On
the eve of the 12th anniversary of the 1989 Movement for Democracy
and June 4 Crackdown, let us review the course of struggle of the people of
China in fighting for democracy and better livelihood, and unveil the crimes of
the regime’s
repression of militants for democracy and human rights.
The
human rights situation in China has been deteriorating in spite of the fact
that the Chinese government is signatory to the International Covenant of
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The charges of “subversion of
the regime”
or “leakage
of state secrets”
have been used in the arrest of dissidents. The following are some instances.
1. Repression
of the right of publication. According to the statistics of the International
Association for the Defense of Journalists, just last year alone, as many as 22
journalists were detained in China, the highest number in all countries of the
world. Director of a web site Huang Qi was arrested for publishing news about
the movement for democracy last year before June 4, and was tortured in jail.
He was formally prosecuted in February this year. Yang Zili, computer engineer
graduated from Beijing University, was arrested by the State Security Bureau
for posting essays for liberalism on a website.
2. Stepped
up repression of organizations such as Falungong and Zhonggong, and arrests of
Falungong practitioners who demonstrated on the Tiananmen Square. Many were
sentenced to several years of imprisonment.
3. Continued
repression of the freedom of association and formation of parties. Over 30
members of the Chinese Democratic Party have been jailed. Shan Chengfeng, wife
of Wu Yilong, one of the founders of the Chinese Democratic Party, petitioned
the Olympics Association jointly with 28 people requesting the Olympics
Association to urge the Chinese government to release detained members of the
Chinese Democratic Party. She was herself arrested at the end of last year, and
sentenced to two years of “education through labour”
in February this year. Chen Zhong and Xiao Shichang, both members of this
party, were sentenced to 7 and 5.5 years of imprisonment by the Wuhan Municipal
Court on the charge of “subversion”
on 7 July 2000.
4. Continued
deprivation of the freedom of speech. Jiang Qisheng, leader of the students’
delegation requesting dialogue with the government in 1989, was again arrested
for writing to ask for rehabilitation of June 4, and sentenced to 4 years
imprisonment. A lawyer in Henan Province, Shen Hongqi, sent two essays in
favour of democracy, and was sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment.
5. Tightening
of academic freedom and freedom of research. A number of academics have been
arrested, such as some from Hong Kong and abroad: Xu Zerong, Tan Guangguang,
Gao Zhan, Li Shaomin, Wu Jianmin. Despite international pressure, they have not
been released or put on trial. According to the China Human Rights Information
Centre, from July last year to the present, 24 scholars or intellectuals have
been arrested by the State Security Bureau. In Beijing, three fresh graduates,
Geng Haike, Xu Wei and Zhang Honghai, were recently arrested for setting up an
academic organization The New Youth Study Club.
The
fear and sense of insecurity demonstrated by the regime may be reflected and
evidenced by the following general social phenomena.
Firstly,
social order is worsening and social polarization is aggravating. According to
the New China News Agency on April 5, criminal cases under police investigation
in 2000 was 50% increase over 1999. Experts are saying that China is faced with
the fourth crest of crimes since the first one erupted in 1983.
Secondly,
the capitalist economic reform is causing more workers to be laid off.
According to the Director of the Economic and Trade Commission, Li Rongyong, in
a press conference during the National People’s Congress in March
this year, altogether 21 million workers of state enterprises had been laid off
in the past three years, and 7 million of them have not yet found another job.
Zhang Zuoji, Head of the Department of Labour and Social Security, said that in
the next 5 years, an estimated 52 million population will be looking for
employment, and 10 million will not be able to find a job. The registered
unemployment rate for cities and towns will rise from 3.1% last year to 5%, and
there will still be 40 million rural population transferring to work in rural
industries or the cities and towns.
However,
these official figures do not reflect the actual situation. According to the
Nanfang Weekend magazine of Jan 18, Ma Ke’s essay quoted experts
from the State Council’s Development Research Centre as estimating
that the real unemployment rate in 1997 was 9.36%, and in 2000, it should be
over 10%.
A
research on the basic condition of workers conducted by members of the
Communist Party School of Nanchang showed that for the per capita monthly
income of laid off worker families, 79.2% of the families had less than 300
yuan (US$1=8 yuan), and 36.7% had less than 150 yuan. A considerable number in
this social category have fallen to absolute poverty. According to a survey by
the State Statistics Bureau, of poor families, those with their household heads
working in state enterprises amounted to 53.9%, pensioners amounted to 16.7%,
and those who worked in collective units amounted to 16.5%. With the
inadequacies of the social security system, many of them suffer seriously from
poverty.
Thus,
worker strikes and protests have been very frequent. Some of the known ones
are: on 27 Nov 2000, 12,000 workers of the Youli Electric Factory (with
Japanese investment) went on strike, protesting that they were compelled to
work 12 hours every day and the hourly wages were less than 2 yuan. Workers had
requested to form a union before the strike, and after the strike, there were
some improvements in the working conditions. On Nov 28, over 1,000 workers from
Anhui lay down on the railway to protest against unpaid wages and layoffs,
paralyzing rail traffic between Beijing and Shanghai for 8 hours. They were
removed from the railway track by the police. On Dec 21, several thousand miners
and family from three mines closed by the Xingzi Mining Bureau rioted.
According to the Chinese Labour Bureau, there were 120,000 cases of labour
disputes in 2000, 14 times over 8 years ago. On Feb 2, 2001, a worker activist
Li Wangyang went on hunger strike in a hospital in Hunan province. On March 6,
over 1,000 workers in Shanghai took to the street against layoffs. On March 26,
1,500 workers from Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, blocked major roads in the
city, while 500 workers from a chemical fertilizer factory in Henan Province
demonstrated outside the Xinye County government house, both protesting against
unpaid wages for a year. On April 23, several dozens of workers from Jilin
Province and Liaoning Province went as a group to Beijing to stage a sit-in
strike. On March 13, 5,000 taxi drivers from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province,
besieged the provincial government office. 7,000 drivers had earlier on started
a slow-down drive. Wang Deming, a Political Consultative Committee member,
remarked that the number of worker and peasant strikes at the level of
municipality or above has been increasing by 37% per annum.
Peasant
riots and protests are also frequent. On April 15 this year, over 1,000
villagers in Yujiang County, Jiangxi Province, staged a confrontation with the
military police. They had refused to submit tax for a few years. In the
confrontation, 2 peasants were shot dead, 18 were wounded.
With
social grievances growing and the government’s ability for control
reduced, the Chinese regime may end up taking the path of Eastern Europe and
the former USSR.
4 May 2001