. 17], both Chairman Hua @wxhch64 and I were summoned for a “chat” by authorities in Wuxi and Henan for our use of Twitter. I think this big Twitter cleanup is nationwide, not specifically targeting us, so I didn’t say anything. [“Chairman Hua” is Wang Yi’s husband.]
Recently, there’s less and less information on Twitter, mainland Twitter users have either left Twitter, or they’ve been silenced. I was also required to delete more than 500 tweets, and now I dare not post any new tweets. We don’t know the scale, and at every turn the police want to meet; we still have to work, no?
A few days ago, the domestic security and Internet police came and asked me to delete the relevant posts from Twitter, saying that I couldn’t target national leaders. They were really proactive about this; the Internet police held a screenshot and had me delete tweets from the designated date.
Recently I caused a lot of trouble for my friends and family because of my use of Twitter; therefore, I probably will not be on Twitter again for a long time. To my friends who have consistently shown me their concern and care, here I can only offer my apologies. Goodbye, friends.
Lately a number of tweeps have been visited by police who demanded them to delete tweets or not post or retweet anymore. In Hunan, I know there are tweeps in Zhuzhou, Changsha, Shaoyang and other cities who have been summoned by police. Most of them kept quiet afterwards.
I thought only Big Vs were qualified to be summoned for interrogation, but finally it was my turn. I thought this would just be a little intimidation before [Guo Wengui] ‘s press conference and that would be all, because last night the police summoned me but then I was able to return home after only one hour, which didn’t interfere in my watching the live broadcast of Guo’s live broadcast. However, I just now received a phone call from a police officer in the district, who said that the higher ups were not satisfied with our discussion yesterday and that the bureau would send people to have another talk with me. They were somewhat polite, and we agreed to meet at 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon. It won’t interfere with drinking, so it’s OK.
[Later, reply to self] Just came back, it was nothing. It had nothing to do with Mr. Guo. It involved political commentary. The domestic security officers’ attitude was good. During the interrogation, there was a moment when we clashed, but we circled back. They had a stack of printed and bound tweets, and the evidence was undeniable. I wrote a letter of guarantee that I would delete sensitive posts on my own. Done. It’s time to feed the stray cats…
The domestic security police stopped by today, mainly because of what I said on Twitter. What is certain is that Twitter is no longer a place where you can freely express your thoughts. I don’t know what other communication tools are available abroad to replace Twitter? Which are more private and safer? It has been several years since [human rights lawyer] Pu Zhiqiang was convicted for his Tweets. Twitter has never been a safe harbor for speech, and we are now in an era of total repression.
11/22/18
[Tweep @asn_213 gave a friend the following account in DM, and the later published it.]
I’m back. Yesterday it was the Guobao who summoned me via neighborhood police. They printed all the stuff from 5-6 years ago regarding the same-city meal gatherings [part of the New Citizens Movement], and they also printed all of my tweets and retweets. They said these were evidence of my criminal activities. At 10 pm, their political officer interrogated me again, giving me a notice for 15-day administrative detention. It describes me as defaming the national leaders and attacking the current political system on Twitter. They asked me to sign it. I wrote my dissent on it: I have never used my Twitter handle to defame anyone; expressing views on events and people is a citizen’s most basic freedom of speech, and it’s ridiculous that this is even happening in the 21st century. Then I signed it. …… He talked a lot more, finally he tried to use my daughter as a leverage. He said, “Look, at our age, who is going to do what we like to do that make our own daughters suffer. Now I’m going to give you a way out. As long as you stop tweeting or retweeting and delete your Twitter account, we will withdraw this penalty.” I said okay. So he let me go home. I might not be able to keep this account anymore.
11/27/18
I just found out that the Twitter account of 陈年老酒 @old_wine has been deleted. He was taken away by police on November 7, and it probably had to do with Twitter. I don’t know how many more tweeps have simply disappeared without a peep. We don’t even notice when @old_wine, a sage on Twitter, took leave.
This month I have been coerced to delete about 1,250 tweets. The darkest moment has come before the dawn breaks. No need to say more.
11/28/18
In Shandong, Jinan, Hui poet An Ran (安然) was taken to Dongguan police station by five policemen (two of which were Guobao) on November 27, 2018. He was interrogated for his Twitter expressions. He was ordered to delete his Twitter account, but he refused to do so, stating that his Twitter feed is personal property and it is sacred. (Read his tweets here and here.)
He also posted Page 2 of the three pages of interrogation transcript that concerns the part about his Twitter:
Q: How do you get on Twitter?
