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All the Rag the Plight of a 'Rights Lawyer' Under

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All the Rag the Plight of a 'Rights Lawyer' Under SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010 A13 Alex Lo The plight of a ‘rights lawyer’ under illegal house arrest reflects [email protected] Beijing’s fear of dissent, write Jerome A. Cohen and Yu-Jie Chen All the rage t’s been said that a gentleman never offends unintentionally. But the converse is also true – that he never takes offence unless he chooses to. It is ungentlemanly – and unladylike – to Prisoner in his own home take offence easily; and it is barbaric if being offended throws one into a murderous rage. The ability to control our response Ito offences directed at people, values and beliefs we hold dear is a sign of the mastery of self, a sophistication of mind. We should all condition ourselves to be slow to take offence. The world would be a more peaceful, or at least a quieter, place. In this regard, we live in a most uncivil age. Globalisation and the technologies that underpin it have taken electronic hile hundreds today”. They did not know how to respond. communication to near the speed of light. And that means we – of thousands When we repeatedly asked their legal basis with our rude messages and uncouth thoughts – are constantly in flood the for isolating Zheng, they became annoyed each other’s faces. Thanks to the wonders of electronic media, we World Expo in and said it was none of our business. After experience this simultaneity in newspaper columns and reader Shanghai every some time, the standoff ended when they responses, in internet forums and chat groups; so we often react day, former told us to come back at 10am the next day. instantly, driven by our biases, prejudices and prejudgments. lawyer Zheng We arrived the next morning with little Instant rage is something new in our age. The great American Enchong hope, and at first a new group of guards journalist Walter Lippmann told an amusing story, apparently is again told us to leave. But persistence true, in his classic Public Opinion about a group of Englishmen, forbidden to eventually paid off, and the police, perhaps Frenchmen and Germans who holidayed, on the eve of the first even leave his apartment in the city. His worried about bad publicity during expo, world war, on an island reached by no cables and visited by a mail Whome has been his prison since his official recorded the details of our US and Taiwan boat only once every two months. For weeks they acted as if they prison sentence ended in June 2006. travel documents, sought higher were friends when in fact they were enemies because their Around the clock, 12 guards, including instructions and finally let us in. countries were at war. That would never happen today, because uniformed police, plain-clothes public We were warmly welcomed by Zheng, they would instantly know their nations were at war. security officials and their hired hands, take his wife and her brother, who lives down The world’s wars, conflicts and crises are not only broadcast turns manning the outer gate, building the hall. Zheng seemed buoyed by our visit live on TV, but show up instantly on our computer screens. One or entrance and hallway outside Zheng’s and spoke passionately about his career more of these conflicts are bound to touch our personal likes and apartment. Strategically posted and plight. During the Cultural Revolution, dislikes at a deep level – our innermost beliefs. Thus, Jews are upset surveillance cameras ensure that no one in after fighting on the losing side in a struggle that the world is upset about Israel’s deadly raids on an aid- the vicinity can escape police eyes. Zheng, between Red Guard factions, he was exiled bearing flotilla; Catholics take offence at suggestions that the who is 60, only leaves when summoned by to the countryside for 11years before Vatican at the highest levels suppressed disclosure of priestly police and has been summoned at least 77 returning to a variety of factory and paedophiles over decades and across continents; many Chinese – times since 2006 for interrogations that are government jobs. He began to study law in and I count myself among them – are intimidating and occasionally physically 1985 and passed the lawyers’ exam two sick and tired of Westerners constantly abusive. His home has been searched 11 years later. In 1994, after Zheng started Controlling rounding on China about its exchange times, and five computers have been representing clients who claimed they had rate regime, investments across Africa confiscated. He generally has no internet been illegally evicted from their residences, our anger is and for causing the global financial access, and his phone is monitored when the authorities began to delay the required a sign of the crisis because of trade imbalances. not disconnected. annual renewal of his lawyer’s licence, and And we all – Jews, Muslims, Italian His wife is allowed daily trips to market in 2001 the Shanghai Judicial Bureau mastery of Catholics, Chinese nationalists and but is always followed. When police refused to renew it outright. whatnot – can feed on our rage by Nevertheless, Zheng continued to self, a responding as fast as our fingers can advise evicted people. After exposing a type. I am no brain scientist, but I Zheng’s illegal house major real estate scandal involving sophistication believe a different part – the more arrest began immediately corruption among a well known Shanghai of mind reptilian sections – of our brain are tycoon and high-up Communist Party ...................................... triggered by, or triggers, those instant after his June 2006 leaders and their families, he was detained responses. That is why the internet is in May 2003 and convicted of “providing full of vile comments that most of us would not be caught dead release from prison, state secrets to an overseas organisation”, voicing in front of other people. There is something to be said for the New York-based NGO, Human Rights snail mail and old-fashioned letter writing, which frustrates instant and no end is in sight in China. Although the alleged “state gratification, delays responses and forces the thinking parts of the ............................................................... secrets” concerned a large-scale public brain to formulate a considered reaction. protest and an “internal” government Just as road rage poses a mortal danger to road users, so our prevent her from going out during magazine’s report on an eviction case, the propensity for angry reactions and ease with which we take “sensitive” times, they shop for the family! prosecution was an apparent retaliation for offence pose a challenge to the body politic. Muslims who called After authorities made it clear that Zheng’s Zheng’s exposure of the scandal. The court for death to cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet are teenage daughter had no future in China, sentenced him to three years’ not really different from those tea party movement types in she fled to the US. imprisonment and one year’s subsequent America who darkly hint at welcoming the assassination of their Almost all journalists and foreigners deprivation of political rights. first black president. Their rage is the kind of negative energy that who try to visit Zheng have been Zheng’s illegal house arrest began demagogues have always exploited and channelled to further their intercepted, as one of us was four years immediately after his June 2006 release former lawyer Gao Zhisheng , and incongruously, lay a Bible. Zheng, a devout own agendas and spread their twisted messages. ago. Yet, to our surprise, we managed to from prison, and no end is in sight. The he is happy not to have been forced abroad Christian like many “rights lawyers”, The internet and modern communications technology just see him on May 29, after a failed attempt government does not even offer a fig leaf to like his own defence lawyer, Guo Guoting. explained to us: “I gave them the Bible to make it easier for them to do it faster, and take it further and wider. the day before. We were the first foreigners justify his confinement. Yet he is restrained more than the “rights read; otherwise it would be too boring for And that is true not only in the developing South, but in the rich to see him in 17 months. Despite China’s legislative and lawyers” who, despite daily harassments, them to stay here such a long time. It is my North, in dictatorships or authoritarian states as much as in The previous day we had been stopped institutional progress, in reality no remain on the street, albeit no longer faith.” American democracy. Just think of such odious US broadcasters as at the entrance by a plain-clothes theoretical remedy is available to free him. licensed to practise. Will the blind but ............................................................... Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, their jihadist counterparts on the policeman. He nervously blocked us with Plainly the government fears Zheng. The dynamic “barefoot lawyer” Chen Professor Jerome A. Cohen is co-director internet, propagandists-cum-editors at Xinhua and our own crowd control tape, told us to leave and articles on land issues and human rights Guangcheng undergo similar unlawful of NYU School of Law’s US-Asia Law rabble rousers in the Legislative Council. called another guard. When asked why we that he still occasionally circulates through punishment when he is released from his Institute and adjunct senior fellow By being civil, by suppressing the reptilian parts of our brain, could not see Zheng, the policemen surreptitious means suggest why. If Zheng long prison sentence this autumn? for Asia at the Council on Foreign we are saying “no” to these people.
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