By: Hibberd Kline
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – On Monday, an intermediate level people’s court in Guiyang, the capital of China’s southwestern Guizhou province, sentenced 57 year-old activist Chen Xi to ten years in prison for “subversion of state power” and “inciting subversion of state power.”

The court also announced that Chen will be “deprived of his political rights” for three years.

According to a statement by Amnesty International, neither “subversion” or “incit[ing] others to subvert state power,” which are common charges leveled against activists in China, is adequately defined by Chinese law  or related regulatory interpretations.

Chen Xi is a former soldier and factory worker, who was previously jailed for three years in 1989 for his support of the student protests in Tiananmen Square. Chen served an additional ten year jail term from 1995-2006 for “organizing and leading a counter-revolutionary group.” Chen is also a prominent member of Guizhou Human Rights Forum, which was outlawed inside China on December 5.

Chen’s conviction follows his arrest on November 29 in what activists claim to be a response to his authoring 36 online articles critical of the state and Communist party. The articles were published both domestically and abroad and called for political reform and improvement of human rights inside China. Chen has also recently incurred the ire of officials by campaigning for the election of independent candidates to the local people’s congress.

Chen Xi’s sentence is one in a series of lengthy prison terms recently handed down to human rights activists by Chinese authorities. Many analysts believe that the arrests, speedy trials, and imprisonments have been deliberately timed to coincide with an annual window of low-key diplomatic activity in the West during the Christmas holiday in order to minimize criticism.

The trial reportedly lasted only a few hours and was punctuated by frequent interruptions of the defense counsel by the judge, whom Chen’s wife, Zhang Qunxuan, claims ignored every point made in Chen’s defense. Though Chen was able to express his contention that he was innocent of all charges, he was prevented from reading out his final statement to the court. According to Zhang, the judge pointed out that Chen was a “repeat offender” deserving of a long prison sentence and said that Chen’s crime was “major” and “had a malign impact.”

Chen Xi’s family was informed of his trial on Saturday. However, according to Zhang the authorities refused to inform her what her husband had been charged with, citing rules against sharing information with family members. Additionally, the family was instructed that only three family members would be allowed to attend the court’s proceedings.

Many activists have suggested that the speed and consistency of the results of the Christmas trials prove that the trials were merely for show and that the verdicts were predetermined.

During the past year, Chinese authorities have clamped down on free expression and have arrested more than 130 activists and human rights lawyers. The government’s crackdown has come largely as a response to the popular pro-democracy protests that broke out across the Middle East. Authorities fear that the “Arab Spring” may spark copycat uprisings, which could undermine governmental authority in China.

Last winter, calls for a “Jasmine revolution” in China did circulate on the internet. However, the online pleas drew little visible support inside China and did not succeed in bringing about any large-scale protests.

Nonetheless, the Chinese Government has continued to tighten its control over free-expression, especially on the internet. The state has strengthened its nationwide firewall to further reduce the number of potentially “subversive” websites available for domestic consumption and has installed new monitoring equipment at many internet cafes.

Additionally, Chinese authorities have tightened restrictions on popular social networking service Twitter, which has been used around the world to advocate and coordinate protests against national governments. Though the use of Twitter in China is officially prohibited, many Chinese have found ways to access Twitter by circumventing the firewall through the use of private networks or other means. Accordingly,  many large cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have recently passed laws requiring domestic Twitter users to register for the service using their real names. However, enforcement of the new laws may prove difficult.

The United States has been joined by the EU and several human rights organizations in repeatedly criticizing China’s decreasing tolerance for dissent. On Monday, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay criticized the Chinese judiciary following the sentencing on Friday of human rights activist Chen Wei to nine years in prison.

Like Chen Xi, Chen Wei was also charged with “subversion” after engaging in political speech critical of the Chinese government on the internet. Pillay called Wei’s sentence “extremely harsh” and indicative of a “further tightening of the severe restrictions on the scope of freedom of expression in China that has been seen over the last two years.” Pillay called upon China to release “any person detained for exercising his or her right to freedom of expression.”

During his trial, Chen Wei asserted that he had merely exercised his right to free expression, which is protected by China’s constitution. Both Chen Xi and Chen Wei claim that the one-sided nature of China’s legal system make appealing their verdicts futile.

Though the two activists are not as well-known as recent Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiabo, who was sentenced to eleven years in prison in 2009, both activists have held prominent positions in human rights movements inside China. Additionally, both Chen Xi and Chen Wei joined Liu Xiabo and thousands of other activists in China in signing the so-called “Charter 08,” which called for political reform.

