China Democracy Party Member Tong Shidong Released

Chinese authorities released China Democracy Party member Tong Shidong at the expiration of his seven-year prison sentence on March 9, according to a March 10 South China Morning Post article.

On June 10, 1999, public security authorities in Changsha, Hunan province, detained Tong Shidong for "subversion of state power," according to Dui Hua, Human Rights in China, Human Rights Watch, and The Laogai Research Foundation. A professor of physics at Hunan University, Tong founded the Hunan University Preparatory Committee of the China Democracy Party (CDP) in late 1998, at the same time that Chinese authorities began a crackdown on the CDP. Authorities formally arrested Tong on July 17, 1999. The Changsha procuratorate accused Tong of organizing the CDP's Hunan Preparatory Committee and disseminating materials related to the organization. The Changsha Intermediate People's Court sentenced Tong on December 22, 1999, to 10 years imprisonment for "subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105 of China's Criminal Law. Chinese officials reduced Tong's sentence by 18 months in August 2002 and by an additional 21 months in December 2004.

Several leading Chinese activists founded the CDP in 1998 to promote multi-party politics, direct elections, and checks on government power. The CDP's founding declaration calls for an orderly and peaceful transformation of Chinese politics. Chinese authorities have used subversion charges to impose lengthy prison sentences on other activists associated with the CDP, including Xu Wenli and Xu Wanping.

Chinese authorities strictly control the development of independent social or political groups that might challenge Party rule. National Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations and Temporary Regulations on the Registration and Management of Non-Governmental, Non-Commercial Enterprises issued in 1998 require non-governmental organizations to have a Party or government sponsor to register. The government crackdown on the CDP followed efforts by CDP members to register as a social organization in the months before the 1998 regulations were issued, as noted in a 2000 Human Rights Watch report titled Nipped in the Bud, The Suppression of the China Democracy Party.