Political Prisoners and Freedom of Speech in China
Political Prisoners and Freedom of Speech in China Design and written by Y. Xu School of the Art Institute of Chicago VISCOM 3292, Spring 2020, Annie Leue
CONTENTS 1
3
Introduction
Problem Statement
18 Examples and Research
19
Free Speech for Whom?
28
Freedom of Expression in China
4
6
Goals
Essay: Freedom of Speech and Related Impresonment in China
38 Colophon
Introduction / 2
Introduction Does Chinese citizens have the Freedom of Speech? Yes and no. Chinese Constitution grants its citizens the Freedom of Speech. However as a dictatorship country, Chinese Communist Party can incarcerate people based on what they say. Some people are still imprisoned because of that. There are some legal groups tried to help, but that is not enough.
Problem Statement Chinese government is holding more than 800 political prisoners in 2018. A lot of writers, independent journalists and other people get arrested for expressing their own thoughts about sensitive issues in China.
Goals By the end of the semester, I will contact 10 NGOs for legal help, and design posters and stickers with legal information to help political prisoners in China.
Problem Statement - Goals / 4
Freedom of Speech and Related Imprisonment in China Y. X.
I think people should be able to talk and express themselves freely online or in any written forms, without fear or political consequences. Citizens should not be imprisoned for what they say. Recently, my uncle’s WeChat account has been banned. WeChat is the biggest online social media platform in China, beacuse all of the other western social media platforms are banned in this part of the world. For most Chinese, they communicate with each other via WeChat or QQ, sometimes emails. I was really surprised that my uncle has not been participating in the family group chat for a couple days. I asked my mom what’s going on, and she told me because he talked about some sensitive contents in our family group chat, so his account got banned. This is no news in china. Hundreds and thousands of accounts get banned in China a month, because there is no freedom of speech in China (Human Watch Report).
Essay / 6
Many people may not know the 1982 constitution actually guarantees freedom of speech in China. Under the pressure of the western powers and the host of the 2008 Olympic, Chinese Communit Part (CCP) grants Chinese citizens the right of gather, protect and freedom of speech. Hence, the officials in China deny that the Chinese citizens cannot express themselves. What’s more, the national power in China is centralized. The head of the jurisdiction, the head commander of the military and the president of the country is the same person. As a result, the Chinese government still can imprison their citizens who talk about sensitive topics or criticize the government with the “subversion of state power” and “protection of state secrets” reasons. (Buckley, C. 2008)
According to Article 102 in Criminal Law of People’s Republic of China states that “Whoever incites others by spreading rumors or slanders or any other means to subvert the State power or overthrow the socialist system shall be sentenced to fixed term imprisonment of
not more than five years, criminal detention, public surveillance or deprivation of political rights; and the ringleaders and the others who commit major crimes shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years.” (National People’s Congress, 1997)
Essay / 8
With the growth of the internet, Chinese Communist Party has realized the importance of the media and internet. They have been monitoring and censoring online activities more harsh than ever. I, personally am supporting the Hong Kong protesters and I posted a picture of a magazine cover around June 2019. Because I expressed myself, and I did not stand on the Chinese Communist Party’s side, my social media account got suspended. I had to delete all my posts and redownload my WeChat app to get out of the suspended status. Right now there are some Non-profit legal organizations trying to help political prisoners. A large number of the prisoners are imprisoned because of Speech. (See the chart on the next page) Those lawyers are called “维权律师”, which means lawyers who help people with human rights issues. They are a small group of lawyers that have their own practices and are rather independent from the big firms. Their services are free, and they help migrant workers, injustice incarcerations, and basically anything to do with human rights in China. The biggest group is located in Hong Kong, it is called China Human Rights Lawyer Concern Group. However, Chinese Communist Party can find those lawyers just as easy as the people who post “illegal“ information online. In 2015, “709 Crackdown” happened. The 709 Crackdown was a nationwide crackdown on Chinese lawyers and human rights activists instigated by paramount leader and Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping during the summer of 2015. It is known as the “709 crackdown” as it started in 9 July 2015.