For more information, please see:

Aljazeera — China Jails Veteran Activist for Ten Years? — 27 December 2011

BBC News — China Imprisons Veteran Activist Chen Xi — 26 December 2011

The Guardian — China Jails Dissident Chen Xi for Ten Years — 26 December 2011

The Telegraph — China Continues Christmas Crackdown on Activists as Chen Xi Given Ten Years in Prison —  26 December 2011

Amnesty International — China: Harsh Sentence for Activist Chen Wei Condemned — 23 December 2011

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China- Chinese officials have announced that rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for almost two years, will be forced to serve three years in prison for allegedly violating the terms of his probation.

Gao was arrested and sentenced to probation in 2006 for defending practitioners of Falun Gong which is a banned religion in China. After being sentenced Gao disappeared three times and, in the period between his disappearances, informed reporters that he had been tortured.

He reported that he had been beaten with electric batons and handguns. He also reported that he had been forced to sit still for sixteen hours with a hood over his head while being told to forget that he was human and threatened with death.

Human rights activists have been angered by the announcement of the revocation and have used it to illustrate the abuse faced by dissidents in China.

They emphasize that although missing for twenty months, the Chinese government had maintained that Gao Zhisheng was free on probation since 2006. Some believe that the recent revocation indicates that the lawyer has secretly been in state custody despite claims by authorities that they were unaware of his location.

Renee Xia, a director of Human Rights Directors, asserts that the courts revocation “…is the clearest acknowledgement to date by the Chinese government that it has secretly detained Gao for the last twenty months despite its repeated denials.”

Chinese authorities have not identified what probation violations were committed by Gao but it is known that his five year probation would have expired earlier this week prompting some to believe that the government re-imprisoned him solely to prevent him from being freed.

Gao Zhisheng’s brother, Gao Zhiyi reported that he has not seen his brother since April 2010 and fears that he may be dead.

This fear has been substantiated by Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, who stated that “[t]he people who saw him more than twenty months ago described him as a ghost. We have absolutely no details about his condition now.”

Chinese authorities have been pressured by Western nations and the United Nations to release Gao but have refused to do so.

In response to international concern, the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated that other nations do not have the right to interfere in China’s internal affairs.

For more information, please see:

China Daily – China Opposes Interference in Legal Case – 23 December 2011

The New York Times – China Revokes Probation of Missing Human Rights Lawyer – 16 December 2011

The Washington Post – China Jails Lawyer Gao Zhisheng  for Three More Years, Confirming Status After Long Disappearance – 16 December 2011

by Hibberd Kline
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PYONGYANG, North Korea – One week after Kim Jong-il’s death, the 69 year-old, ruthless dictator continues to hold the spotlight of world attention hostage from beyond the grave.

Speculation in the media and among foreign policy analysts as to the potential impact of Kim Jong-il’s death on North Korea’s future has run the gamut from detente to crackdown to collapse and back again. However, as the world struggles to discern a murky future it must not forget or ignore either the brutality of Kim’s reign or the continuing, horrific, human suffering in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Like his father before him, Kim Jong-il used the coercive power of the state to reach into and attempt to control nearly every aspect of the daily lives of Koreans living in the North. Any perceived threat to the dominance of the personality cult of the “dear leader” over the hearts and minds of the North Korean people was filtered out of public consumption and dealt with mercilessly. Under Kim’s direction, the DPRK’s political machine is widely reported to have worked vigilantly to stomp out its citizens civil liberties including; privacy, and freedom of expression, religion, association and the press.

One of the regime’s methods for achieving its aims has been to effect a practically universal stranglehold on the flow of information within the country. According to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the DPRK boasts no independent media and all radios and televisions in the country are “pre-tuned to government stations.” Furthermore, people living in the North are forbidden to listen to, watch or read foreign media and all foreign broadcasts are jammed by the government. Violators of the government’s media policies are punished swiftly and severely.

Although the DPRK’s constitution provides for the free exercise of religion, the CIA believes that the reality in the North falls far short of the idealistic text. North Korea’s media continuously showered praise on the “dear leader,” and the population was required to demonstrate unwavering and absolute devotion. State sponsored religious groups do exist, ostensibly to provide an illusion of choice to the outside world. However, autonomous religious activity has all but disappeared entirely from the isolated state.

