Chen Guangcheng has finished serving his sentence in prison and was sent back to his home.

ChinaAid translated the Interview with blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, by Radio Free Asia reporter, Zhang Min.

Chen Guangcheng has finished serving his sentence in prison and was sent back to his home on September 9, under close surveillance by the authorities.

By Zhang Min, reporter for Radio Free Asia
English Translation by ChinaAid | PDF
September 9, 2010

On September 9, Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights defender from Shandong province, completed his sentence of four years and three months in prison.  At 6:25 AM, under close surveillance by the authorities, he was sent back to his home in Dongshigu Village, Shuanghou Town, Yi’nan County, where he met his wife, daughter and his brother Chen Guangfu, who were preparing to pick him up at the prison.  He arrived home at 6:30 AM.  The following is a report by Zhang Min, the reporter from Free Radio Asia:

On September 9, Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights defender from Shandong province, completed his sentence of four years and three months in prison.  At 6:25 AM, under close surveillance by the authorities, he was sent back to his home in Dongshigu Village, Shuanghou Town, Yi’nan County, where he met his wife, daughter and his brother Chen Guangfu, who were preparing to pick him up at the prison. He arrived home at 6:30 AM. 

[Chen’s wife] Yuan Weijing told the Radio Free Asia reporter: “Guangcheng has already come back.”

Reporter: “Are there any people watching you at the door?”

Yuan Weijing: “There are still people here, and it is not very convenient to talk to you now.  Guangcheng has caught a cold and his voice is now hoarse.”

Mr. Chen Guangcheng, who had just entered his home and sat down, agreed to the interview with the reporter:

Reporter:  “Congratulations on your release from the prison. How is your health now?”

Cheng Guangcheng: “Except for the diarrhea, my other problems are not serious.  Over the past two days, my voice has turned hoarse.”

Reporter: “How is your diarrhea now?”

Cheng Guangcheng: “It is still pretty bad.  Sometimes, I have to go to the restroom in a hurry and need to go there immediately.  Sometimes, I have to go several times a night.”

Reporter: “How long has it been like this?”

Cheng Guangcheng: “It started on July 25, 2008, after an incident of food poisoning.”

Reporter: “Were there any other causes that have aggravated [your] condition and made it last until now?”

Cheng Guangcheng: “There are problems with various types of food we ate there.”

Reporter: “Have you been physically maltreated?”

Cheng Guangcheng: “The maltreatment was very serious in the early days when I was first imprisoned.  It was very serious in 2007.”

Reporter: “Each one of us is concerned about your health and whether you and your family can regain true freedom after your release from the prison.”

Cheng Guangcheng: “I want to thank my friends all over the world for their concern for me. This is the only thing I want to tell you.”

Yuan Weijing: “We have to finish our talk here.”

In 2005, the blind rights defender Mr. Chen Guangcheng exposed the use of violence in the implementation of family planning policies in the Linyi area, and he provided legal assistance to the peasants.  In January 2007, with his attorney beaten and his witnesses kidnapped and unable to appear in court, Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on the charges of “intentional destruction of properties and inciting a mob to disturb traffic.” The three months in which he was kidnapped by the police before he was detained were not deducted from his sentence.  Since the fall of 2005, Yuan Weijing, Chen Guangcheng’s wife, has been under various forms of surveillance, and she was beaten on several occasions.  During the four and a half years of Chen Guangcheng’s imprisonment, Yuan Weijing was allowed to visit him only three times, though Chinese law states that family members are permitted to visit the prisoner once a month.

In 2006, Mr. Chen Guangcheng was included in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.  After that, he won the Ramon Magsaysay Award and many other international human rights awards.
Half a year before Chen Guangcheng completed his sentence, the relevant government agencies reinforced their watch on the main roads around his home in Dongshigu Village.  On September 8, four or five people were sent respectively to the houses of Chen Guangcheng’s wife and his elder brother, where they continue to stand guard around the clock.  When Chen’s relatives go to work in the field or go out for shopping, people on motorcycles follow them at a very short distance.  Additional guards have been deployed on the main roads leading to his house.  At present, over 20 people are involved in this surveillance program. Chen Guangfu’s and Yuan Weijing’s cell phones frequently don’t work very well.

At this time, Chen Guangcheng urgently needs to see doctors for diagnosis and treatment of his diarrhea.  There are now wide concerns as to whether Chen Guangcheng and his family can regain true freedom after his release from the prison.

