Volunteers at his well-known website 64Tianwang.com (English) have been actively posting all news coverage and details surrounding Huang’s case, but the campaign to have his charges dropped gained a lot more momentum when, following his formal arrest on Friday afternoon, three of China’s better-known social issue bloggers, all from Sichuan, Wang Yi, Ran Yunfei and Linghu Buchong*, joined up with two other intellectual-writers, Liao Yiwu and Li Yadong, to take the brave step of issuing a letter of protest. The letter has been posted not just on their own blogs, but also on the more mainstream My1510, IndyMediaCN, among many others.

A translation of the letter, the original of which has since been read and spread widely online, can be seen below. Of particular note, however, is the online support yet another highly-read blogger, Mo Zhixu, has been providing on his own and in his own way, centered around his blog at independent portal Bullog.cn.

In early June, he posted the content of Huang’s Chinese Wikipedia entry, which at the time had far more information than its English counterpart, in a post at Bullog which although has since been deleted, can still be found elsewhere.

In a June 15 post titled simply, ‘One less person on MSN’, Mo reposts a Chinese-language RFA news report with the details of Huang’s arrest and earthquake relief/writing activities in the few days prior. On June 17 he posted a picture of the official document first used to detain Huang nearly a week earlier on June 11, along with the legal definition of what constitutes “possession of a state secret” in China:

Then on Saturday, July 19, Mo returned to Huang’s case with a picture and transcription of the official notice of Huang’s formal arrest, addressed to Huang’s mother, a post which in just a few hours had received over 11,000 hits and many supportive and outraged comments:

Below is the text of Wang, Ran, Linghu, Liao and Li’s statement on Huang’s arrest:

To Chengdu City Police, government, NPC representatives and the general public

On July 19, 2008 while at a friend’s party, we learned that Mr. Huang Qi, who since June 10 has been criminally detained by Chengdu Police, as of this afternoon, was formally arrested for the crime of “illegal possession of state secrets”.

While we have never been acquainted with Huang Qi, we respect the “Tianwang” which he founded to devote himself to upholding the rights of citizens. We know that he has served jail time, that he was mistreated while in prison, and that he came out with pains in his chest and other lingering conditions. Out of respect for him, we maintain our firm support for his civil rights-upholding activities through “Tianwang”, particularly his efforts in helping Mother Tang, relative of a June 4 victim, fight for compensation from the government.
As several Sichuanese intellectuals who experienced the earthquake, we especially respect Mr. Huang Qi for his participation in the civil society relief effort work following the earthquake. We know that he did everything in his power to provide supplies and aid to the earthquake victims in the disaster area, and was in contact with the parents of children who perished in the earthquake.

But what we really don’t understand is what a common citizen’s participation in disaster relief and understanding of the true situation in the disaster zone have to do with “state secrets”. We have also, as common citizens, taken part in some of the disaster zone relief work. We’re no different from Mr. Huang Qi, or any of the thousands of civil volunteers who went to the disaster zone, and in being there came to learn some unofficial information, or news which differed from what was reported in the media. So is any information that a citizen receives via means other than the media then supposed to be a “national secret”? Or does the state now naturally have ownership over all societal information? So is any citizen fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to see or hear any information inconsistent with government talking points then in “illegal possession of state secrets”?

If that is the case, then that would suggest that every single earthquake victim who spoke with Huang Qi is also in illegal possession of state secrets. Put another way, at the same time they became earthquake victims, they also became “state secrets”, or began carrying some sort of state secret virus. The Chengdu and Sichuan police should go arrest every single earthquake victim who came in contact with Huang Qi, and not only just Huang Qi himself. Or at least, all earthquake victims should be put in isolation, to keep any of us from speaking to them, and coming across any state secrets.