In order to maintain its grip on society, the DPRK’s government continues to punish political dissent harshly. Once accused of disloyalty, political dissenters and other “enemies of the state” are denied access to an impartial and independent judiciary and receive no due process in sentencing or punishment. Furthermore, public and secret executions, forced labor, intimidation, imprisonment and torture are reportedly widely utilized to impose the government’s will on the populace.

Additionally, a recent report by Amnesty International estimated the number of political prisoners currently languishing in the country’s remote gulags to be upwards of 200,000. Tens of thousands are estimated to have died from exhaustion, starvation, exposure, sickness or execution in the camps under Kim Jong-il. Yet, the North’s stranglehold on information and its treatment of political prisoners, though horrendous and inexcusable, are unlikely chief among the many pressing woes that most of the DPRK’s population continue to face on a daily basis.

At the close of 2011, the DPRK’s population is once again believed to be facing widespread famine. PBS Newshour reports that flooding and a severe winter have decimated the North’s food production. As a result, DPRK has set food rations for its non-military, non-political elite, civilian population at “200 grams or less per person per day.” According to the World Health Organization, the minimum daily energy requirement is around 600 grams of food per person per day. An estimated 60% of North Korea’s population depends on government rations for survival.

The volatility of the DPRK’s food security has been further aggravated by the large number of persons thought to be internally displaced (IDPs) as a result of flooding and famine. However, the exact extent of the impact of IDPs on North Korea’s food security is unknown, because an accurate number of IDPs in the isolated country is difficult to determine. As the situation appears to be worsening, international aid organizations fear that children, pregnant women and the elderly will face a significant risk of starvation throughout the winter.

However, food scarcity is nothing new to Koreans living in the DPRK. Kim Jong-il’s 17-year rule was marked by food shortages and malnutrition punctuated by periods of widespread starvation. In 1992, he launched his so-called “Military First” policy, which stressed intensive military spending above feeding DPRK’s population.

In times of economic hardship or agricultural failure this policy called for the military and state officials to be provided for first and often resulted in slashed food imports and severe hardship for much of the civilian population. Furthermore, the DPRK has repeatedly been accused of stockpiling international food aid for use by its military.

In addition to failing to provide food security to its people, the government under Kim Jong-il allowed human traffickers to operate with virtual impunity. Women continue to be systematically sold to buyers in China as wives, sex slaves or laborers. Furthermore, inside the country, the DPRK’s government effectively treats many of its citizens as slaves by mandating their type of employment.

In light of the ignominious human rights record of Kim Jong-il’s government, Kim’s death has sparked a series of serenades by international humanitarian organizations echoing previous calls from around the world for North Korea to commence immediate and drastic reforms. A plea from Human Rights Watch quoted  the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea’s depiction of DPRK human rights abuses as “harrowing and horrific,” “egregious and endemic,” “systematic and pervasive” and “in a category of its own.”

Unfortunately, the prevailing view among analysts seems to be that the DPRK’s leadership will likely not be receptive to outside calls for quick and thorough reform. Indeed, many have pointed to Kim’s ruthless purge of potential enemies throughout the North’s society upon taking power in the 90’s and suggest that the military has already begun to initiate similar activities on behalf of the “dear leader’s” son Kim Jong-un.

While the future of the North Korean Government’s stance on human rights remains ambiguous at best, it may still be premature to predict whether or not Kim Jong-il’s death will have a significant impact on the suffering of the North Korean people. However, even if Pyongyang were to completely reverse its stance on human rights, salving the brutality of Kim Jong-il’s legacy would require substantial assistance from the international community for years to come.

Sources cited by Amnesty International report that the people of North Korea are eating grass and bark as they struggle to survive. Meanwhile, a cruel dictator lies bedecked in flowers.

For more information, please see:

CBC News — 7 Questions about North Korea’s Future — 20 December 2011

Amnesty International — North Korea: Kim Jong-il’s Death Could Be Opportunity for Human Rights — 19 December 2011

Huffington Post — Kim Jong Il’s Death Elicits Plea for End to Human Rights Abuses in North Korea — 19 December 2011

Human Rights Watch — North Korea: Kim Jong-Il’s Legacy of Mass Atrocity — 19 December 2011

PBS Newshour — Aid Groups: Children in North Korea at Risk for Starvation This Winter — 08 December 2011

Amnesty International — North Korean Prison Camps Grow Larger — 11 May 2011

Amnesty International — Images Reveal Scale of North Korean Political Prisoner Camps — 3 May 2011

Human Rights Watch — World Report 2011: North Korea — 24 January 2011

UN News Center — Human Rights Situation in DPR Korea Is Bleak, Independent UN Expert Says — 15 March 2010