(Chuxiong City, Yunnan Province) Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate Court in Yunnan Province heard Chinese dissident poet Wang Zang (Wang Yuwen) and his wife Wang Liqin’s case of “inciting subversion of state power” on December 15. The authorities conducted a closed trial on the grounds that state secrets were involved, and the verdict remains unclear. The Court prohibited Wang Zang’s relatives and friends from attending the trial. Wang Zang’s final statement in court was a poem written in prison titled “The Poem of Liberty in Court.”
The Chinese Communist regime quickened the pace on the hearings of multiple political cases. Before the trial of Wang Zang’s case (December 15), multiple police officers restricted poet Wang Zang’s mother from activities, namely meeting with Wang Zang, Wang Liqin, or their defense lawyers.
ChinaAid sources report that Wang Liqin’s health has greatly deteriorated during her one and a half years of detention. During her meeting with her lawyer, she had trouble recalling the name of her son. Wang Liqin has been hospitalized several times for treatment in the past. Authorities held Wang Liqin criminally responsible due to her advocacy for her husband, Wang Zang.
Wang Zang and his wife have four children, the youngest being fraternal twins (boy and girl). Since the imprisonment of the couple, Wang’s elderly mother has been taking care of their children, all of them living under long-term surveillance of the local police.
Poet Wang Zang published poems about the June 4 Movement (Tiananmen Massacre in 1989), supported Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and Hong Kong artist Denise Ho Wan-see’s democratic speech, criticized totalitarian culture, and expressed his views on the Covid pandemic.
Officials arrested Wang Zang once before in 2015 for similar remarks. In January 2017, Communist Party agents targeted Wang Zang’s family with forced eviction from their permanent residence in Songzhuang, Beijing. Their electricity, water, and internet were cut off for ten days, and the landlord threatened them with death, traumatizing the children. Wang Liqin’s depression worsened, and in May, Yunnan authorities forced Wang Zang’s family to move back to Kunming from Beijing.
On May 30, 2020, the CCP mobilized dozens of People’s Armed Police to surround Wang Zang’s house overnight. They forcibly took Wang Zang and harassed his other family members.
Wang Liqin took to the internet to advocate for her husband. A week after Wang Zang’s arrest, police arrested her, charging both of them with “inciting subversion of state power.” They were transferred to the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture People’s Procuratorate of Yunnan Province for review and prosecution in mid-September 2020. This year, his defense lawyer Zhang Lei spoke to Wang on the telephone at the detention center. Court officials postponed the case of Wang Zang and his wife many times. Their detention lasted 500 days.
All the attention and appeal for Wang Zang and Wang Liqin has not successfully pressured the CCP to change its handling of this case. There is a significant concern for their four kids. Wang’s father had passed away early, and the four children solely rely on Wang’s mother, who is of old age. Xi Jinping’s regime has made enemies on all sides and continues to treat the Chinese people as its own enemies.
~ Gao Zhensai, China Aid Association Special Correspondent