Given the common sense of rule of law, we know that all so-called state secrets, first off, are not known to average citizens. Second, the state takes measures to keep them confidential. In other words, anything that can be seen on the street, is not a secret. If nudity were to be seen on the street, the problem would certainly not be the people who saw it, but the person who was seen. Which is to say, any common citizen not part of any state organ, unless he were to use illegal means to pry into or steal information given prior protection by any state organ, any information of which he is aware, could not possibly touch up on the crime of “illegal possession of state secrets”.

As such, we have no choice but to express our strong suspicion, opposition and protest to Chengu police’s arrest of Huang Qi under the false pretense of his participation in post-earthquake disaster relief. Although we have seen that the local government was not happy to see volunteer-based civil society relief rescue efforts, the Chengdu police’s arrest of Huang Qi is all the more shocking. We can only understand this as a sort of negation of municipal society, a cruel and arrogant provocation aimed at civil society, as well as a humiliation to this province which only just suffered an earthquake.

Based on experience and conscience, we do not believe this to be a just arrest. We do hope that Chengdu police will be able to respect the rule of law and respect civic rights, at the same time, respecting their own methods used in handling a case. We advocate for and support the media, internet and civil society to be able to freely report and comment upon this case. Even more, we encourage intellectuals, urban residents and media in Chengdu and elsewhere to stand up and question and criticize the Chengdu police for this, using the legitimate means of a citizen to help the government in respecting the laws it itself established.

We call upon the Chengdu police that they not use any torture tactics to extort a confession or any other such barbaric means which violate the rule of law. We call upon the Chengdu police to allow Mr. Huang Qi to meet with his attorney. We call upon the Chengdu police to refrain from using illegal methods to continue to harass and threaten Huang Qi’s volunteers at Tianwang.

We would hate to see this case become yet another dismal human rights record raising international attention in the midst of this Olympic year. We regret to suspect, however, that the Chengdu police are at present committed to doing as much. As intellectuals of China, we also hate to see China’s human rights situation always being criticized by people from other countries, which is why we can only be hard-headed about this, and begin first and foremost by criticizing our own government.

We hope the Chengdu police and Chengdu judicial departments take the initiative in their response to this case. May our criticism, protest and response to the government prove to be a blessing for Chengdu, and for China.

2008-7-19
July 19, 2008

Just a brief description of Huang’s website Tianwang: put online in 1998 as a platform for reuniting families with missing persons, a year later it had expanded its focus to larger social issues, exposing several corruption cases and one major medical scandal, during which time Huang Qi was beaten while his website garnered heavy praise in commercial and official Chinese (as well as foreign) media. Less than two years later, the website was shut down. Two weeks after that, Huang Qi had it up and running again, this time hosted overseas, only then to be blocked within China as it remains today. That same summer, Huang Qi was sentenced to five years in prison for subversion of state power. All this and more can be read on Tianwang here.

*Linghu Buchong has informed GVA that while he in fact did not sign his name to the letter, he was the first person to have posted it to Bullog.

In a PDF document dated simply July 2008 from the Shanghai Branch of China Netcom hosted on the Shanghai-based IDC GEIS technology website, we find the ‘IDC Entry and Exit Management Regulations for the Olympic Period Server Lockdown‘:

Dear Client, Hello!

Thank you for your support of the company. We are delighted to provide you with the most satisfying and speediest service.

To ensure China Netcom network stability and safe operation of existing IDC server farm equipment during the Olympic Period, the company’s Shanghai branch has drawn up management regulations for the Olympic Period Server Lockdown to be uniformly implemented beginning on the day of The Server Lockdown until further e-mail notice. Your company is is hereby informed of the IDC Management Regulations for the Olympic Period Server Lockdown, please comply.

1. Business Operations and Visitations

1.1 During the Server Lockdown Period, the IDC will stop all new business operations.
1.2 During the Server Lockdown Period, the IDC will stop all client visitation activities.

