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Persecution After Prison Problems Faced by Released Chinese Dissidents

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Persecution After Prison Problems Faced by Released Chinese Dissidents November 7, 1991 Persecution After Prison Problems Faced By Released Chinese Dissidents Since January 1990, according to Chinese authorities, close to 1,000 pro-democracy activists have been released from detention without charge, or convicted but "exempted from punishment" and allowed to return home. Many of those released continue to face harassment by public security authorities. Many have also experienced job and housing loss, expulsion from school, restrictions on traveling (including being forbidden to leave China for study in the United States), frequent mandatory reporting to public security officials, or compulsory transfer of household registration (hu kou) to a small town or the countryside -- and sometimes all of the above. In China, where the government, through the Communist Party apparatus, has control over almost every facet of daily life, it is standard practice to make a person's educational and work opportunities, social benefits and medical care, and freedom of movement contingent upon his or her political behavior. Such controls are a way of trying to curb dissent. The practice of dismissing released prisoners from their jobs and sending them back to small towns or villages, often where their parents live, can be an effective way of silencing outspoken dissidents, particularly intellectuals. Such places are isolated from the big cities, where most intellectuals live and work, and where people in general are better informed about and more sympathetic toward the pro-democracy movement. "It's the end. Nothing you can do there," one active intellectual, who recently left China, told Asia Watch. "The local police and the neighborhood committee treat a former political prisoner worse than in the jails: you are watched every moment in a small place, your mail is opened and your message asking for help never gets out of town." In addition to the problems they face in leading normal lives, many released dissidents returned home in poor health, suffering from tuberculosis, skin diseases, malnutrition, and in some cases, damaged organs from beatings received in prison. Medical treatment in the cases known to Asia Watch was poor or non-existent. When hospitalization was required, families had to bear the costs, sometimes while their relatives were still imprisoned, always after they were released, even if their medical condition was directly related to their imprisonment. In this report, Asia Watch documents the post-release restrictions for several leading pro- democracy activists. It is because they are so well-known, and because they are for the most part students or intellectuals, that their current circumstances can be documented. The problems they face may be minor compared to the hundreds of less well-known people, many of them workers, reported to have been released over the last two years. Asia Watch reiterates its call to the Chinese government to account for all those imprisoned and released in connection with the 1989 pro-democracy movement, to lift restrictions on the civil rights of released prisoners and detainees and to provide compensation to former prisoners for injuries or illnesses sustained while in custody. 1. Zhang Weiguo: ReRe----ArrestedArrested for Defying Order Not to Speak Out Whether you're inside or outside, it's just about the same for the Chinese. Either way, you have no freedom. Zhang Weiguo, The New York Times, April 5, 1991 Zhang Weiguo, former Beijing bureau chief of the World Economic Herald, was twice arrested and released in the wake of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square. He reportedly played a key role in organizing pro-democracy information to the Herald, one of China's most liberal newspapers. He also tried to institute legal proceedings to protest the way in which the newspaper was closed down in May 1989 by then Shanghai Party Secretary Jiang Zemin (now Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party). Zhang was taken into custody for the first time on June 20, 1989 in Jingshan, near Shanghai, and then formally arrested on September 20, 1989. He was held in a detention center on the outskirts of Shanghai, then was moved to Shanghai No.1 Detention Center where he shared a cell with common criminals. He was released in Shanghai on February 12, 1991. According to a Shanghai Foreign Affairs official1, he showed an "understanding" of his crime. During his 20 months in detention after June 1989, Zhang was never allowed a visit from his family nor, with a single exception, was he permitted to do exercise outside. He developed a heart problem soon after his arrest.2 Zhang's release in February 1991 appears to have been conditional on his abstaining from