A: It’s my privacy; I don’t want to reveal.
Q: Do you often post on Twitter?
A: Almost everyday.
Q: What do you post there?
A: A lot of different things – my own takes on current affairs, photo and video sharing, and etc.
Q: Have you posted lately on Twitter?
A: There are a lot. I can’t remember each one of them.
Q: In what language have you been posting/
A: English.
Q: You posted that “Religion and traditional culture have been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), then the morality disintegrated. Now the Chinese Communist Party began to strike down on religion again.” You also posted that “China’s suppression of Hui Muslims is worsening.” Correct?
A: I posted these this year (can’t remember the exact time) in English.
Q: Why were you posting these?
A: I saw in the news that a new Mosque in Weizhou Township, Tongxin County, Ningxia was ordered to be demolished. It was a grand Mosque built by local believers who had raised 100 million yuan. The government ordered its demolition because it said the dome did not meet the Sinicization requirement. The Mosque was saved only because local people protested in large scale.
Q: What’s the purpose and motivation of posting these two tweets?
A: I wanted to stop the local government from demolish the Mosque, because it was built with believers’ contributions, and it’s such a new, magnificent Mosque…..
11/29/18
Today my parents in Xinjiang called, and fearfully they asked me to shut up in the U. S. “If you talk anymore,” they said, “the higher-ups will make sure that you will never be able to speak to your parents again.” CCP bastards, come to get me, leave my parents alone! Stop threatening my family! I hate to shut up, but they have turned my loved ones into hostages. For their safety, I decide not to get publicly involved in politics anymore for the time being.
12/1/18
The Shenzhen-based dissident and businessman 陈年老酒 @old_wine, whose name is Xu Lequn (许乐群), posted an account of his encournter with police on another platform on December 1:
At 10 am, Nov. 7, I was taken from home by policemen in Shenzhen to a police station where they photographed me, took my finger prints, and tested my urine. From 3-4 pm, they interrogated me about my expressions about Xinjiang on Twitter, and they demanded that I delete my Twitter account. I was released at 10 am, Nov. 8, after sitting on a metal bench for the night.
At 5 pm, Nov. 10, I was again taken from home to the police station. At 6:30 pm I was interrogated. They chastised me for still using Twitter the past few days. I again was made to sit on the metal bench for a night. At 9:30 am, they released me saying they’d gotten the wrong person.
On Nov. 26, they called and said their surveillance found that my Twitter account was still alive, that my name is still on the list they’d received from the higher-ups, and that I must get rid of my account immediately. I didn’t know how to delete my account; so I deactivated it.
[Note: His account appears to be active though there have been no new tweets since Nov. 7.]
12/3/18
This morning I was summoned to the neighborhood police station. I was asked to delete two retweets, one of which is about Guo Wengui. I refused to write a repentance statement.
Yaxue Cao edits this website. Follow her on Twitter @YaxueCao and China Change @ChinaChange_org
Related:
Deletion of Wu Gan’s Twitter Posts Reflects the Urgent Need to Protect Chinese Human Rights Activists’ ‘Data Ownership’, November 11, 2018.
#LoveTwitter, a Special Place Like No Other for Mainland Chinese Netizens, March 24, 2016.
Chinese Twitter Users Unsettled at Appointment of New Managing Director, April 17, 2016.
Young Chinese Twitter User Arrested For Proposing Method To Spread Truth About June 4th Massacre, June 9, 2014.
A Month Or So In The House Of Twitter, Yaxue Cao, January 23, 2012.
85-Year-Old Mother Fights For the Release of Her Son, Renowned Human Rights Defender
Yaxue Cao, October 15, 2018
Outside the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing on October 11, 2018. Photo: Twitter.
On the morning of October 11, Ms. Pu Wenqing (蒲文清) arrived in Beijing accompanied by a couple of supporters. Ms. Pu is 85 years old, a retired doctor living in Neijiang, Sichuan province (四川内江市). As soon as she stepped off the train at Beijing West Railway Station, she spotted six people who had followed her all the way from Sichuan. In China, they are known as “jie fang renyuan” (截访人员), or local government workers whose job is to trail, stop and take back to their hometown petitioners who have gone to the capital on a quest for justice.
That is what brought Ms. Pu to Beijing –she was seeking justice for her son. With the help of activists, Ms. Pu got rid of her minders, but they kept texting her demanding to know her whereabouts.
In the afternoon, she went to the Ministry of Public Security and stood in line, along the gray wall encircling the Ministry’s compound, to submit documents detailing how the case against her son was a miscarriage of justice. Then she went to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and did the same.
