HRIC: Activist Zhao Changqing Subject to Abuse by Prison Officials, Inmates

March 1, 2006

Prison officials subjected activist Zhao Changqing to repeated beatings and long periods of solitary confinement at Weinan Prison in Shaanxi province, according to a February 8 Human Rights in China (HRIC) press release. HRIC reported that, most recently, authorities held Zhao in solitary confinement for 40 days for refusing to sing "Socialism is Good" and other songs praising the Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system during a flag-raising ceremony at the prison. HRIC said that in another incident, prison inmates reportedly beat Zhao after he conversed with another prisoner who is a Falun Gong practitioner. Zhao's sister described her brother’s condition to Radio Free Asia in a report (in Chinese) published February 9:

Prison officials subjected activist Zhao Changqing to repeated beatings and long periods of solitary confinement at Weinan Prison in Shaanxi province, according to a February 8 Human Rights in China (HRIC) press release. HRIC reported that, most recently, authorities held Zhao in solitary confinement for 40 days for refusing to sing "Socialism is Good" and other songs praising the Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system during a flag-raising ceremony at the prison. HRIC said that in another incident, prison inmates reportedly beat Zhao after he conversed with another prisoner who is a Falun Gong practitioner. Zhao's sister described her brother’s condition to Radio Free Asia in a report (in Chinese) published February 9:

He said that if society is like this, what good is it? He could handle solitary confinement, and even if he wants to do that they should fear for him, because he would rather be confined than sing the song. He doesn't have enough to eat shut up inside there, getting only two or three steamed buns and a bowl of gruel a day. . . . His hair has turned white and is falling out.

Authorities detained Zhao Changqing on November 28, 2002, after he co-authored an open letter to the 16th Party Congress with Ouyang Yi, requesting, among other things, an official reassessment of the 1989 pro-democracy movement. They formally arrested him on December 27, indicted him in June 2003, tried him on July 10, and sentenced him to five years imprisonment for "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105(2) of China's Criminal Law, on August 4, 2003. Ouyang Yi was released from prison on December 4, 2004, following completion of the two-year sentence he received for inciting subversion of state power. Almost 200 people signed the letter, including Dai Xuezhong, Han Lifa, He Depu, Sang Jiancheng, He Guanchang, and Jiang Lijun, who were also subsequently detained and, in some cases, imprisoned.

The Chinese government previously arrested Zhao in June 1989 and detained him for four months at Qincheng Prison in Beijing for organizing a Students' Autonomous Committee at Shaanxi Normal University during the Tiananmen democracy movement. According to HRIC, in 1997, Zhao ran for election as a local people's congress representative for Shaanxi's Nanzheng County, but after he accused the local government of violating election laws, he was arrested on charges of endangering state security and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in March 2001.