A New Year Statement by The China Human Rights Lawyers Group

The Spring Breeze Is Certain to Trigger Ripples: A New 12 months Assertion by The China Human Rights Legal professionals Group

January 1, 2022

In 1925, the 26-year-old poet and political dissident Wen Yiduo (闻一多) wrote in his poem titled “Useless Water”:

Here’s a ditch of doomed, lifeless water
No spring breeze can fire up even half a ripple

In 1946, Wen was assassinated on the streets of Kunming by army safety officers of the Kuomintang that dominated China on the time.

When Western powers confirmed up on the gates of China — first with buying and selling ships, then with vessels of warfare — the huge empire was lastly woke up from its millennia-long slumber and compelled to confront the world. The sensible and prescient had been compelled to stroll the trail of modernity; era after era endeavored to seek out newer and higher methods of constructing China into a robust, rich nation. Nonetheless, bringing reform to a rustic that has had hundreds of years of steady imperial authorities has been a process fraught with enormous challenges. Although many had been stuffed with want for change and labored tirelessly to beat a path, their efforts have been, repeatedly, thwarted by these in energy. The failed expertise of China’s reform challenge during the last century tells us that it’s not “backwardness” itself which ends up in being bullied; slightly, it’s the cussed attachment to backward methods, the refusal to undertake superior strategies of governance, and the rejection of common values which might be the true reason for our struggling.

Wen Yiduo’s poem was an anguished cry amid the determined and hopeless scenario {that a} weakened China confronted within the mid-Nineteen Twenties. All through the course of a century since then, this desperation stalked the Chinese language individuals like a shadow.

In January 2021, human rights attorneys Lu Siwei (卢思位) and Ren Quanniu (任全牛) had been disbarred by the Departments of Justice in Sichuan and Henan respectively. Early the subsequent month, lawyer Xi Xiangdong (袭祥栋) was disbarred by the Shandong provincial Division of Justice. In October, the Beijing municipal Justice Bureau unlawfully revoked the license of Lin Qilei (蔺其磊); previous to that the Beijing Ruikai Regulation Agency that he directed was shut down on January 4.

On February 14, Zhang Pancheng (张盼成) — a youth from rural Gansu Province and a former safety guard at Peking College — was arrested once more shortly after launch from jail, and has reportedly been handed a three-year jail sentence. It’s unclear what crime he was charged with. 

On Might 18, economics professor Yang Zhaozheng (杨绍政), who was “expelled” from Guizhou College, was secretly detained, arrested, and positioned in residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) on the cost of subversion of state energy. On Might 28, Guangdong dissident Wang Aizhong (王爱忠) was arrested for “selecting quarrels and scary hassle” (寻衅滋事罪).

On July 20, Cheng Yuan (程渊), Liu Yongze (刘永泽), and Wuge Jianxiong (吴葛健雄) of the Hunan-based public advocacy group Changsha Funeng (长沙富能) had been sentenced to jail for “subversion of state energy” following a secret trial. 

On July 23, impartial scholar Li Huizhi (李悔之, often known as Li Liqun 李立群) dedicated suicide by taking poison. In his last message to the Chinese language individuals, he wrote, “There is no such thing as a hope, no path ahead to be seen. Issues have by no means been as hopeless as they’re now.”

On August 31, in Hebei Province, a responsible verdict was handed down following the second trial of the Dawu Group executives. The top of this famed agricultural enterprise, Sun Dawu (孙大午), was sentenced to 18 years in jail on trumped up fees together with almost all of his members of the family, and his conglomerate seized by the state.

Legal professionals and activists Xu Zhiyong (许志永), Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜), Chang Weiping (​​常玮平), and Li Qiaochu (李翘楚) have been charged with subversion of state energy; Xu and Ding have already been held for 2 years with out trial, and each had served a earlier sentence for his or her involvement within the New Residents Motion in 2014.

In November, political dissident and former prosecutor Shen Liangqing (沈良庆) was sentenced to 3 years in jail for choosing quarrels and scary hassle. In the meantime, the case of human rights activist Ou Biaofeng (欧彪峰) stays in limbo because the so-called investigation shuffled backwards and forwards between the police and the prosecution. Fellow activist Ms. Xu Qin (徐秦) was arrested on the cost of inciting subversion of state energy. Citizen journalists Huang Xueqin (黄雪琴) and Wang Jianbing (王建兵) had been arrested on the identical pretext.

On December 8, famend Sichuan dissident Chen Yunfei (陈云飞), beforehand arrested on fees of selecting quarrels and scary hassle, was discovered responsible on trumped-up counts of forcible molestation and molesting a minor. He was sentenced to 4 years in jail.

December 14 noticed the handing down of a three-year jail sentence for human rights lawyer Chen Jiahong (陈家鸿) on the cost of inciting subversion of state energy. This cost has lately turn out to be a go-to cost for the authorities; for civil society and the worldwide neighborhood, this label is extra of a badge of honor.

On December 16, after the pretense of a listening to, the Beijing municipal Justice Bureau completely disbarred human rights lawyer Liang Xiaojun (梁小军).