Number of Political Prisoners believed to have been detained in China Tibet Protests 1,000 Tian’anmen Square Protests
Xinjiang Unrest
800
600
400
200
0 1981
90
2000
2010
2016
Source: Congressional Executive Commision on China
Essay / 10
Illustrations of eight lawyers who were detained or went missing in July 2015 as part of a nationwide crackdown. Top left to right: Wang Quanzhang, Liu Shihui, Liu Sixin, Li Heping. Bottom left to right: Sui Muqing, Liu Xiaoyuan, Wang Yu, Zhou Shifeng. Image source: © Amnesty International
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, describes the crackdown as an operation to destroy a “major criminal gang”.
Those people who actually tried to help or spread any information that the CCP does not want to hear can get into serious problems. Coronavirus broke out in Wuhan, China in December, 2019. However, the government did not tell the citizens or the doctors about the situation. One doctor, Li Wenliang, informed his friends and family about the new virus going around Wuhan in the beginning of December on WeChat. Shortly after, the police arrested him for spreading fake news. He was asked to sign a paperwork saying that he will not spread the fake news anymore, and he was warned by the police that if he continues to talk about the virus, he will face some legal consequences. He died on February 7th because of coronavirus infection. With President Xi Jinping’s lead, China has become less free than ever. In the most recent freedom score by Freedom House, China scored only 10/100. This score is only higher than 14 countries among 195 countries in the world. After Xi Jinping became the president of People’s Republic of China, he has changed the constitution so there is no time limit on the presidential term. In other words, he could be the
Essay / 12
president of PRC until he passes away. Then he abolished the system that derives the power from president to the party secretary and head of the military. In this way, the power has been more concentrated than ever, and he pretty much made himself the head of everything. Xi has also made it hard for the government officials to interact with foreigners. People who work for the government, police, people who evolve in the military, even some teacher’s passports are all confiscated and they cannot leave China. With the border being less open, it is harder and harder for smaller companies to trade with foreign countries too. Moreover, the censorship and online patrolling has been stronger than ever. With the bot and online police constantly cracking down VPNs, there are no constant reliable VPN on the market. It is quite hard for Chinese citizens to connect with the rest of the world. The reason why this issue is urgent is because citizens are required to use their phone number to register any online account, and government issued IDs are required to get a phone number. It is really easy for the government to find out who has written what on the internet. Moreover, it doesn’t matter if the person is a Chinese citizen or not, the government could always find the person and imprison him or her. Michael Gui, a Swedish writer, was abducted in Thailand and then imprisoned in China for two years, because of writing about sensitive issues in China. To be able to communicate with each other, people come up with all different symbols and certain words that mean something different. If you are not one of the insiders, you cannot understand what they are talking about. However, besides bots to crack down the account which has obvious sensitive words in it, there also are undercover police to research the real meaning of the symbols and take those people out.
“ I’m going to torment you until you go insane. You’re going to be a cripple. – Prison guard allegedly to jailed human rights lawyer Xie Yang
Essay / 14
To be able to communicate with each other, people come up with all different symbols and certain words that mean something different. If you are not one of the insiders, you cannot understand what they are talking about. However, besides bots to crack down the account which has obvious sensitive words in it, there also are undercover police to research the real meaning of the symbols and take those people out.
Image Source: © Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh is one of the “encoded language“ that Chinese people use to talk online. It means the President Xi. After Xi met Obama, the meme of Pooh with Tiger went viral. Soon, the government took action. They banned the figure - Winner the Pooh online.
Freedom of Speech is a serious issue that has been going on for years. The situation did not improve greatly over the years. After Xi Jingping became the president, China became less free than ever. It is very important that we help the person who is trying to speak up, and help them get out of the legal consequences. Since it is written in the constitution that Chinese citizens have the freedom of speech. NGO organizations which provide legal help could be possibly helpful in this situation. In this way less people will be afraid to speak up about issues, and this could be the changing point of Freedom of Speech issue in China.
