China vs. a Blind Human Rights Defender: 

 - A Report on the Case of Imprisoned Chen Guangcheng

February 20, 2007

Table of Contents

I.                    From ¡°Model Citizen¡± to Prisoner of Conscience

II.                 Harassment of Legal Advisers and Supporters

III.               The Arbitrary Nature of the Arrests and Detention

IV.              Obstructions to Legal Remedies, Violations of Human Rights

V.        Recommendations

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I. From ¡°Model Citizen¡± to Prisoner of Conscience

Personal data

Chen, Guangcheng  (Chinese name: ³¹ⳏ), male, born in 1971, a citizen of the People¡¯s Republic of China, was trained as a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, who turned into a rural human rights activist, self-taught legal adviser, known now as ¡°barefoot lawyer.¡±  He lived, with his wife and two young children, in East Shigu Village, Shuanghou Township, Yinan County, Linyi City, Shandong Province, before his incarceration. Mr. Chen was blind since the age of one due to a high fever.

Human rights activities

Mr. Chen has a long history of campaigning for the rights of farmers and the disabled. He assisted villagers in solving drinking water pollution problems when he was attending Nanjing Chinese Medicine University in 2000.  He created and ran the ¡°Rights Defense Project for the Disabled¡± under the auspices of the Chinese Legal Studies Association between 2000 and 2001.  Since 1996, he has provided free legal consultation to farmers and the disabled in rural areas.  In 2003, he was sponsored by the ¡°International Visitors Project¡± to visit the US.  In 2004, he ran a ¡°Citizen Awareness and Law for the Disabled Project¡± supported by the US National Endowment for Democracy and the Monica Fund.

Starting in April 2005, Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, began to investigate villagers¡¯ claims that Linyi City authorities were employing extensive violence in implementing government birth quotas, and later to put together briefs for lawsuits against officials involved. Their work, and that of activists and lawyers who visited the area to assist in documenting the abuses and in providing legal advice to villagers who wished to take legal action, represented the first-known concerted domestic effort to challenge the use of violence in the enforcement of China¡¯s population policy. The first report on the subject was made public through the Citizens Rights Defense Network (gongmin weiquan wang) on June 10, 2005.

It seems clear that the violence in Linyi was part of a concerted campaign to meet the area¡¯s assigned population targets. In July 2004, the Linyi City Party Committee and government had issued a document on strengthening population and fertility control work. Violent measures reportedly began to be used in some districts of Linyi City by the end of that year. In mid-February 2005, Linyi City government reissued the July 2004 document, in a move seen as encouraging the use of force to meet population control targets. According to Linyi residents, in March 2005 local authorities began forcing parents of two children to be sterilized and women pregnant with a third child to undergo abortions. Officials detained family members of those couples who fled, beat them and held them hostage. There has been official confirmation of the abuses in Linyi: on Sept. 19, 2005, an official of the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China said that their investigation had found that there had been violations of law and policy in Linyi that had infringed the rights of citizens, and that as a consequence, some officials had been dismissed, while some were in detention and facing investigation for criminal responsibility.

Lawsuits filed by four villagers who suffered violent treatment in this campaign, Du Dejiang, Liu Benxia, Han Yandong and Hu Bingmei, were due to be heard on October 10, 11 and 14 in the Yinan County People¡¯s Court. But on October 10, the court announced that the hearings would be postponed. Other villagers who had been planning to bring suit have pulled out after being harassed, threatened, or bribed.  Police also allegedly forced some villagers to testify against Chen Guangcheng, saying that he fabricated the reports of abuses. Chen¡¯s wife has said that local officials had warned her that her husband¡¯s life would be in danger unless he abandoned the lawsuit.

As a result of their work on the lawsuit, Chen and Yuan were put under house arrest on August 12. On August 25, Chen evaded police surrounding his village and went to Shanghai and Nanjing, then to Beijing, to seek help from lawyers. In Beijing, friends arranged for him to meet foreign journalists, diplomats, and international legal experts, to discuss the lawsuits.

First arrest

His first arrest came on Sept. 6, 2005 in Beijing, and he was taken under guard to his home village in Linyi, Shandong.  In the afternoon of Sept. 6, Chen Guangcheng was apprehended at the home of a friend in Beijing by six men who said they were public security officers from Shandong. The men shoved Chen into a car.  He was held overnight in a hotel, where he said the head of the Linyi Public Security Bureau and the city¡¯s deputy mayor came to see him in the morning. ¡°The main purpose was to threaten me. [The PSB head] said, ¡®You have revealed news information to foreign media and have been suspected of violating Article 111 of Chinese criminal law: illegally providing intelligence to foreign countries, for which the maximum sentence is life in prison. The minimum you can get is 5-10 years.¡¯¡± Chen was held overnight at a hotel on the way from Beijing to Shandong, and began a hunger strike when he was detained.  He was released into house arrest the next day.