Huang Qi, second from left, in April, 2016. Photo: RFA
Ms. Pu’s son Huang Qi (黄琦) is a renowned human rights activist who runs the website 64tianwang.com (六四天网) which reports human rights violations and social injustices. This is not the first time the 55-year-old Huang was in jail. An electronics engineer by training, he founded the 64tianwang website in 1999. He was arrested in 2000 for his human rights activities and sentenced to five years in prison. Following the Wenchuan earthquake in May, 2008, Huang Qi worked to provide humanitarian assistance to victims and at the same time wrote articles exposing shoddily constructed school buildings that killed thousands of children. In June 2008, he was arrested again for “illegally possessing state secrets” and later sentenced to three years in jail.
This time around, Huang Qi was arrested on November 28, 2016, for allegedly “illegally providing state secrets to overseas.”
The incident that led to the arrest of Huang Qi, Yang Xiuxiong (杨秀琼) and Chen Tianmao (陈天茂), ostensibly anyway, went like this: in early April 2016, at the office of a Neighborhood Committee in Youxian District, Mianyang city (绵阳市游仙区), a low-level communist cadre showed Chen a report by the Party’s Political and Legal Committee about Chen’s petition, and asked him to photograph it. Yang Xiuqiong passed on the information to Huang Qi. In April, Huang Qi ran an article on his website citing what that document says about the authorities’ “plans to crackdown on 64tianwang and Huang Qi.”
Such are the ‘state secrets’ and how they were ‘provided’ to overseas — the server of the website is overseas to prevent government hacking.
The ‘top secret’ document, as Ms. Pu would point out over and over again, has no red official heading; contains no label of ‘Secret’, no official markings or document codes, and no signature or date. “They fabricated this document to frame Huang Qi and jail him,” she said.
The same night the police took her son, a swarm of 20 plus policemen also came to Ms. Pu’s home, literally carried her off and shoved her into a car that took her first to the rural guesthouse and later to the 15th floor of Neijiang People’s Hospital where she had worked as a doctor of internal medicine until 1991. About ten people watched her in three shifts, 24/7, for nineteen days. They told other patients that she was a ‘political prisoner’ so that no one would dare to talk to her. When she was released nineteen days later, she found that her doorway was fitted with surveillance cameras and she had to get a locksmith to open her sabotaged door lock. Every time she came back from outside, someone would poke in to see who else was with her. One evening she sneaked out of her apartment in the dark and stayed the night with a friend. The next morning she got into a taxi and went into hiding in Chengdu, the provincial capital.
She hired two human rights lawyers for her son.
For eight months, lawyers were denied permission to meet with Huang Qi. Police told them that Huang’s case was a special one overseen by a special team; they were the ones who decided whether Huang Qi could see his lawyers.
Ms. Pu, anxious about her son’s health and whether he had been mistreated, sent an information request to the Sichuan provincial Department of Public Security and the Mianyang Municipal Bureau of Public Security, but got no answers. She wrote an open letter to Chinese leaders asking for medical parole for her son who suffers from a host of illnesses, including chronic nephritis.
At the end of July, 2017, lawyers finally met with Huang Qi for the first time since his detention eight months ago and learned about grueling interrogations that had lasted long hours and night watch that required Huang Qi to stand on his feet for six hours. At lunch after the meeting, everyone ate, but the mother who had accompanied the lawyers on each of their futile visits sat quietly and didn’t touch the food. She was despondent.
In the fall when the weather turned, she went to Mianyang again to deposit warm clothes and cash for Huang Qi.
Receipt from the detention center. Photo: RFA
On November 6, 2017, when lawyer Sui Muqing met with Huang Qi, the latter told him how two inmates had beaten him.
Ms. Pu couldn’t take it anymore. She embarked on a train all by herself and went to Beijing, where she mailed letters, postcards and documents to the Minister of Public Security, to the Ministry’s office for supervising police enforcement, and to the office that monitors official abuses at the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. She demanded that they correct the abuses and discipline the perpetrators. She met with foreign diplomats for help, pinning her hope on President Donald Trump who was visiting Beijing that week. She gave an interview to Radio Free Asia: “Investigation has concluded with Huang Qi’s case, but an officer continued to interrogate him, illegally, a dozen times and threatened 12-15 years of imprisonment in order to force Huang Qi to confess. Instructed by detention center officials, two inmates beat Huang Qi repeatedly.” Huang Qi was denied treatment, and wasn’t allowed to spend money deposited for him by his mother and supporters – all to break him and force him to admit guilt.
