Internet Essayist Wang Dejia Detained for Inciting Subversion

May 5, 2008

Police in Guilin city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, detained Internet essayist Wang Dejia (whose pen name is Jing Chu) on December 13, 2007, alleging that Wang "incited subversion of state power," according to a December 14 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. The Associated Press reported on December 19 (reprinted in CNN) that Wang was detained at his home in Quanzhou County in Guilin, and that officers had confiscated Wang's "computer, memory cards, books and banking documents."

Police in Guilin city, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, detained Internet essayist Wang Dejia (whose pen name is Jing Chu) on December 13, 2007, alleging that Wang "incited subversion of state power," according to a December 14 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. The Associated Press reported on December 19 (reprinted in CNN) that Wang was detained at his home in Quanzhou County in Guilin, and that officers had confiscated Wang's "computer, memory cards, books and banking documents." According to Wang's wife, as reported by RFA, police told her that they had been monitoring Wang's online activities for three or four years.

Wang has written and posted numerous articles on the Internet criticizing the Chinese government and Communist Party. In his essays and reports, many of which have appeared on overseas Web sites such as Fire of Liberty and the U.S.-based Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum) that are intended to promote democracy and freedom of expression and feature pieces often critical of China's policies, Wang has delved into topics Chinese authorities consider politically sensitive, including Taiwan, China's state secrets laws, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests. Wang has also been critical of China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics. In a July 2007 interview with The Epoch Times, Wang criticized the Communist Party's Olympics preparations for focusing on China's image abroad, while leaving China's citizens worse off. A December 18 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report noted that in October, Wang met with U.S. Embassy officials to discuss China's "human rights situation." According to the RSF report, Wang's family believes his detention is related to this meeting and his online articles.

The underlying basis for the charge in Wang's case is unclear, but public officials in China have frequently used the charge of "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105 of China's Criminal Law, to punish Chinese citizens (recent cases include Zhang Jianhong, Chen Shuqing, and Yan Zhengxue) who peacefully criticize the government and Party in essays posted on foreign Web sites. International human rights standards for freedom of expression, set forth in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guarantee the right of Chinese citizens to peacefully criticize their government and the Party through any media and regardless of frontiers. Article 35 of China's Constitution guarantees Chinese citizens freedom of speech and Article 41 gives citizens the right to criticize their government.

In addition, while it is unclear whether Wang's detention is related to his criticism of China's Olympics preparations, Chinese public officials have used Article 105 to detain other citizens who criticized China in the context of the Olympics. As noted in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's (CECC) 2007 Annual Report, in August 2007, public security officials in Heilongjiang province arrested Yang Chunlin and charged him with inciting subversion after he organized the mass signing of an open letter titled "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics" to protest the loss of land by farmers. Two weeks after Wang's detention, Beijing police detained on suspicion of inciting subversion noted activist Hu Jia, who had made comments critical of China's hosting of the Olympics before a European Parliament subcommittee hearing. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson has denied the charge that China is cracking down on critics in the run up to the Olympics. At a January 8, 2008, press conference (Chinese, English), spokesperson Jiang Yu accused "some organizations and individuals" of using the Olympics as an opportunity to "vilify China." "China is a country under the rule of law and its government protects the freedom of speech and other fundamental rights of the Chinese citizens. Everyone stands equal under the law and no one has any privilege beyond it. Punishment will only be imposed when one breaks the law," Jiang said. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) has noted, however, that China's national security laws are vaguely worded and do not contain adequate checks to prevent them from being used to punish peaceful activity. In a report on its 2004 mission to China (available on the UNWGAD's Country Visits Web page), the UNWGAD expressed concern that China's Criminal Law had not adopted a definition of the term "endangering national security" (the category of crimes which includes Article 105) and that "no legislative measures have been taken to make a clear-cut exemption from criminal responsibility of those who peacefully exercise their rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

For additional information about Wang, Zhang, Chen, Yan, and Yang, see their records of detention, searchable through the CECC's Political Prisoner Database, as well as "Internet Censorship" in Section II - Freedom of Expression, of the CECC's 2007 Annual Report.