Public security officials from Shandong Province, who carried out the abduction and arrest, showed no warrant or any other official order.

Second arrest

Police arrested Mr. Chen on Sept. 23, 2005, 2:50pm, and released the following morning, again, into house arrest.  His home was searched until 10pm on the 23^rd.  Again, no authorization was shown.

Third arrest

After living under house arrest for six months, Mr. Chen was arrested on March 11, at his home village, in Yinan County, Linyi City, Shandong by Yinan county public security officials, who showed no warrant. 

Detention

Having been under house arrest from Aug. 12, 2005 to March 11, 2006, while the maximum time allowed for the measure residential surveillance ¼ʓ¾ӗ¡ is six months according to Chinese law, Mr. Chen was detained incommunicado from March 11 to June 10, 2006.  He was formally detained on suspicion of ¡°gathering crowds to obstruct traffic¡± and ¡°destructing property¡± on June 10.  He has been in jail since then.  He was put on trial, sentenced to 4 years and 3 months, and his sentence was eventually upheld on January 12, 2007, after the higher court had sent the case back for retrial.

The house arrest at his home was enforced by security guards paid on a daily rate by village and township officials and Yinan County Public Security Bureau (PSB). Yinan PSB statement calls them ¡°militia¡± but they reportedly do not meet the official criteria for militia members. Then, he was detained at police detention center of the Yinan County.  He has been there since March 2006.
 

According to villagers, Chen¡¯s house arrest was overseen by various local government and Chinese Communist Party officials, including the Shuanghou Township mayor and party secretary, and the Yinan County party school president, party secretary and party office director.  On March 11, he was detained by Yinan County Public Security Bureau. On June 10, 2006, the Yinan County PSB acknowledged he was detained at the Yinan Detention Center.

The ¡°reasons¡± for the detention imputed by the authorities was that Mr. Chen ¡°fabricated¡± information about violence inflicted on rural people around Linyi City to enforce the population control policies and achieve quotas for reducing birth rates in the area. On some occasions, Chen and his family have been told that releasing this information constituted a breach of laws governing protection of state secrets. When he protested beating of a villager by security guards, he was taken into custody, Three months later, on June 10, a formal notice was sent to his wise, alleging he was detained for ¡°deliberate destruction of property¡± and ¡°gathering a crowd to obstruct traffic.¡±  He was twice tried, twice convicted, and one of his two-time appeals was ruled by a higher court to be sent back to local court for retrial, but at the second appeal, the higher court upheld the verdict.

It is unclear what legislations authorities applied in arresting, house arresting, and detaining Mr. Chen. ¡°Residential surveillance¡± (¼ʓ¾ӗ¡) is a form of house arrest that can be applied by Public Security, Procuratorates, and Courts under the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL, Art.s 50 and 51), including in cases where authorities have insufficient evidence to charge a person with an offense but are investigating that person for criminal responsibility, or if the penalty for the alleged offense would be minor. The maximum period allowable for such detention is six months (CPL, Art. 58).

Mr. Chen was not shown a warrant ordering him to be put under residential surveillance, nor was he officially given any reasons for such a measure to be imposed on him. According to the Regulations on Procedures of the Public Security Organs for Dealing with Criminal Cases (below, MPS Regulations, issued by the Ministry of Public Security in 1998), if such a measure is to be applied to a suspect, a residential surveillance decision must be issued by public security organs at county level or above and this document must be shown to the suspect, who must sign or put his mark on it (Art.s 95 and 96). 

II. Harassment of Legal Advisers and Supporters

September 2005 ¨C March 2006: House arrest

On October 4, 2005, law lecturer Xu Zhiyong and lawyers Li Fangping and Li Subin attempted to visit Chen and negotiate with local officials to have his house arrest lifted. The lawyers were stopped on their way to the house. Chen reportedly managed to leave his house and spoke with them briefly, but was then forcibly taken back. When he resisted, he was beaten up by men surrounding his house. The lawyers tried to go to Chen¡¯s house, but they were stopped and Xu Zhiyong and Li Fangping were beaten up, then all three were taken to Shuanghou Township Police Station where they were interrogated until the following morning.  They were told that the case now involved ¡°state secrets¡± and escorted back to Beijing.