Reference Buckley, C. (2008, April 2). China jails rights activist outspoken on Tibet. Retrieved March 10, 2020, from China jails rights activist outspoken on Tibet Ruth, K. (2020). China’s Global Threat to Human Rights. Retrieved March 10, 2020, from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/china-global-threat-to-human-rights Guozhen, X. (2015, July 31). China vs. Its Human Rights Lawyers. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/opinion/chinas-vs-its-human-rights-lawyers.html Yuan, L. (2020, February 7). Widespread Outcry in China Over Death of Coronavirus Doctor. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/opinion/chinas-vs-itshuman-rights-lawyers.html Emmons, S. (2001). Freedom of speech in China: a possibility or a prohibition. Loy. LA Int’l & Comp. L. Rev., 23, 249. Eliasoph, E. R. (1980). Free speech in China. Yale J. World Pub. Ord., 7, 287. Cheung, A. S. (2011). Exercising freedom of speech behind the great firewall: A study of judges’ and lawyers’ blogs in China. Harvard International Law Journal Online. Chen, K., & Zhang, X. (2011). Trial by media: overcorrection of the inadequacy of the right to free speech in contemporary China. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 25(1), 46-57. Hanley, P. (2018, August 29). China’s War on Lawyers. Retrieved from https://intpolicydigest. org/2018/08/16/china-s-war-on-lawyers/
Essay / 16
Examples and Research / 18
Examples and Research For this section, I chose two different articles. The first one is about an international student who studied in United States. The articles talked about his experience when he outspoken about issues about China while he was still in United States. The second article is more formal, it talked about the situation among party members and elites from different areas.
Free Speech for Whom? Elizabeth Redden
News that a University of Minnesota student was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in China for tweets he posted while studying at Minnesota renewed concerns about whether Chinese students studying in the U.S... enjoy the same freedom as their non-Chinese classmates and signaled a seeming escalation of pressures on Chinese students’ and scholars’ speech. “This case is extremely disturbing,” said Kevin Carrico, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Monash University in Australia. “It demonstrates all too clearly that the [People’s Republic of China] government is not only monitoring students’ speech abroad, but also actively investigating and prosecuting students for exercising free speech. The Chinese state is basically telling citizens who live abroad, ‘We own you.’” Axios reported on the arrest of the student, 20-year-old Luo Daiqing, upon his return to his hometown in China last July. Axios cited a Chinese court document that accused Luo of having “used his Twitter account to post more than 40 comments denigrating a national leader’s image and indecent pictures” in the fall of 2018, “while he was studying at the University of Minnesota.” The tweets featured cartoon images of Winnie the Pooh -- a character censored in China since Web users began posting satirical images likening the bear to President Xi Jinping -- as well as images of a cartoon villain that bears a resemblance to Xi.
Luo was sentenced in November to six months’ imprisonment for “provocation,” with credit toward that six months for the time already spent in detention. Luo did not return a message from Inside Higher Ed sent to an email address under his name found in the University of Minnesota’s directory. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on Friday that it received an email from Luo’s university email address confirming the prison sentence and saying he has been released and is staying in the Chinese city of Wuhan. U.S. lawmakers have grown increasingly concerned about Chinese government efforts to exert influence over U.S. campus life or export state censorship. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, was among the lawmakers who weighed in on Luo’s arrest: “#China has sentenced a student to 6 months in prison for tweets he wrote while he was in the U.S. as a student,” Rubio said on Twitter. “Let that sink in …” Faculty have raised concerns in the past about Chinese students’ seeming reluctance to speak openly in the classroom about issues that might be considered sensitive in China. A 2018 report on Chinese interference and influence in American higher education from the Wilson Center described several cases in which faculty “said they believe many of their students from the PRC do not enjoy academic freedom in the classroom because they are afraid someone will report them to the authorities if they are seen to engage in sensitive academic activities.”
