China's leading dissidents get harsh sentences
By Harvey Stockwin
HONG KONG (JP): "Under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China has a terrible record on human rights", leading Chinese dissident Xu Wenli wrote in a recent article.
China has once again demonstrated how appalling that record is, as Xu Wenli himself was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment Monday for "inciting the overthrow of state power" after a brief trial which was itself a mockery of the UN international covenant on human rights which China signed only last October.
In reality, Xu was sent back to prison because, even though he is a moderate who specifically rejects disorder and espouses gradualism, he took a leading role in the attempted recent formation of the China Democracy Party (CDP), the first real attempt since 1949 to found an opposition party within communist China.
The Dec. 21 trial at Beijing's number one intermediate court was no advertisement for China's propaganda claims that it is advancing the rule of law within the nation.
No foreign press persons or observers were allowed to attend the brief three and a half hour trial. Yet the controlled Chinese press reported that the "trial" was "open".
Xu has been detained since Nov. 30 during which time he has been held in seclusion. His wife He Xintong has not been allowed to see him and was given just one ticket, so that she alone -- among his family and friends --- could attend the "trial". Mrs. He was followed by numerous security police in cars and on bicycles as she herself pedaled from home to the court Wednesday. The security police also told her that she was not allowed to take any notes during the "trial".
Xu did have a court-appointed lawyer -- who was only assigned to the case four days ago. According to Mrs. He, at the opening of the proceedings, Xu said that the whole trial was illegal. Xu said that he would not appeal since to do that would be to admit a crime. "Under no circumstances would he be willing to admit to this crime".
In line with this assertion, Xu declined to answer questions from presiding officials except those put to him by his lawyer. After the sentencing was pronounced, first Xu and then his wife called out "I protest". Xu said that the "trial" was "political persecution".
Xu was not the only dissident to be severely sentenced. Also on Dec. 21 it was revealed by the authorities that another founding member of the CDP, Wang Youcai, who was tried in secret in Hangzhou last Thursday, has been sentenced to eleven years in prison. A third dissident and CDP founder-member Qin Yongmin was tried last week in Wuhan and on Dec. 22 his sentence of twelve years imprisonment was belatedly announced.
Nine other dissidents are in jail and have not yet been tried for having joined the CDP. At least 18 or more dissidents have been reportedly detained but later released.
Presumably the CCP leaders hoped that the release and sending into exile in the United States of another dissident not related to the CDP, labor activist Liu Nianchun, would somehow serve to obscure the harsh crackdown now underway. in China. Liu signed a petition in 1995 calling for a re-evaluation of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989 for which he was sentenced without trial to three years in a labor camp.
That term had been extended again without any trial.
Like dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan before him, Liu has only been sent into exile in the United States after his health had seriously deteriorated, as a result of poor prison treatment.
The 13-year prison sentence against Xu Wenli comes after he has already served twelve years -- nearly all of it in solitary confinement -- for his role in the Democracy Wall Movement in 1979. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1981 but was released in 1993. Emerging from that ordeal Xu told reporters "I certainly committed no crime. What I did, I did for my country".
A former soldier and electrician (as was Wei Jingsheng), Xu also issued a statement in 1995 calling for a re-evaluation of Tiananmen but was otherwise seemingly content to stay in the background until the effort to create the CDP was launched in the middle of this year.
The severity of his 13-year prison sentence for subversion becomes more obvious when set against the essential moderation of his views, which includes accepting the primacy of the CCP. "I think China's political reform should be a gradual process, for in modern Chinese history there have been many radical revolutionary storms inflicting much pain on the people," he wrote recently. "The Chinese people do not want to see any disorder, instead they want a stable and gradual reform process".
But clearly, and as President Jiang Zemin indicated in a speech last Friday, the Chinese Communist Party regards any organized dissent whatsoever as a sign of disorder which has to be ruthlessly eliminated.
But Xu Wenli had already rebutted the CCP's argument that China is unique and must follow a different path to that of other nations. In a recent article he insisted that "China is no different from any other country in terms of human rights. All nations are made up of human beings, and China's leadership should follow the same standards in protecting the rights of its citizens".
Xu called for the release of all political prisoners and for the Chinese government to "promise not to hand out such sentences in the future". Instead Xu, Wang and Qin have together been sentenced to 36 years in jail.
But there is one slight consolation for them. As the controlled press reported these "trials", the Chinese people read about the China Democracy Party for the first time.
Window: But clearly, and as President Jiang Zemin indicated in a speech last Friday, the Chinese Communist Party regards any organized dissent whatsoever as a sign of disorder which has to be ruthlessly eliminated.