Rights Defender Chen Guangcheng Prison Sentence Ending Soon

Chen Guangcheng’s sentence in prison is coming to an end soon.  People are concerned whether he and his family can regain true freedom after his release from prison.

By Zhang Min, reporter for Radio Free Asia
English Translation by ChinaAid
September 2, 2010

Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights defender who is serving his sentence in Linyi Prison of Shandong, will finish serving his sentence on September 9.  Recently, his family is still under various degrees of surveillance.  Rights attorneys and his family are concerned whether Chen Guangcheng can regain true freedom after he is released from the prison. 

The following is a report by Zhang Min, a reporter from Radio Free Asia.

Link: http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/chen-09022010170732.html

Photo: Chen Guangcheng with wife and son (Internet source). 

Mr. Jiang Tianyong, a human rights attorney based in Beijing learned that Chen Guangfu, the eldest brother of Chen Guangcheng, has been under surveillance and has been stalked in the past few days.  He then published this piece of information on the Net.  On the evening of September 2, Beijing time, I made a trans-Pacific 3-way conference call with Lawyer Jiang Tianyong and Mr. Chen Guangfu.

Chen Guangfu: “Today, they are no longer stalking me.  This decision (conduct) that violates the law existed for 24 hours, I guess.”

Lawyer Jiang Tianyong: “In this way, when all of us show concern, things often do not turn out as bad as we imagined.  Most things improve that way.  On the other hand, there is the concern that when Guangcheng is released and goes back home, he may be put back into that same state (of restriction), which started from August 2005 until the time when he was kidnapped and imprisoned.  During that period of time, he was under complete house arrest.  I don’t think this is what Chen Guangcheng wants.”

In 2005, Mr. Chen Guangcheng, a blind rights defender, exposed the violence used in the enforcement of family planning programs in Linyi area, and he provided legal assistance to the peasants.  In January 2007, with his attorney beaten and his witness kidnapped and thus unable to attend the court session, Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on the charges of “engaging in intentional destruction of properties and inciting a mob to disrupt traffic.”   The three months in which he “disappeared” (kidnapped by the police before he was detained) were not deducted from his sentence.  Since the fall of 2005, Chen Guangcheng’s wife Yuan Weijing has always been under various forms of surveillance.  In the four and a half years of Chen Guangcheng’s imprisonment, Yuan Weijing was only allowed to visit Chen Guangcheng three times, though the law states that a prisoner can receive visits once a month.

Chen Guangfu: “Yesterday, they were very aggressive and in a menacing matter, they followed close behind me in their motorcycles, while I was walking in front.  Ordinary people find this kind of conduct abominable.  They followed me even when I went out for work.  This is like what I experienced back in 2008.  Yesterday, four people stalked me.  Today, they suddenly disappeared, which I find very strange.  I guess it must be because you have posted this conduct of theirs on the Net and they have read it, too.  Since it is a decision that violates the law, it must be a short-lived one.”

Lawyer Jiang Tianyong: “Yes, there is now a new tool called Twitter which allows hundreds of thousands of Chinese users worldwide to learn a piece of news within 30 seconds.”

Chen Guangfu on Yuan Weijing’s current situation:

Chen Guangfu: “She only said there were many vehicles and many people.”

Reporter: “Did she say what kind of cars they were in?”

Chen Guangfu: “No.  She only told me they followed her for everything she did.”

Recently, Yuan Weijing’s cell phone was repeatedly blocked by a busy tone by an agency; normally one can’t get through to her.”

Reporter: “Let’s test it once again to confirm it.  Perhaps we can get through to her this time.”

A call to Yuan Weijing’s phone returned a busy tone.

Reporter:  “Can Weijing still be making a phone call at 11:37 p.m.?”

Chen Guangfu: “That’s impossible.”

The above is an interview report by Zhang Min, reporter from Radio Free Asia.

SCMP: Rules and Reality

Read the article below | PDF

New guidelines to ban coerced confessions will be tested in a case before China’s top court, write Jerome A. Cohen and Eva Pils

Rules and Reality

The Supreme People’s Court has a golden opportunity to show that the new guidelines must be taken seriously

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There really are “two Chinas” when it comes to criminal justice – and injustice. There is the China where thousands of law reformers – scholars, lawyers, legislative draftsmen, judges, prosecutors and officials – painstakingly labour for years to produce laws, interpretations and regulations designed to bring greater fairness and accuracy to a system that has long cried out for both.