Examples and Research / 20
A report on academic freedom and China from the academic freedom protection group Scholars at Risk released last fall raised similar concerns about efforts by Chinese authorities to punish speech they find displeasing, both within and outside China’s borders. SAR previously reported on a postdoctoral researcher at a Finnish university, Zhan Wang, who was detained last fall upon his entry to China on a personal visit, allegedly for his online expression.
Source: The principal issue driving detentions of political prisoners in China. Data used in graph from the Political Prisoner Database of the United States’ Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
“China has significant ambitions when it comes to higher education, and those ambitions necessitate international exchange, so China is seeking ways to maintain control of information in a global context,” said Clare Robinson, SAR’s director of advocacy. “We’ve been seeing surveillance efforts like student informants and threats to families still in China as a means of punishing those who speak critically, whether it be in an academic context or not.”
Robinson said that in the case of Luo’s tweets she doesn’t think the content of the speech -- whether it was in an academic or extramural context -- is what is most important. “I think what’s important is that other scholars and students in and from China will take note of this detention and they’ll think twice maybe before tweeting, but also before publishing a paper, before raising their hands in class, before singing up a class in Politics in East Asia,” she said. “It will impact academic expression or inquiry that could be potentially displeasing to the [Chinese Communist] Party.”
Source: Weiboscope, Journalism and Media Studies Center, University of Hong Kong
Examples and Research / 22
The campus free speech group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education also raised concerns about Luo’s reported imprisonment and the damaging effect it could have on academic environments. “FIRE is deeply concerned by Luo’s imprisonment for political comments he posted on Twitter while studying here in the United States,” said Sarah McLaughlin, the director of targeted advocacy at FIRE. “Academic communities flourish when all students, including international students, may speak freely without the threat of surveillance or punishment. No matter where they call home, students should not be forced to choose between peacefully expressing their beliefs and staying out of jail.” Kris Olds, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on the globalization of higher education, said on Twitter that the case raises a number of questions for international universities hosting Chinese students. Among them: “How much do the hard working staff in our International Student Services (& equivalent) units understand about the rise of global reach & ‘network sovereignty’ agendas associated with countries like China and Saudi Arabia?” he asked. “What obligations do our senior leaders … and those overseeing int’l student services have to working with int’l students from countries like China to understand and strategize about this phenomenon[?]”
Examples and Research / 24
“How can universities better understand when their int’l students are arrested in their countries of citizenship (for dubious reasons like this case)? Should they share accurate information about the arrests quickly & broadly? If so, who decides when & how[?]” Olds asked. “What obligations do our universities have to provide our arrested students & their families, in cases like this, with resources for legal support & broader political support in relevant contexts here & around the world? … What is the role of formal and informal associations of universities in responding to this phenomenon, recognizing that many universities do not have the scale of legal and area studies resources that the University of Minnesota does[?]” Finally, he wrote, “Many int’l students have faced political challenges when ‘returning home’ -- this is not a completely new phenomenon. But digital platforms & associated surveillance agendas associated w ‘network sovereignty’ are new(ish). Do we have the capacity & expertise to act wisely[?]” Carrico, the Monash senior lecturer, said he thinks Minnesota “needs to make a statement condemning this travesty of justice. And universities need to stand their ground and clarify that any intimidation of anyone for discussing China-related issues openly, honestly, even critically will not be accepted.
A University of Minnesota spokesman, Jake Ricker, confirmed that a student by the name Luo Daiqing was enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts in 2018-19. Ricker said the university only learned of the situation last week after being contacted by media. “This has been a difficult situation to monitor due to the lack of available, timely or complete information, but we were pleased to hear reports that the individual has been released from prison and returned home,” Ricker said.
