Criminal Justice

Former Xinhua journalist Gao Qinrong was released from a prison in Shanxi province on December 7 after serving 8 years of a 12-year sentence, according to a December 11 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report. According to a December 14 Southern Weekend (SW) report (in Chinese), Gao was released from the Jinzhong Prison in Shanxi province. In August 1999, the intermediate people's court in Yuncheng District, Shanxi, handed down a combined 13-year sentence in Gao's case, including 5 years for accepting bribes, 3 years for fraud, and 5 years for soliciting prostitutes, but ruled that Gao should actually serve 12 years, according to a January 11, 2001, SW report (in Chinese, via People's Daily).

The Chinese government has granted sentence reductions to six political prisoners, and released three others on parole, according to a report in the Fall 2006 issue of Dialogue, a newsletter published by The Dui Hua Foundation, and a September 26 Dui Hua press release. Authorities subsequently granted an additional reduction to one of the six prisoners and released him, according to a December 11 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report.

Local authorities have announced plans to take Shanghai lawyer and property rights advocate Zheng Enchong into temporary custody upon his scheduled release from prison, according to a June 1 Human Rights in China (HRIC) report. Zheng is serving a three-year prison sentence for "illegally providing state secrets to entities outside of China" and is due for release on June 5, 2006, according to court documents from the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court and Shanghai High People's Court. The trial court judgment subjects Zheng to an additional punishment of deprivation of political rights for one year following his release. Under Article 54(2) of the Criminal Law, these political rights include "the rights of freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."

The Yinan County People's Court in Linyi city, Shandong province, conducted a retrial of the Chen Guangcheng case on November 27, and on December 1 imposed the same guilty verdict and sentence that they had reached in his original trial, according to a December 1 Xinhua report (via the China Internet Information Center) and various international NGO and news media reports. The court found Chen guilty of "intentional destruction of property" (a crime under Article 275 of the Criminal Law) and "gathering people to disturb traffic order" (a crime under Article 291 of the Criminal Law), and sentenced him to four years and three months in prison.

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.

Public security officials in Zhenjiang city, Jiangsu province, have arrested freelance writer Yang Tongyan (also known as Yang Tianshui) on suspicion of "subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105(1) of the Criminal Law, according to a January 30 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) press release citing unnamed sources. Public security officials in Nanjing city, Jiangsu province, detained Yang on December 23. On January 28 the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) reported that Yang's family received a notice of the arrest on January 27.

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.