While the rest of the world worries about what Trump will do next China quietly gets on with building a dystopia beyond dystopia. Thankyou to our source in Hong Kong for this very important update on Li Heping and the Chinese state apparatus of fear.
Our Hong Kong based source reports
According to an official notification posted on weibo (Chinese version of twitter) by the Tianjin #2 Intermediate People’s Court at around noon today Friday 28 April 2017, lawyer Li Heping was tried in a secret hearing on 25 April 2017.
And sentence was handed down this morning in the same court. Li was convicted of the crime of “subverting state power” and is given 3 years imprisonment suspended for 4 years, with deprivation of political rights for 4 years.
According to the court notification, Li pleaded guilty in the trial, and said he would not appeal. He also thanked the court, the prosecutor and his defence lawyer (probably a state-appointed one because the two lawyers appointed by Li’s family were not aware of the trial. It remains dubious who this lawyer is).
Criminal acts described in the notification include:
Li had been attacking and smearing state power/ organs and legal system via internet and foreign press;
he had also been using foreign funding to hype cases and to provoke discontent of those who were ignorant towards the social system in China;
networking with those who were subversive in their mentality, members of illegal religions, professional petitioners, a small group of lawyers and other people to attack the system founded upon the Constitution.
Li is also convicted of planning the strategy, methods and steps together with some other people to subvert and overthrow the socialist system.
It is said in the notification that Li is given suspended sentence in view of his expression of remorse.
At the time of writing, Li has not yet rejoined with his wife, Wang Qiaoling and his two children,
Despite an arguably lenient sentence, we would like to draw your attention to:
1. Why a secret trial? As we said in our Joint Statement, the law allows secret trial only in case of state secret involved. (PS. please note that 25 April was “coincidentally” the date for the trial of lawyer Xie Yang in Changsha, which drew tremendous attention but did not take place in the end)
2. Li was not represented by lawyer(s) of his/ his family’s choosing as he was reported as “pleading” guilty – who represented him?
3. Police from Beijing, Tianjin and Babaoshan (name of local district where Wang lives) came to harass Qang Qiaoling, wife of lawyer Li, this morning in the neighborhood where she lives and urged her to go with them to Tianjin. According to the law, such a procedure is not necessary. Why did they want her to go to Tianjin?
For your further information, Li Wenzu, wife of lawyer Wang Quanzhang, was told by the same batch of policemen this morning as she was with Wang Qiaoling, that lawyer Wang’s and Wu Gan’s cases are not yet tried; and were said to be coming up soon.
We hence would like to urge you for your further attention on the cases of lawyers Xie Yang and Wang Quanzhang as well as legal activist Wu Gan, for their upcoming trials. At the same time, please take note that the whereabouts of lawyer Jiang Tianyong, detained since 21 November 2016, is still unknown.
Punches, Kicks and the ‘Dangling Chair’: Detainee Tells of Torture in China
BEIJING — Perched unsteadily on a stack of plastic stools in an isolated room, Xie Yang, a Chinese lawyer, was encircled day and night by interrogators who blew smoke in his face, punched and kicked him, and threatened to turn him into an “invalid” unless he confessed to political crimes, he has said.
Eventually, according to transcripts of meetings with Mr. Xie issued by his attorneys, the isolation, sleepless days and nights of abuse and threats to his family from the police investigators proved toohttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/world/asia/china-lawyer-torture-xie-yang.html?_r=0 harrowing. Mr. Xie said he had scribbled down whatever they told him to say about trying to subvert the Chinese Communist Party by representing disgruntled citizens and discussing rights cases.
“I wanted to end their interrogation of me as quickly as I could, even if it meant death,” Mr. Xie, anguished and often sobbing, told his attorneys, Chen Jiangang and Liu Zhengqing, according to the transcripts of the meetings this month that Mr. Chen released on Thursday. “Later, I wrote down whatever they wanted.”
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES
China should be proud of Wang Quanzhang – instead it persecutes him
Wang has drawn the ire of the government many times for his defence of villagers against corrupt local officials, Falun Gong practitioners and fellow rights activists such as Ni Yulan whose treatment in police custody in 2010 left her confined to a wheelchair.
In 2013, Wang was detained during trial for refusing a judge’s illegal demand. This was perhaps the first instance of a rights lawyer being held under a process called judicial detention. Hauling away a lawyer in the middle of defending his client aptly illustrates the barriers to legal aid in China.