On October 24, two other Beijing scholars and friends of Chen Guangcheng went to visit him.  As Chen ran out to greet them, he was stopped and beaten by more than 20 men stationed outside.  The visitors were quickly escorted away.  Authorities did not release Chen even after the UN Special Rapporteur, Manfred Nowak, called his relatives from Beijing during Nowak¡¯s visit in late November 2005.

Between September 2005 and March 2006, a number of villagers who have been seeking to help Chen and his family or protesting against his continued detention have been detained, and have clashed with the ¡°militia¡± imposing his house arrest. Some were subject to criminal detention orders (under which the police may hold a person without charge for up to 15 days) and some remain in detention.

March ¨C June 2006: Detention incommunicado

On March 11, 2006, Chen Guangcheng, was taken away from his village by police and detained at the Yinan County Public Security Bureau, along with at least two fellow villagers, Chen Guangyu and Chen Guangjun.  Earlier that day,

Chen Guangyu, a neighbor of Chen Guangcheng, was beaten by four hooded persons with sticks and other weapons. Chen Guangyu was bleeding from his head, neck and arms.  This took place on his way home from a convenience store.

When Chen Guangcheng found out about the beating, he and his wife Yuan Weijing went out to ask the guards outside the door: ¡°Who was responsible for the violence? Why did the guards watch the beating without doing anything to stop it?¡± But no one answered. After asking around for half an hour, Chen Guangcheng decided to go to Yinan County to seek an account from higher officials. This attracted local villagers. Three policemen in riot gear and about ten police in normal uniform followed them. About 40 policemen and security later guards joined them.  The crowds surrounded them on the highway and blocked traffic momentarily.

Chen Guangcheng demanded that police identify the attackers and they refused.  Then the Deputy Chief of Yinan County PSB, Liu Jie, gave the order "Arrest them!"   Police began pushing through the crowd, throwing Chen Guangcheng's wife with their infant and his 70-year-old mother down into the ditch by the road, and then wrestling down Chen Guangcheng and holding his head on the ground.   They also took away Chen Guangyu and Chen Guangjun.

At 11pm police notified Yuan Weijing that they were detaining Chen Guangcheng and the other two villagers for 24 hours for ¡°investigation¡± regarding their role in "leading people to block traffic."  She was told that they were detained at the Shuanghou township police station (˫º��ʼn³��/SPAN>).

The two villagers, Chen Guangyu and Chen Guangjun, taken away at the same time, were formally detained for criminal investigation on suspicion of "disrupting traffic." Families received the notification on March 17. It was dated March 12, and signed by the Yinan PSB.

On March 12, Yuan Weijing, wife of Chen Guangcheng, was given a ¡°Notice on Continuation of Interrogation¡± stating that her husband¡¯s detention for interrogation would continue until 9:00pm that evening. She was told that her husband was being held at Shuanghou Police Station (˫ܩʼn³��/SPAN>). Since then, however, she has apparently not been given any information about why Chen Guangcheng continues to be held. All her channels of communications have been severed, including her mobile phone, and she remains under guard at home, so we have had no way to check with her in the last few days if there has been any development in the situation.

On March 26, three villagers from Dongshigu in Linyi, Shandong Province, Chen Gengjiang, Chen Guanghe and Cheng Guangdong, received formal arrest warrants on charges of ¡°destruction of public property.¡± All three had been detained since the February 5 protest in which villagers clashed with police. The arrest notifications were dated March 22.

Chen Guangcheng would be held in detention without any official order for the next three months, until June 10, 2006. In an attempt to frighten his family and villagers into silence, Chen¡¯s family has been told by officials that Chen Guangcheng was tortured in detention and that he had to wear handcuffs and shackles around his ankles.

Cheng Guangcheng¡¯s lawyer Teng Biao and another lawyer who worked on the Linyi case, Jiang Tianyong, are under huge pressure from their respective working unit to drop any legal actions in connection to Chen¡¯s case or to the lawsuits filed by Linyi villagers alleging abuses committed in the implementation of population control policies.

On June 20, 2006, when Chen Guangcheng¡¯s mother, who is 72 years old, arrived in Beijing (with his three-year old child) to have a press conference about Chen Guangcheng¡¯s situation, they were abducted by police from Shandong and brought back to Linyi.   The next day, Chen¡¯s mother fell seriously ill, but the men guarding Chen¡¯s house did not permit her to go to the hospital.