The day prior to this, the incitement to subversion of state energy case involving poet Wang Zang (王藏) and his spouse Wang Liqin (王利芹) went to courtroom within the Chuxiongzhou Intermediate Court docket in Yunnan Province. Declaring himself a “future plaintiff now standing within the place of the defendant,” Wang delivered his courtroom assertion, “Verse of Liberty Composed in Court docket” (《法庭上的自由诗》). 

On December 14, Prof. Tune Gengyi (宋庚一), who taught the course “Journalist Interview” at Shanghai Aurora Vocational Faculty (在上海震旦职业学院), was fired after a pupil reported her for questioning the official dying toll of the Nanjing Bloodbath as taught in historical past books. On December 19, 27-year-old Li Tiantian (李田田), an elementary faculty trainer in rural western Hunan Province, was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for expressing assist for Ms. Tune, sparking outrage amongst Chinese language netizens. In her final textual content earlier than disappearing, Li, who’s 4 months pregnant, wrote “Please discover a solution to rescue me!”

The instances of human rights attorneys Li Yuhuan (李昱函), Qin Yongpei (覃永沛), and public curiosity authorized activist Hao Jinsong (郝劲松) have dragged on because the procuratorate and legislation enforcement scrambled to “innovate” by utilizing procedural strategies which might be authorized in kind however unlawful in substance — akin to supplemental investigations and adjournments. On December 31, the final day of the yr, Qin Yongpei’s case went to trial. Together with his spouse Deng Xiaoyun (邓晓云) as certainly one of his defenders, the couple joined forces to face off in opposition to the three prongs of the Communist Get together’s fake judicial system, a courtroom drama in an period of dystopian absurdity.

From the start to the top of 2021, Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), a well known human rights activist, and Tang Jitian (唐吉田), a human rights lawyer, had been each unlawfully banned from leaving the nation to go to their critically unwell family members, Guo his spouse within the U.S. and Tang his daughter in Japan. Each have not too long ago disappeared, supposedly taken away by authorities.

Imprisoned citizen journalist Zhang Zhan (张展), who reported on the scenario in Wuhan at the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic, is close to dying as she maintains a starvation strike.

The Covid-19 pandemic has gone on for 2 full years. Beneath the pretext of epidemic prevention and management, the federal government has used well being codes, journey codes, and large information to limit people’ exercise and flagrantly violate their private privateness. Vaccination is theoretically voluntary, however native authorities insurance policies make it unavoidable to get the jab in observe. Incidents of extreme negative effects after vaccination have arisen intermittently.

On January 28, 2021, Liu Jinxing (刘进兴, often known as Soul Chaser 追魂), an oil painter famous for the “Scream” sequence, was launched from jail.

On August 4, 2021, we welcomed again Suzhou human rights activist Ge Jueping (戈觉平), who had been in jail for 4 and a half years, and as a most cancers survivor, his well being has vastly deteriorated.  

In 2021, the disappearance of lawyer Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), one of many pioneers of defending human rights in Chinese language courts, entered its fourth yr; the whereabouts of Fang Bin (方斌), a citizen journalist from Wuhan who was arrested in February 2020 for reporting on the epidemic, stay unknown.

In 2021, we witness the autumn of Fu Zhenghua (傅政华), one of many tyrants working the Communist Get together’s political and authorized affairs equipment. Whereas we word that Fu has been the chief wrongdoer within the persecution of human rights attorneys for a few years, as attorneys we stay sober about the truth that Fu’s destiny, identical to these of Zhou Yongkang (周永康), Wang Lijun (王立军), and different perpetrators, has nothing to do with the progress of the rule of legislation in China.

In 2021, the conditions in Hong Kong and the Taiwan Strait have worsened, and the connection between China and the West continues to deteriorate.

How can we not really feel as if our hearts are chilly like lifeless water? Our despair stems from the collision of purpose, beliefs, and the established order; from the nigh-hopelessness that we are going to ever see reform. There’s an unmistakable historic logic that ties us to previous martyrs of the fashionable period: the assassinated Wen Yiduo; Zou Rong (邹容), who threw himself into the ocean in 1905 close to the top of the Qing dynasty; Wang Guowei (王国维), who discovered righteous dignity by drowning in Kunming Lake in Beijing in 1927; Lao She (老舍), who sank himself in Taiping Lake with no last message within the peak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966; and Li Huizhi (李悔之), who ended his life by poisoning in 2021.

At first look, right this moment’s China might seem like it’s blooming with prosperity, however for a lot of society, the day-to-day actuality is darkish and unsure. Whereas lots of these within the “high-end” class are drunk on cash and luxurious, the lots within the center and decrease lessons wrestle to get by: they will neither afford to provide delivery or get sick. The legal guidelines of our nation are written completely, however they exist solely on paper, and are miscarried within the day-to-day work of the judicial system. 

Although the current scenario might tempt us to really feel in any other case, we stay agency in our perception that “Here’s a ditch of doomed, lifeless water” just isn’t an expression of helpless despair, however comprises the expectation that despair is to be overcome. The road “No spring breeze can fire up even half a ripple” just isn’t a hopeless criticism, however a longing name to listen to the wind rise because the spring swells.