Call on China to immediately release lawyer Tang Jitian, who has been extralegally detained since December 2021
Chinese human rights lawyer Tang Jitian has been detained extralegally since December 10, 2021 by Beijing and Jilin state security under the guise of “maintaining stability,” while his only daughter is in a coma in Japan.
We understand that Mr. Tang has recently communicated repeatedly with the head of the State Security Bureau of Yanji City and the State Security Detachment of Yanbian Prefecture Public Security Bureau to request an end to his inhumane and illegal detention. However, they all refused, saying that they needed to ask for instructions and consent from the State Security Bureau of Jilin Provincial Public Security Department, the Beijing Public Security Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security.
Mr. Tang has explained to the these agencies that his daughter, Tang Zhengqi, is critically ill in Japan, that her care can no longer be delayed, and that continuing his detention will aggravate her condition and endanger her life. He said further that she is also in desperate financial difficulty.
Ms. Tang has been hospitalized at St. Luke’s Hospital in Tokyo for more than a year suffering from severe tuberculosis. She faces many challenges that only he, her father, can solve, including arranging for her treatment and raising the necessary funds to cover the cost of her medical care. He said that there is no one else who can take responsibility for these matters. His ex-wife, Liu Fenglan, is now in Japan taking care of their daughter on her own. However, Ms. Liu is suffering from both physical and psychological pain, and is on the verge of a breakdown.
Despite this dire situation, the Chinese government has deprived Mr. Tang of his personal freedom, leaving his ex-wife to struggle alone under the burden of such a devastating disaster, which is completely contrary to human decency.
Mr. Tang’s own health has been deteriorating since his detention. Due to previous violent physical attacks by the Chinese police, his thighs and elbows were injured, which often cause him unbearable pain. In addition, he is also suffering from lumbar spine tuberculosis and there is a high risk this his condition could flare up again at any time. He needs to receive regular medical checkups for his medical condition, but he has not been examined by a physician since last year; he is now overdue to have another exam. Furthermore. Mr. Tang receives little sunlight and has no access to normal activities.
In addition, because he has been worried about his daughter, he has been feeling quite depressed and as a result, his blood sugar is now seriously elevated, which is dangerous. Mr. Tang’s gums are swollen and bleeding, the corners of his mouth are blistered, and he has eye problems too. We recently learned that on the night of June 3, Mr. Tang suddenly fell down in the toilet, hitting his head on the ground, and that as a result he has shown symptoms of a concussion.
The Chinese government must not turn a blind eye to his suffering and allow another human tragedy to happen.
Tang Jitian was a prosecutor who could have enjoyed a comfortable life working for the Party and the State. However, for the sake of the rule of law and democracy in China, he decided to become a human rights lawyer to defend the dignity of the law and protect the basic human rights of the Chinese people.
Chinese human rights lawyer Tang Jitian has been subjected to horrific persecution by the Chinese government. He has been repeatedly harassed, followed, illegally detained and even brutally beaten for his defense of human rights. The Chinese government has done this under the pretext of maintaining stability. Furthermore, his lawyer’s license was illegally revoked by the Chinese authorities in 2010 after he tried to promote direct elections to the Law Society.
However, he has never given up fighting on the front lines to defend human rights. As a result, Mr. Tang was recognized for his important work when he was given the 2018 “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” Human Rights Prize of the French Republic, awarded each year by the Prime Minister of the French Government.
Mr. Tang and his family urgently need help. We appeal to the international community and all UN member states to:
• Urge the Chinese government to release Tang Jitian immediately. He is not a criminal; he is an honorable citizen of China. The Chinese government should not continue to detain him without due process and should not violate his basic personal freedom.
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2. Call on the Chinese government to allow Tang Jitian to fulfill his duty as a father to personally care for his critically ill daughter, and urge China to give him back his lawyer’s license in accordance with the law, and allow him to work normally.
3. Ask the Chinese government to allow Tang Jitian to visit Japan to care for his daughter for the sake of humanity.
We call on the international community to urge the Chinese government to respect and protect human rights and to fulfill its international obligations to protect human rights as a member of the international community. We also urge China to immediately restore the personal freedom of lawyer Tang Jitian.
RADIO FREE ASIA REPORT DECEMBER 2021
Disappeared’ rights lawyer Tang Jitian ‘tortured’ in incommunicado detention: friend
2021.12.21
A prominent Chinese rights attorney believed detained after he planned to attend an event on Human Rights Day is once more being subjected to torture and mistreatment in detention, according to one of his friends.
Tang Jitian has been incommunicado since texting friends a couple of hours before the Dec. 10 event was due to start that it was “not safe” to attend, with friends and fellow attorneys saying he has been subjected to a forced disappearance.
Tang’s friend Zhao Zhongyuan, a U.S.-based traditional Chinese medicine doctor, said he is being forcibly deprived of sleep, as well as beatings.
“They won’t let him sleep at all, and they are hanging him up and beating him, very similar to [the way he was treated] 10 years ago,” Zhao told RFA on Tuesday. “Judging from the photo, it looks similar to the torture he suffered [in 2014].”
“And his state of health is a whole lot worse than it was 10 years ago,” he said.
RFA was unable to verify Zhao’s report independently.
Zhao has previously said Tang was already at the point of physical and mental collapse when he disappeared, which came after he was prevented from traveling to Japan to visit his 24-year-old daughter Qiqi, who is in a coma due to complications from tuberculosis.
“[The authorities] have said that if there is ongoing attention on his case, they will send him back to his birth city [of Jilin],” Zhao said. “A source told me that I should stop speaking out for him.”
“They said his family have put their faith in the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government,” he said. “But the less I speak out, and the more I cover this up, the less likely Tang Jitian is to get out eventually.”
Tang was stopped by border guards at Fuzhou Airport in May 2021 as he tried to board a flight to Japan, on the grounds that his leaving would “endanger national security and interests.”
Tang’s travel ban began after he lost his lawyer’s license in 2010 for defending practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
He was among a group four Chinese rights lawyers tortured by police after being detained in March 2014 during a protest outside a detention center in Jiansanjiang in northeast China demanding information about Falun Gong members believed to be incarcerated there.
In 2017, he was turned back by border guards at the Lo Wu border crossing after he tried to travel to Hong Kong to seek medical treatment for leukemia diagnosed after his release from detention. He was told at the time that his leaving the country could pose a “threat to national security.”
U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao hit out at the use of travel bans to silence prominent dissidents and activists.
“If you don’t do as you’re told, or you do some kind of human rights or political work, they will confiscate your passport and prevent you from leaving the country,” Teng told RFA.
“Tang’s daughter is critically ill in Japan, and he should be allowed to visit her, purely on humanitarian grounds,” he said. “But the Chinese government has no concept of humanitarian considerations.”
“They are doing this as a form of punishment; a way to get back at human rights lawyers,” Teng said.
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
https://www.rfa.org/