July 2006 ¨C January 2007:  Trials, Appeals, Verdicts

On July 11, Li Jinsong, the new lawyer handling this case, met with Chen Guangcheng in the Yinan County Detention Center for an hour. Chen reported that since September 2005, he had been unlawfully mistreated or verbally abused by local officials, whom he was able to identify by name. He said that prior to April 2, 2006, he had been illegally detained at the Yinan Victoria Resort. Then between April 2 and June 11, when he was officially subjected to criminal detention and transferred to the Yinan County Detention Center, Chen had been illegally held at the Police Training Centre. From March 12 to 14, Yinan County Police officers had subjected Chen to ill-treatment by depriving him of sleep for three days, and in protest he went on hunger strike and refused water. 

On August 18, Mr. Chen was tried by the Yinan County People¡¯s Court for inciting destruction of property and intentional obstruction of traffic.  His lawyers were prevented from attending the trial.  Instead, two lawyers whom Mr. Chen rejected and who never did any work on the case were appointed.

On August 24, the Yinan County People¡¯s Court announced its verdict:  Chen Guangcheng was found guilty as charged and was sentenced to four years and three months in jail. 

On September 3, lawyers filed for appeal on behalf of Mr. Chen.  On September 11, the lawyers received a notification from the Linyi Municipal People¡¯s Intermediate Court that they must provide evidence to the court before September 14.   The lawyers responded with a list of the evidence and a list of 137 witnesses, whom they requested the court to be allowed to testify in the appeal trial.

The appeal court issued its decision on Chen Guangcheng¡¯s appeal on October 30 2006: First, the higher court rejected the lower Yinan County Court verdict sentencing Chen Guangcheng to 4 years and 3 months in jail for ¡°intentional destruction of property¡± and ¡°inciting crowds to disrupt traffic¡± on August 24, 2006.  Second, the case was sent back to the lower court for re-trial.

On November 27, the retrial of Chen Guangcheng opened. On December 1, the verdict was announced by the Yinan County People¡¯s Court: Chen Guangcheng was convicted again for the same crimes, ¡°intentional obstruction of traffic¡± and ¡°inciting destruction of property.¡± He was sentenced again to 4 years and 3 months.  Chen¡¯s lawyers again filed for appeal to the Linyi Municipal Intermediate People¡¯s Court.

On January 12, 2007, the Linyi Intermediate Court announced its verdict: the court upheld the 4-year and 3-month sentence of Chen Guangcheng for ¡°gathering crowds to disrupt traffic order¡± after a closed door hearing. 

The lawyers requested the Yinan County Detention Center authorities to provide medical check up to determine that Chen Guangcheng is certified blind and has other conditions warranting a bail to serve terms outside jail.  The request was submitted on January 15, 2007. No response from authorities so far. The PRC Prison Law, Article 17, stipulates that anyone convicted of a crime must be provided with medical check ups by prison authorities and those who are found to have serious illness must not be admitted and the prison authorities should submit the case to the court for granting a temporary service of the term outside prison. In this case, it is the Yinan County People¡¯s Court that is to grant the permission.

III. The Arbitrary Nature of the Arrests and Detention

A) It is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of Chen Guangcheng¡¯s liberty, as he was under house arrest and then detained in prison for six months without a legal order, as he was denied visits by his lawyers during those six months, etc., details of which we give in this report.

(B) The deprivation of Chen Guangcheng¡¯s liberty results from the exercise of his rights or freedoms guaranteed by articles 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 10 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, given that the People¡¯s Republic of China has signed (thus must not act against, though not yet ratified) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, by articles 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26 and 27 of this Covenant (i.e., rights to free opinion, speech, expression, press, assembly, association, and demonstration, etc.).  Chen Guangcheng was detained and tried and convicted to retaliate against him for his work in defending human rights and for exercising his rights to free expression and opinion and criticizing government policy.  He is punished for documenting and exposing violence used to enforce population control policies in Linyi City and in seeking to provide legal assistance to villagers who were to bring a lawsuit against local authorities regarding these abuses. 

C) The non-observance in Mr. Chen¡¯s case of the international norms relating to the right to a fair trial, spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the relevant international instruments accepted by the government of P. R. China, is of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character. Among the instances of non-observance is the torture of key witnesses, the cruel and inhumane treatment of the defendant and his family, and intimidation and violent attacks on his lawyers.

(Part 2: Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=3521)