Tom Phillips - 'Reap what you sow': families of seized lawyers send public warning to China
Open letter released on anniversary of
human rights crackdown says Beijing’s campaign of fear will not stop them
The wives of some of
China’s most prominent civil rights lawyers have issued an emotional and
spirited plea for their release, one year after they were seized by police
during a government offensive against dissent. In an open letter
released on Saturday to mark the anniversary, relatives of the lawyers called
on Beijing to end the harassment and persecution of their families.
“As a citizen, asking
for the legitimate rights and interests of your family to be protected is the
most basic requirement,” they write, warning: “He who plays with fire will get
burnt. One day you reap what you sow for the various illegal methods you are
today using.”
On 9 July last year
security officials launched what activists describe as an
unprecedented roundup of human rights lawyers and activists, taking
well-known attorneys such as Wang
Yu, Li
Heping and Wang Quanzhang into
secret detention.
Exactly 12 months later more than 20 of the crackdown’s targets remain behind bars, facing charges of political subversion that could see many of them jailed for life. An article in the Global Times, a Beijing-controlled tabloid, on Friday hinted they would be charged with plotting a “peaceful revolution” designed to overthrow the Communist party.
Activists accuse
Chinese president
Xi Jinping of trampling on human rights in order to silence potential
opponents to his rule. The so-called “709
crackdown” has alarmed activists and foreign observers who view the
offensive as part of a broader bid to consolidate political control by an
increasingly authoritarian leadership.
Since Xi took power in
2012 liberal academics, bloggers, journalists, religious leaders, feminist
campaigners and foreign NGO workers have all come under increasing pressure
from authorities. “I really do think
that we are moving into the end of China’s reform era,” said Carl Minzner, a
professor of Chinese law and politics at New York’s Fordham law school. China’s reform era
was characterised by a degree of ideological openness, a degree of political
stability and rapid economic growth. And those are all beginning to end,”
Minzner added. “China is now
beginning to move in a more ideologically closed, more politically unstable
[direction] and the economy is slowing. It is moving in a much more uncertain,
and increasingly worrying, direction.”
Writing on his
blog, the veteran China expert Jerome Cohen said he had been encouraged by
the international
outcry surrounding the one-year anniversary of China’s so-called “war
on law”. “[But] it is
discouraging to realise how little impact all these efforts will have on Xi
Jinping and his spear carriers or even on the Chinese people, most of whom are
deprived of their right under China’s constitution to know about such efforts,”
he wrote. “How long can we
expect even the bravest and most dedicated human rights advocates to endure in
the cruelly punishing conditions that Xi Jinping has imposed upon them?”
The open letter’s
signatories vowed to continue their struggle for justice, describing the
imprisonment of their loved-ones as “an honour”. “Walking through the
long night in the dark, we are not without fear. But fear cannot prevent us
from moving forward, as long as love still exists in our hearts,” they wrote,
according to a translation posted
on the Facebook page of China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, an activist
organisation monitoring the crackdown.
Speaking ahead of the
anniversary, the wife of Li Heping, Wang Qiaoling, said she feared her husband
was facing such hardship that he would feel compelled to confess to crimes he
did not commit. “We cannot ask them to be Iron Man, Spider-Man or Superman,”
she said. “It is very scary,”
Wang added. “All I know is that God is in control of everything. Otherwise we
would not be able to carry on.”
see also
Tom Phillips - Beijing shuts down art exhibition on violence against women
The Crises of Party Culture: by Yang Guang
The Crises of Party Culture: by Yang Guang