Activist Who Rejected TV Confession Invites CCTV Interviewer to Be Witness at His Trial
ON ACTIVIST WHO REJECTED TV CONFESSION INVITES CCTV INTERVIEWER TO BE WITNESS AT HIS TRIAL
Wu Gan, March 24, 2017
Well-known human rights activist Wu Gan (??) was arrested in May 2015. After a brief period of custody in his home province Fujian, he was taken to Tianjin as part of the 709 arrests. According to a complaint filed by his lawyer, on August 1, 2015, Wu Gan was forced to participate in a video interview with CCTV host Dong Qian (??) in which he was supposed to confess his guilt. He refused to follow the script. Yesterday his lawyer posted online Wu Gan’s letter to Ms. Dong Qian, dated March 8. — The Editors
Dear Ms. Dong Qian,
I write this letter to you because I still have a thin thread of hope in your basic humanity. I hate all dictatorships, as well as those who help dictators, but I’m an optimist when it comes to human nature. For example, this is what the public thinks about the organization your work for: when the auxiliary building of CCTV headquarters, known as “big underpants,” went up in flames, people were ecstatic. When one of your evening news hosts got throat cancer, the public delighted in his misfortune — it seems fitting that a throat used to broadcast untruth everyday should become cancerous. Netizens nicknamed CCTV a den of debauchery where the likes of Li Dongsheng (???, former minister of public security) plied his trade as a pimp, sending CCTV women up to Zhou Yongkang (???, former security boss) to have his way with. The prime time Evening News is such a bore that netizens have turned it into a template for endless spoofing. When one day one of your own, Bi Fujian (???), made wicked fun of Maoism in his off-time, it shows what a schizophrenic place it is! I cite all of these to remind you just how CCTV is perceived by the people.
CCTV is despised not because people’s values are warped, but because this system has warped everything. It’s this system that has turned the media you work for into a tool for keeping the people ignorant, making it an accomplice for the worst evil. It’s now become a byword for lies and propaganda and a spokesperson for evil.
The only way to wash away the stain of associating with it, and to gain your own integrity and personal esteem, is to flee as soon as possible. When the anchor Du Xian (??) demonstrated her own humanity after the June 4 massacre — wearing black, showing her tears on television — she received a silent national applause and respect from all. The public sees things clearly. I respectfully ask you: for such a beauty, why be a villain?
I have applied for you to be a witness in my case, and I hope you will appear in court and testify. I want you to tell the world about how I was hauled, a black hood covering my head, in front of you for an interview on August 1, 2015. Please gather your courage and conscience, and tell the public what you saw on that day. Tell everyone how I rebuked and exposed An Shaodong (???, security agent and interrogator) who sat diagonally from me. Tell the public what he did to me. Tell them about my back injury.
Tell them how actors were brought in to act out a script for the televised confession. I trust that you’ll show the kind-hearted side of your nature. I’m sorry that you didn’t get what you had come for because I refused to act according to their script. For my disobedience, I was punished badly by An Shaodong after being taken back to detention center.
An Shaodong sat diagonally from me to intimidate me. I experienced for myself the inside process by which CCTV makes its news pieces, and how the station and the public security organs work hand in hand to create the news they need. Amazing country, amazing media, amazing public security agents; together they produce amazing journalism.
Finally, allow me to express my gratitude to your television station. I am very grateful that CCTV joined in when People’s Daily and Xinhua slandered me with Cultural Revolution-style propaganda while I had no freedom to speak for myself. On the other hand, thank heaven I was slandered, not praised. Or it would truly have been a stain on my reputation. How could I have lived with my head up high if mouthpieces like you said nice things about me? In 2009, when your television station and a media under People’s Daily tried to interview me about the Deng Yujiao (???) case, I rejected it due to my germophobia. A man doesn’t keep company with evil, and this is the line I draw while going about being a human being.
Wu Gan (Super Vulgar Butcher)
March 8, 2017
China police confirm detention of human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong
The activist’s family are still waiting to hear from him despite officials saying he was released more than two weeks ago
Police in China have confirmed that a respected human rights attorney was detained, his lawyer said, nearly a month after he disappeared under mysterious circumstances amid a widening crackdown on lawyers and activists.
But despite a police claim that Jiang Tianyong has since been released, he has not contacted his family or lawyer, and they doubt claims made by officials.
Jiang was last heard from as he prepared to board a train on the night of 21 November and friends and family worried he was held in secret custody because of his work defending Tibetan protesters, fellow human rights lawyers and Falun Gong practitioners.