2. Regulations on Entry and Exit of IDC Client Equipment

2.1 If during the Server Lockdown Period there occurs system breakdown or hardware malfunction of client equipment, clients may carry out emergency replacement. Clients need to explain the nature of the breakdown and China Netcom Operation Maintenance will carry out sampling checks. Standard replacements will be of identical equipment or the equivalent quantity.
2.2 The processing of routine incoming or outgoing equipment transactions will cease for the Olympic Server Lockdown Period.
2.3 No pre-appointments need be made for emergency equipment replacement and can be handled same-day by fax.
2.4 Equipment replacement during the Olympic Period requires specially authorized personnel for on-site processing.

3. Maintenance Guidelines for Personnel

3.1 Clients are encouraged to make utmost use of remote operation for server maintenance.
3.2 All clients, aside from needing long-term authorization for the Olympic Period, also need to update their Olympic Period Specially Authorized Personnel List with Netcom, as Netcom will be making uniform display IDs. Specially authorized personnel must bring their own shenfenzheng and be wearing their display ID before they will be allowed to enter the IDC server maintenance room.
3.3 Maintenance details will need to be written down on-site and approved, explaining the reason for malfunction, the situation, and recovery plan.
3.4 Equipment manufacturers and other non-Olympic Period Authorized Personnel wishing to enter the server room need to follow company special approval procedures with the corresponding sales manager.
3.5 For the duration of the Olympic Server Lockdown Period, every client company is restricted to no more than three maintenance personnel in the server room at the same time.

For further assistance, please phone the China Netcom Key Client Service Hotline: (8621) 10069 or via e-mail: acceptsh@cnc.cn

Moving west, a similar notice dated July 14 has been put up on the Chongqing-based IDC CANIDC:

Notice Regarding Olympic Period IDC Server Room Lockdown

Dear All Users and Partners,

In accordance with the relevant National Olympic Safeguard requirements and instructions for telecommunication and internet companies, Chongqing Telecom (including Fuling Telecom) will from July 20, 2008 begin a complete server lockdown of all IDC server rooms, to conclude at further notice. For the duration of the server lockdown, all operational activities and all network-related operations (such as: network adjustment, machine replacement, IP switching, installation of new servers etc.) will cease, though mainframe breakdown repair procedures will not be affected.

Also: for the duration of the Olympics, all users and partners are asked to reinforce information safety management and prevent the appearance of any illegal or illicit information, with strict attention paid to Olympics information.

Thank you for your cooperation and support!

And back to GEIS in Shanghai, we find yet this other notice apparently straight out of Beijing, dated July 15:

Olympics Server Lockdown Notice for all Server Rooms

In accordance with the work arrangements set out for China Telecom, China Netcom and China Mobile in “Notice Regarding the Carrying Out of Beijing Games Server Lockdown Work”, in order to ensure smooth communications and network information security for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games, from the opening through to the closing of the Beijing Olympic Games, the clear-cut network lockdown management work to be carried out on information networks goes as follows:

1. Server lockdown period: For China Netcom and China Mobile, July 20-August 28, 2008. For China Telecom, August 1-25, 2008.

2. The above server lockdown plan is the server lockdown plan for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games.

3. For the duration of this server lockdown period, except for network-related malfunctions, no requests for equipment or personnel entry or exit will be accepted. If equipment damage occurs, this company will assist in arranging for a replacement.

4. All clients are asked to place high importance on Beijing Olympic Games information security safeguarding work, base work plans on the actual situation, and ensure the smooth completion of information security safeguarding work for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games.

You are hereby informed!

All users are asked to understand and be supportive for any inconvenience this brings!

While we can only wait and see just what “smooth communication” inconveniences are in store for the Olympic Games, tech blogger Ruan Yifeng today brings us this personal experience in his post, ‘One scene in the data center’:

This afternoon, I withstood the 35 degree heat and went to Shanghai Telecom’s server center to take out a server that I’ve had stored there for three (four?) years already, and I came across something I never imagined.