He reportedly told the interrogators that if they forced him, instead of a confession, they would get his dead body.
On January 15, 2018, Huang Qi was indicted by the Mianyang municipal procuratorate. In the months followed, Ms. Pu filed requests with the court in Mianyang and the superior court of the province for an open trial. She supported her son in sueing Tencent – the company that provided Huang Qi’s private communication with Yang Xiuqiong which was used as evidence against both of them. When the CCP Central Committee’s disciplinary team visited Sichuan, she submitted letters to them reporting the misconducts of the police and prosecutors in Sichuan, and asked for the release of her son. She submitted an application for her son’s medical parole to the Mianyang Intermediate Court. On Mother’s Day of this year, she appealed to Chinese leaders to correct the wrongdoings of the local authorities.
By mid-year, the trial neared and still the lawyers were denied permission to see the so-called “top secret documents.” Ms. Pu feared that the authorities, with the intent to keep Huang Qi locked up, would convict Huang Qi without even showing the documents during the hearing. She requested that the Sichuan Public Security re-evaluate the “secret documents.”
The trial, scheduled for June 20, was canceled. By then Huang Qi has been detained for nearly nineteen months without trial, beyond the statutory limitation for pretrial detention.
In late June, Ms. Pu mailed a complaint to China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate in Beijing refuting the nature of the “secret documents” and asking the body to correct the mistakes of the local judiciary and release her son.
In mid-August, three officials from her former employer Neijiang People’s Hospital visited her. They told her that higher level leaders had asked them to come to check on her.
Scribbling on her cellphone laboriously, she wrote one open letter after another, arguing point by point what a sham the case against Huang Qi was, and how it was a deliberate act to imprison Huang Qi. “How is a petitioner’s letter to the government a top national secret?” She asked. “If the neighborhood director who had given the document to Chen Tianmao is still going to work every day and wasn’t charged with leaking secrets, how are those who received the document ‘leaking secrets?’”
It is indeed a deliberate act, and it is part of a broader campaign to wipe out rights advocacy websites in China. In June 16, 2016, Lu Yuyu (卢昱宇) and Li Tingyu (李婷玉) were arrested in Dali, Yunnan. They ran the 非新闻 (Non-News) website that searched, collated, and published information about mass protests across China. Lu has since been sentenced to four years in prison on charges of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” In Suizhou, Hubei, Liu Feiyue, the founder and editor of minsheng guancha, or Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch, was arrested in November, 2016. He was tried in August for “inciting subversion of state power” after 20 months in detention. No verdict has been delivered. Also in November, 2016, citizen journalist Sun Lin (孙林), known for videotaping human rights activism, was arrested in Nanjing, and has since been tried and sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” and “illegal possession of firearms.” In September, 2017, Zhen Jianghua (甄江华), the founder and editor of hrcchina.org website, was arrested. He has been denied legal counsel, and recently there were reports that he had been secretly tried.
In late September, lawyer Liu Zhengqing (刘正清) received a reply from the Mianyang Public Security, denying his request for Huang Qi’s medical records. The records, it reads, “do not fall within the scope of free government information.”
On October 8, lawyer Li Jinglin visited Huang Qi and learned that his condition had deteriorated. He suffers pain and swollenness and decreased urination. The detention center has kept the testing results from him. Based on her son’s description, Ms. Pu believes that Huang Qi is showing symptoms of late term uremia which is life threatening without treatment.
On October 9, Ms. Pu, accompanied by lawyer Li, went to see Judge Zhou who presides over Huang Qi’s case. At the entrance, court bailiffs grabbed her arms and prevented her from going in. She shouted, “My son Huang Qi is gravely ill! Give him medical parole!”
On October 11, she came to Beijing again with a renewed urgency.
On October 13, a decision by the prosecutors to bring more charges against Huang Qian was made public. It was mailed to lawyer Liu Zhengqing in Guangzhou via EMS and it was dated September 12. But one can never be sure that was the real date, and if it was, no explanation has been made as why the lawyers were not notified sooner. In addition to charges of “illegally providing national secrets to overseas,” Huang Qi is now also charged with “leaking national secrets.” “Given that Huang Qi is a repeated offender,” the revised indictment says, “he will be subjected to more severe punishment.”
So, what is going on? Instead of addressing the 85-year-old mother’s appeals, the Chinese government has just raised the stake higher for her and for her son.
They won’t release him, and they want to stop her.
Yaxue Cao edits this website. Follow her on Twitter @YaxueCao, or follow China Change @ChinaChange_org.