APPENDIX 42
Memorandum submitted by Nicholas Rufford,
Assistant Editor, The Sunday Times
I am writing in the hope that you will take up the
case of Jiang Qisheng, one of the leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen
Square democracy movement. He has already served four years of
hard labour in China, and is now in prison again, although he
has not been convicted of a crime.
He has been held incommunicado in a detention
centre in Beijing for 14 months, charged with conspiracy to overthrow
the Chinese state after he wrote an essay advocating peaceful
social reform. The maximum penalty is death.
His case is urgent. It will be much harder to
help him after he has been sentenced.
China has on many occasions pledged its commitment
to greater freedom and human rights for its people and has been
rewarded with closer political and economic ties with the West.
It has signed-though not yet ratified-the United Nations international
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The case of Mr Jiang should be a test case to
see whether China is prepared to match its word with deed. John
Battle, the British Foreign Office minister, raised his mistreatment
with the Chinese foreign minister during a trip to Beijing last
year, and on at least two other occasions since then. The Chinese
government has so far not responded.
The Sunday Times has followed Mr Jiang's case
since 1994. I hope you can help by including reference to his
treatment in your report on relations between the Foreign Office
and China.
THE CASE
OF JIANG
QISHENG
Jiang Qisheng is one of the most intelligent
and articulate advocates of democracy in China. He was one of
the leaders of the Tiananmen Square democracy protests in 1989.
For his pains he was expelled from university in Beijing, where
he was studying for a doctoral thesis and sentenced to four years
hard labour.
Last year, he was rearrested after writing a
pamphlet asking people to light candles to mark the tenth anniversary
of the Tiananmen protests. He was charged with conspiracy to overthrow
the state, an offence which carries the maximum penalty of death.
Repeated spells in jail have failed to deter him from writing
essays about the need for social and political reform in China.
The Chinese government now seems determined to silence him.
He is being held in the 44 Banbu Qiao Detention
Centre in Beijing. His wife and son are not allowed to visit him.
Even by Chinese standards, his treatment has
been harsh. He was held incommunicado for six months before his
case came to trial. When he came before the middle level of the
Peoples Court in Beijing last November, there was insufficient
evidence to convict him. He was sent for indefinite detention
while the prosecution tried to strengthen its case. His continuing
incarceration breaches Chinese criminal law.
Jiang Qisheng is 50 years old. He has spent
the last 11 years in and out of labour camps and prisons and has
sacrificed his health and his freedom campaigning for democratic
reform. He has spent little time with his 18 year old son.
China has signed the United Nations International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and claims that its judiciary
is fair and independent. Yet it has failed even to respond to
questions from human rights organisations and from the British
government about Mr Jiang.
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