Access to Justice
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court acquitted Zhao of disclosing state secrets on August 25, but sentenced him to three years' imprisonment on an unrelated fraud charge. Sources have said the "state secret" was information that former President and Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin had offered to resign as Chairman of the Central Military Commission. His resignation was later reported in the official press.
Wang Zhenchuan, Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), acknowledged at a November 18 seminar in Sanya city, Hainan province, that almost all wrongful convictions in China involve police abuses during the investigation stage, according to a Legal Daily report (in Chinese) on the next day. Wang called on local procuratorates to strengthen their supervision over criminal investigations, and to bring into line police who extract confessions through torture or who illegally gather evidence. In addition, he urged procuratorates to deal strictly with cases involving the use of torture to extract a confession, the use of force to gather evidence, or an illegal search, among other criminal offenses.
The Beijing High People's Court (HPC) rejected Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong's appeal and upheld a lower court's guilty verdict for espionage on November 24, according to a Xinhua report (via the China Daily) published the same day. The report cited a Beijing HPC judge as saying that, in affirming Ching's conviction and sentence of five years' imprisonment and one year's deprivation of political rights for passing state secrets and military intelligence to Taiwan's Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies, the Beijing No.
The nine defendants, who included the owner of the company that purchased the former Church property from the local government and eight of his employees, testified before a Xi'an court on October 17 that they saw the nuns being beaten but did not take part in the beating. Fourteen of the nuns also testified before the court. The judge suggested that the parties negotiate an out-of-court settlement, and negotiations ensued. On October 27, the nuns agreed to accept a payment of 260,000 yuan (US$ 31,000) in compensation for their medical expenses; this is in addition to 90,000 yuan paid to the nuns in 2005. A criminal case against the defendants appears to be pending; the Xi'an court refused the defendants’ request to dismiss criminal charges against them, according to the UCAN account. As of November 7, the nine defendants remained in detention.
The Beijing Municipality Local People's Congress (LPC) on August 9 released draft regulations that would give public security officials the power to hospitalize mentally ill persons only if they pose a threat to public safety, life or property. The Draft Regulations on Mental Health also prohibit discrimination against mental health patients and their family members, and call for protections for mental health patients in the workplace. Officials have discussed the regulations as part of a legislative program to be passed in connection with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, according to a September 15 Beijing Morning News report. The central government continues to consider the 17th draft of a national mental health law that was first introduced in 1985.
Chinese authorities formally arrested writer Zhang Jianhong (whose pen name is Li Hong) and Internet essayist and China Democracy Party (CDP) member Chen Shuqing, and charged each with "inciting subversion of state power," according to notices delivered on October 12 and October 17, respectively. The arrests came after both posted articles on the Internet expressing support for Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Li Jianqiang, a lawyer and a member of the Independent Chinese Pen Center (ICPC) who has represented other writers and activists, including Yang Tianshui and Guo Qizhen, is serving as defense lawyer for both men.
The Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) reported (in Chinese) on December 25 that public security officials in Nanjing city, Jiangsu province, took freelance writer Yang Tongyan into custody on December 23. Yang is an ICPC member who is also known as Yang Tianshui. According to the ICPC, Yang served a 10-year prison sentence from 1990 through 2000 after being convicted of "counterrevolution." Yang was one of at least nine prominent intellectuals and activists whom Chinese authorities either detained or imprisoned in November and December 2004. Authorities detained Yang on December 24, 2004, in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, but released him on bail on January 24, 2005.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court sentenced journalist Ching Cheong to five years' imprisonment and one year's deprivation of political rights on August 31 for spying for Taiwan, according to an August 31 Xinhua report (via the China Daily). The report cited a "document released by the court" as saying Ching "supplied information involving state secrets and intelligence he received from contacts in Beijing" to two people from a Taiwan foundation via fax and e-mail from May 2004 to April 2005. Ching was tried on August 15 behind closed doors in proceedings that lasted only a few hours.
The Intermediate People's Court in Cangzhou city, Hebei province, sentenced Internet essayist Guo Qizhen on October 9 to four years' imprisonment and three years' deprivation of political rights for "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law, according to the court judgment (in Chinese, reprinted by Boxun).
The intermediate people's court in Linyi city, Shandong province, has vacated the trial court judgment and ordered a new trial in the criminal case of Chen Guangcheng, according to reports (in English and Chinese) by Radio Free Asia (RFA) on October 31. Chen Guangcheng is a self-trained legal advocate who drew international news media attention in 2005 to population planning abuses in Linyi. Li Jinsong, who previously led Chen's criminal defense team, will continue to represent Chen and will soon travel to Linyi for a meeting with his client, according to RFA's Chinese-language report.