Resource: Elizabeth Redden, Jan 31, 2020. Inside Higher Ed
Hu Shigen: Hu previously served a 16-year prison term for circulating information about state violence during the Tiananmen Square massacre. In 2016, he was sentenced to another seven and a half years for “subversion of state power,” possibly connected to his role as an underground church elder. Dhondup Wangchen: A Tibetan filmmaker, Dhondup Wangchen served a six-year prison sentence between 2008 and 2014 as a result of his documentary film Leaving Fear Behind. He remained under heavy surveillance until he fled to the United States in late 2017.
Lü Gengsong: A writer and democracy advocate, Lu was sentenced in 2016 to a prison term of 11 years for “subverting state power.” The prosecution cited 11 articles he wrote for foreign publications that were critical of official corruption and abuse in China. Lü had previously served a four-year term on similar charges. Michael Gui: A Chinese-born Swedish book publisher and writer. He is a author of many books related Chinese politics and Chinese political figures. Gui went missing in Thailand in late 2015, later he appeared to be imprisoned in China
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Freedom of Expression in China: A Privilege, Not a Right CECC
Chinese authorities, recognizing in recent years that limited freedom of expression enables the government to better monitor potentially problematic social issues (referred to as “舆论监督”) have begun to tolerate criticism, but only from certain categories of people, a kind of “free-speech elite,” and only then in government-controlled forums.
Limited Freedom of Expression for China’s “Free Speech Elite” Despite barriers to access to the means of publication and the dangers inherent in publishing political news and information, members of China’s “free-speech elite” are able to express concerns and criticism regarding the government with less fear of punishment than the average Chinese citizen. This group is composed of senior government and Communist Party leaders, those with the patronage of such leaders and, to a lesser extent, academics and journalism professionals.
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Ideological Elite The only people in China who can publish criticisms of, or opinions contrary to those of, the Communist Party, are senior members of the Communist Party. One example of this group is Li Rui, a retired senior Communist Party official and former aide to Mao Zedong, who earlier this year published a letter in the Beijing magazine “China Chronicle” calling for greater democracy in China’s government:
“
The key is reforming an age and speeding up the develo the country can truly embar characterized by democracy with democratization can th a global tide from the 20th c War, onward, and those wh resist it will perish. The Con People’s Congress is the hig relationship between the Pa the NPC should not be led a
ed political system that is obsolete, opment of democratic politics so rk on a course of peace and stability y, science, and rule of law. . . . Only here be modernization. This has been century, especially the Second World ho join it will prosper while those who nstitution stipulates that the National ghest power in the country, and the arty and the NPC should be suspended, and directed in the name of the Party.
Examples and Research / 30
This text is from a speech Mr. Li gave at the Sixteenth Party Congress last November. It was subsequently published in the China Chronicle in January. Communist Party authorities would generally not tolerate the use of such blunt language and veiled threats, but Mr. Li seems to have escaped punishment. Contrast this result with Mr. Li’s fate when he criticized Communist Party policies: in 1959 he was “sent down” for reeducation through labor, and he spent eight years in prison during the Cultural Revolution.
Intellectual and Professional Elite Academics and editors of China’s state-controlled publications are afforded somewhat less leeway than Party officials, but still more than the average person. This group is allowed to publicly question government policies (in newspaper interviews, on the Internet, etc.), and even to criticize them in private, government sponsored forums (in professional journals with limited distribution, academic and professional conferences, etc.). The operative principle with respect to this group could be expressed as follows: the degree to which the government is willing to tolerate criticism of its leaders and policies is contingent upon the size and nature of the audience and the ideological credentials of the speaker. For example, Chinese and Western academics convened a conference on the death penalty in January 2003, and some months later, a spirited debate ensued in the Chinese media. Centered on the review and approval process for death penalty cases, the debate in the press featured analytical articles by legal experts from Chinese universities (for a summary of this discussion see the Congressional-Executive Commission on China Topic Paper: “The Execution of Lobsang Dondrub and the Case Against Tenzin Deleg The Law, the Courts, and the Debate on Legality”).