There, unexpectedly, at the gate, were police! Four in total, all in plainclothes, one of which was in the process of filling out a “notification to collect evidence” form. I snuck a peek,and the sending danwei was the Beijing Haidian Office Criminal Investigation Squad.

A bit later, I removed my server, and was prepared to leave. The police were watching me, and one of them said to another one, “that’s not ours.”

This incident scared me. Before this, I only knew that servers could be ordered to be unplugged by “the higher authority departments”, but I never thought I’d see with my own eyes a maching being taken away by police.

Yet, how on earth could a server be evidence for anything?

Afterwards, I was thinking it over, and for them to do this there can only be two possibilities: one is to prove that illegal material exists on the server, and the other is to prove that a certain person has visited this server. The way I see it, unless fraud is somehow involved, regardless of which of those possibilities it is, it couldn’t have been something illegal.

To run a website in China is truly sad; your server can be taken away at any time, and you go through every day never knowing what could happen next.

This comes at a time when even major commercial web 2.0 sites with tens of dollars of foreign venture capitalist funding can drop dead on the spot with no explanation.

The notice appears to have originated at the Beijing [zh] Communications Authority and was then spread by its local counterparts from Jiangsu to Zhejiang and, further south, Guangdong province:

Special rectification notice for the Olympic period

Dear customer:

We’ve just received notice from upper management that for the duration of The Olympic Period beginning June 20 and ending August 25, the appropriate departments will be carrying out strict investigations to check that websites are on record, that BBSes have been specially recorded, as well as checking for illegal information on websites. If your website meets any of the following criteria, please immediately carry out the appropriate operations, or else your website will be ordered by the upper administrative departments to be shut down:

1. Website is not on record: please immediately proceed to the Ministry of Information Industry website and submit your information to be recorded. Once recording has been successful, please open the Virtual Host Control Panel -> ICP Records and submit your registered record number there.

2. If your website has a BBS or blog, etc., which has obtained a Specially Recorded Forum license, please first close the the BBS or blog, etc., to prevent the forum resulting in the entire website being closed. For details on the procedure of having a forum specially recorded, please contact your local Communications Administration [zh] to enquire. Only local Communications Authorities are clear on how to handle the special recording of local BBSes. Your questions regarding the special recording of forums cannot be accurately handled here.

If there are dynamic information distribution components to your website, such as comment boards, reciprocal information distribution, categorized information distribution, news….etc., please be sure to active a pre-screening publishing mechanism so that all information is screened before it is released and all illegal information is subject to strict screening.

Speaking of regionalization, one tech BBS in northwestern China’s Xinjiang province has reworded the notice such that the website sounds desperate for users not to go beyond the above guidelines, and even defines “illegal information” as the words ‘handgun’, ‘air gun’, ‘dart gun’, ’shotgun’, ‘bomb’ and other weaponry/explosives-related vocab, stating that all such words will be filtered without exception.

On July 2, someone at the Feelings BBS and claiming to represent it added this at the end of the notice in an attempt to clarify the rules for users:

PS: For the duration of the Olympic Period, all major BBSes are already undergoing widespread rectification, and this forum will severely strike at any and all illegal speech and advertising behavior, and IPs will be locked down and reported if any illegal behavior is noticed!

You are not to discuss the current political system (including current military situations, the Ti*be* is*sue, the Tai*wan is*sue, domestic situations, etc.) and it is not allowed for there to appear in any posts any text or image jokes about national leaders! It is not allowed for baseless, unproven news to be reposted, and all that is posted must come from Xinhuanet and other mainstream websites! Are members are invited to self-screen before posting, thank you!

A post last month on the ChinaGFW blog shows that severe measures were also put in place from the end of May to the end of last month as the Olympic torch continued to hobble its way around the country.

As these things go, experiences appeared to conflict with each other, leaving many left to conclude that Facebook itself was screwing them around.

