Huang Weizhong (黄维忠), case summary and update

Male, rural activist who represented local farmers seeking justice and compensation for expropriated land.  On May 17, 2006, The Huangpu District Court in Putian City, Fujian Province sentenced Huang, a representative of farmers who lost land to government backed developers, to three years in prison on charges of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order.” This case was heard on March 20, 2006. Huang had organized petitions, acted as a representative, and applied to hold demonstrations in defense of land rights. On November 10, 2005, he was taken into police custody, and on December 28, 2005, he was formally arrested on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order.”

Since May 2003, several local authorities in Putian of Fujian have taken land from peasants to use for urban development, affecting the livelihood of tens of thousands of farmers. Furthermore, some local authorities sought to profit from the seizures by circumventing the appropriate legal procedures for providing compensation for land expropriation, resettlement fees, and building compensation. This caused discontent among farmers, who began seeking avenues for the legal protection of their land rights. After repeated requests to the Putian city government and related authorities for intervention achieved no result, the farmers chose their own representatives (including Huang and others) to seek administrative and legal redress to their problems.

The farmers’ efforts were unsuccessful, however, as the officials rejected their cases or tried to avoid addressing them. In desperation, the farmers tried to file an application with the local public security bureau to hold a peaceful demonstration to increase public awareness of their plight, but on August 8, 2005, the Public Security Bureau of Fuzhou (the capital of Fujian) rejected the application on the grounds that “the requested demonstration would seriously damage social order.” The farmers were subjected to threats and surveillance by the local government and relevant authorities, and the farmers’ legal representatives were put under house arrest or charged with crimes. Some of the representatives were detained illegally.

On November 9, 2005, Huang, acting on the behalf of over 600 farmers, arrived in Beijing to try to submit petitions to the central government asking for its intervention on this case. The same day, Putian police arrested him in Beijing and took him back to Putian City under guard. On November 11, the police imposed a 15-day detention order on Huang for “disrupting social order.” On November 24 he was formally detained for “gathering a crowd to disturb social order,” and on December 28 he was formally arrested on the same charges.

On February 28, 2006, the procuratorate of Chengxiang District in Putian filed an indictment against Huang in the Chengxiang District Court. On May 29, 2006, after Huang’s verdict was upheld, his defense lawyer Lu Guang met with Huang, and Huang asked his lawyers to appeal. A little earlier, on January 12, 2006, when lawyers saw Huang, they noticed he had edema in his legs and his blood pressure was between 60 and 100. They later discovered that Huang had been given bad food and suffered malnutrition as a result. From that time on, Huang’s family has sent him over 600 yuan a month to ensure his improved health. In December 2006, Huang received the international Housing Rights Defender Award.

CHRD communicated this case to relevant UN Special Procedures:

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and documented this case in the CHRD 2006 report on the situation of human rights defenders in China:

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