However, the Chinese government tolerates such debates only as long as they occur in private discussions, closed academic conferences, governmentauthorized publishing outlets, or other forums where the government does not feel there is any threat of public participation that it cannot control. For example, unlike the death penalty conference discussed above, the Internet Society of China’s Annual Conference held in November 2002, in Shanghai and attended by Commission staff, was open to the press and the public. During the conference there was no discussion, much less debate, of freedom of expression as it relates to the Internet. One session was billed as having an “open forum,” where audience members could question leaders of China’s Internet industry. However, the open forum consisted of the moderator calling on a reporter from China’s state owned media, who asked the panel: “When do you think the Spring of China’s Internet will begin?” After several panel members responded, the moderator immediately declared the open forum over, even though 20 minutes remained before the session was scheduled to end. Similarly, Chinese authorities silence debates if they begin to take on a life of their own, and refuse to recognize the right of the average Chinese citizens to publish their opinions on political issues in forums that are free from government censorship. So while the Chinese government encourages the state controlled media to engage in targeted reporting on corruption, it will not tolerate similar criticisms from private individuals.
Examples and Research / 32
Linguistic Elite Closely related to the intellectual elite are the “linguistic elite.” This group includes those who publish in, and those who can read, a language other than Chinese, for example: the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and CNN and their readers. Because these sites for these media groups are only accessible to Internet users, and then only to those few Internet users with excellent English skills, they are allowed past China’s national firewall, except at politically sensitive times. Chinese authorities are willing to tolerate a certain degree of criticism of their leaders and policies from these sources because the size the audience (and therefore the ability of the publication to influence public a opinion) is relatively insignificant. Contrast these publications with the BBC’s website. Testing performed by Commission staff indicates that readers in China can access all of the different language versions of the BBC’s website, except the Chinese version, which is blocked.
Financial Elite While China’s Constitution maintains that “the People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants,” and Communist Party dogma claims that people in Western democracies do not enjoy freedom of the press because only capitalists who own the press can enjoy the freedom, the fact remains that China is one of the few countries in the world that has laws that actually require people to be wealthy before they can publish a newspaper or magazine.
The worst thing about censorship is he suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considExamples and Research / 34
Article 11 of China’s Publishing Regulations specifically requires that anyone wishing to publish a newspaper or magazine must have registered capital of at least RMB 300,000 (about US$ 35,000), a prohibitive amount of money in any country, but especially in China where the workers make less than US$100 a month. No Freedom of Political Expression for Ordinary Citizens So what of China’s billion-plus citizens who are not members of the free-speech elite? Although an average citizen could privately express sentiments similar to those published by Li Rui, if an average person had written and privately published what Li Rui wrote, or presented such sentiments in a speech to a large political gathering as he did, there is little doubt that Chinese authorities would prosecute them for subversion.
For the average Chinese citizen freedom of publication is actually nothing more than the freedom to submit. In meetings with Commission staff Chinese officials have stated that anyone wanting to publish their opinions may submit their article or book to a governmentlicensed publisher, but if they are unable to find a licensed publisher, then the only way they can legally exercise their constitutional right to freedom of publication is to “enjoy their works themselves, or give copies to friends and family.” Certain groups and individuals who are unable to obtain government authorization to publish do manage to put out books and periodicals on a small scale, but this is possible only through subterfuge and violating Chinese law (for example, by stamping publications as “not for external distribution,” or by purchasing book numbers that licensed publishers illegally offer for sale). These private publishers are therefore subject to the threat of closure and arrest each time they exercise their right to freedom of expression.
Resource: Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2020
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Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. – United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Inside Cover: “Police attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects.” A trilingual (Tibetan – Chinese – English) sign above the entrance to a small café in Nyalam Town, Tibet, 1993. Photo: John Hill.
Typeset in Garamont Regular and bold, Universe 45 light, 55 Roman, 65 bold. Printed at SAIC
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