In this China, the National People’s Congress is about to reduce by almost 20 per cent the large number of offences that can lead to the death penalty; the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and central law enforcement agencies have just established procedural guidelines for excluding coerced confessions from all prosecutions and for granting special scrutiny to the evidence presented in death penalty cases; the SPC has recently resumed the herculean task of reviewing the many thousands of death sentences meted out each year by the lower courts; and a relatively new Lawyers’ Law is supposed to empower defense counsel to protect the rights of suspects and defendants.

Spurred by domestic outrage over tragic police abuses and judicial mistakes, and by foreign shock over the protean practice of torture and an unknown, but undoubtedly huge, number of annual executions, China’s political leadership has gradually begun to move the administration of criminal justice to a higher place on its agenda. It is not ready to make the profound commitment to due process of law required by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China signed in 1998 but has not ratified. But the leadership does seem interested in fulfilling the obligations China assumed when it ratified the United Nations convention against torture in 1988.

It has also authorized steps to further reduce the number of death sentences, in the hope of bringing it down to perhaps 4,000 per year, from an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 – or even more. Some informed sources believe that, if the number can be reduced to 2,000, the central government might then abandon its embarrassing efforts to maintain this vital statistic as a “state secret”.

Yet, will the other China – not the China of improved published rules but of harsh, non-transparent reality – allow such goals to be achieved? This other China has a police-dominated legal system that, in confronting the country’s very serious crime problems, does not comply with rules that restrict the pursuit of major investigation targets. This is especially true during periodic, high-profile anti-crime campaigns, such as the recurring “strike hard” movements and the recent effort to combat organised crime in the city of Chongqing .

The Chongqing government’s very popular campaign to stamp out local mafia is the most current illustration of the clash between rules and reality. While the SPC and the central government law enforcement agencies were preparing new guidelines for the exclusion of confessions obtained in violation of the nation’s longstanding prohibition against torture, Chongqing police were engaged in a systematic and lengthy torture programme that coerced suspects to confess to crimes they may not have committed.

The case of Chongqing construction entrepreneur Fan Qihang ,now before the SPC for final death sentence review, gives it a golden opportunity to demonstrate that the new exclusionary guidelines must be taken more seriously than previous attempts to ban coerced confessions. If the SPC should reverse Fan’s conviction for murder and other offences on the grounds that it was based on evidence obtained through torture and send the case back for a fairer trial, this would be landmark progress in the administration of justice in China. If, on the other hand, it sends Fan to his death by allowing the conviction to stand, this will signal the continuation of business as usual.

Reversal of Fan’s conviction would publicly confirm violations of China’s Criminal Procedure Law by Chongqing’s police, prosecutors and judges, not to mention the city’s Communist Party chief, the powerful Bo Xilai . Bo has led the crackdown on mafia corruption but has dismissed accusations of human rights violations and belittled the defence lawyers who exposed them.

Fan’s able Beijing lawyer, Zhu Mingyong , who failed to persuade Chongqing trial and appellate courts to exclude Fan’s confession before the new exclusionary guidelines went into effect, recognised that, even now, success at the SPC would be unlikely if he contented himself with conventional advocacy. He therefore took extraordinary steps to publicise the five months of excruciating and professionally administered torture suffered by Fan. In addition to media briefings that spared no gory details, Zhu submitted to the SPC and then released a video documentary that includes credible, secret footage of the detained Fan. It shows his still-vivid months-old scars from the shackles that cut into his wrists as they were used, for days on end, to suspend him from the iron grille of his torture chamber. Fan also displays the injuries to his head and the damage to his tongue that resulted from three attempts to end his ordeal through suicide.

Zhu’s imaginative lawyering and daring public relations tactic required courage and independence. Beijing lawyer Li Zhuang , who had the temerity to defend another alleged mafia leader, has already been scandalously imprisoned for supposedly inducing his client to make false torture allegations. Shortly after his sensational disclosures, Zhu vanished, perhaps to protect himself while the SPC deliberates. One hopes he has not been “disappeared” like China’s most famous human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng.

What will the SPC judges do? Many lawyers and reformers want them to bring the law in action closer to that on the books by reversing Fan’s conviction and launching a general investigation of Chongqing’s torture campaign. Yet that would require courage and independence equal to that of Fan’s missing lawyer.

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Jerome A. Cohen is co-director of New York University School of Law’s US-Asia Law Institute and adjunct senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. Eva Pils is associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law.

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