making public statements, not traveling beyond Shanghai and maintaining regular contact with the police. But Zhang did speak out publicly. He recounted his prison experience and criticized the government in an interview with New York Times journalists, published on April 5, 1991. Despite a warning from police, he gave another interview to Hong Kong journalists from Ming Bao, published on April 8, 1991, in which he revealed the harsh conditions in the Shanghai No.1 Detention Center. Once a corporate lawyer, Zhang said in an interview with BBC TV journalists in May 1991, I am under overt pressure... In theory I have all the rights of a citizen. But I have a lot of trouble exercising these rights. For example, ...the authorities can dock my wages...they can interfere with my mail by screening it. 1 Associated Press, February 14, 1991 2 New York Times April 5, 1991. Asia Watch 2 November 7, 1991 He didn't hesitate to criticize the government: I've made a personal commitment to demand the establishment of democracy and legality in China. The reason I feel free to express such a notion in front of you is because that is a right to which I am entitled as a citizen by our law and constitution. If I get in trouble when I exercise my right that means there is something wrong with Chinese law...3 In June 1991, Zhang moved to the home of relatives in Zhejiang province, reportedly to avoid the constant harassment he was receiving from security officials for continuing to speak out. He had been called in by the Public Security Bureau for questioning at least twice since his release. 4 On May 29, 1991 and again on May 30, he was questioned for eight hours about his relationship with Luntan (Forum), the journal which a group calling itself the Study Group on Human Rights in China had planned to publish. Zhang was a member of that group which surfaced in early 1991; some of its other members remain under arrest. At the same time, Zhang was asked about his contacts with foreign reporters and about his plan to compile a selection of the writings and speeches of Qin Benli, the crusading editor of the World Economic Herald who died of cancer in April 1991, while still officially on "probation" and censored. Authorities demanded Zhang hand over the manuscript. Zhang insisted the police hand over his confiscated prison diaries first. On July 30, 1991, Zhang Weiguo, while at his relatives' home in Zhejiang, was taken into custody again for repeatedly defying orders to stop talking to foreign journalists. The Public Security Bureau told Zhang's brother that he was being "held for surveillance." But they were secretive about where Zhang was or why he was re-arrested. He was released on August 21, after three weeks in custody. Zhang has been harassed in other ways. He had been notified by the Shanghai Social Science Institute that he had until June 15 to find a job or he would have one assigned. According to the South China Morning Post (June 6, 1991), one possible assignment was with a petrochemical plant 45 miles from Shanghai. Zhang had requested a job as a journalist and six months in which to locate one. As of October 1991, he still had no job, was not allowed to leave Shanghai, and had to report to the Public Security Bureau at least once a week. 2. Wang Ruowang: A Hostage of His Own Outspokenness After being in jail for one year and two months, I was released and regained freedom. I just found out that many people from overseas fought for my freedom! ...The meaning of my release is not a personal triumph. It is a victory similar to Mandela's release (at least we are the same age and get out of jail in the same 3 Amnesty International, Urgent Action No. UA 267/91. 4 Shijie Ribao, June 1 and June 3, 1991. Asia Watch 3 November 7, 1991 year). However, my situation is very different from his; he can travel around the world and give speeches, while I am restricted in many ways and I am only released conditionally and waiting for trial. -- Wang Ruowang, December 10, 1990 Wang Ruowang is a renowned writer and a veteran critic of the Chinese government. He was expelled from the Communist Party in early 1987, along with dissident intellectuals Fang Lizhi and Liu Binyan, for his involvement in the 1987 student demonstrations. Earlier, Wang had been branded a "rightist" in 1957 and expelled from the Party for five years; for his activities during the Cultural Revolution, he was imprisoned for six years. Wang's outspokenness had also caused his imprisonment by the Nationalists in 1933, when he wrote a sarcastic article criticizing Chiang Kai-shek. Following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, Wang was accused of listening to the Voice of America and spreading "rumors" based on these broadcasts; making counterrevolutionary speeches; and supporting student hunger strikers. On July 19, 1989, Wang was placed under house arrest in Shanghai.
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