Except for the new redirect to zh-cn.facebook.com, the situation at present appears to be mostly as it was, wherein tech-unsavvy Facebook users are left unable to access certain parts of Facebook containing so-called sensitive keywords. Ad hoc tests carried out by five friends of Global Voices Advocacy based in different parts of mainland China today showed that some Facebook groups can still only be loaded partway before freezing in an apparent keyword filter. Of the following Facebook groups, the fifth in order was consistently difficult (including with tests I ran myself) to access and appeared to result in a temporarily reset connection to facebook.com:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7765017060
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2257397452
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5187862317
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2248992944
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20894947280
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2222354198
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2561706410
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2229467649
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2213066526

If facebook.com really does end up getting blocked and users inside mainland China are forced instead to use zh-cn.facebook.com to set up groups like ‘Redress the Tiananmen Massacre’ or communicate with foreign media workers, will FB follow in the footsteps of its predecessors and filter or hand user-to-user messages over to Chinese police when asked? Or, with its robust user-created networks, will Facebook create an entirely new business model for penetration of the Chinese SNS market?

Zeng appears to continue to have some sort of internet access, but judging from a letter posted to her blog yesterday, this move by authorities comes as a sharp reversal to a prior slight relaxation of the conditions of her ongoing house arrest:

Dear Mr. Policemen,

The dozen or so of you are stationed in the courtyard. Your bikes parked, you wait for orders, through the blowing wind that chills you in winter, the bugs that bite you during the hot summer, and not a day off in the meantime. Aside from stopping people from visiting me, you even often block me from going out, or trail me when I go shopping, or take my baby to the hospital for shots, and it can be quite trying.

My husband Hu Jia is now being held in Chaobai prison, and his freedom of movement and various other rights have been completely restricted. And I, left to raise our half-a-year-old daughter on my own, am barely left with enough time to look after myself; eating and sleeping regularly aren’t even guaranteed now. Recently, my child has been becoming a little naughty, and I can’t keep on my own, so I’ve hired an older woman to come in for a few hours each day to help out. You didn’t just completely investigate her background and that of her family, you even keep blocking her from entering my home, going as far as to threatening to see that she loses the job. The first thing you did after I hired her was run to her home to check her out, making her neighbors believe she’d been stealing or something, creating for her a lot of psychological stress. Even to this day, you treat just as horribly, putting pressure on her. But in bullying women and children around, you’re also an embarrassment to police.

I take my child around the neighborhood for a walk, and you tail us closely, even sending female undercover police to monitor us. Smoking, playing cards and making noise, constantly keeping your car engines running, all the neighbors complain. Even when neighbors just bring their children to my home to play with mine, you follow and harass them, too.

Since the beginning of the Chinese new year, there’s been the snowstorm, the earthquake, rainstorms, one after the other, and all walks of society have joined together to work towards the relief efforts and reconstruction, volunteering manpower and goods. Instead of doing things every day to disturb us here in Bobo Freedom City, why don’t you hurry to the front line of the disaster zone, and do some police work that’s not so shameful for a change. Go home and see your wives and mothers, something to feel proud for.

Until this, things were tough enough for me as they were, and each day that went by was just one less thing to worry about. And now, you’re relentless. Today I went down into the courtyard to see the nanny off, and yet again I was blocked. Both tired and angry, I yelled at you, called you shameless for big men to be pushing women around. I thought about this when I got home, and I really regret that. One, because I shouldn’t get angry in front of my kid; and two, one should be reasonable whenever it’s possible to do so, and even when it’s not. I shouldn’t be calling people names.

Now, I’m writing this letter to seriously make my demands:

1. Stop harassing my neighbors and hired help;

2. Stop tailing and harassing me and my kid, let my kid live a normal person’s life;

3. Stop blocking my friends and family from coming to visit.

Building a rule of law society requires everyone to make some effort. Even if ruling of law proves dysfunctional, it still needs to be humane, humanistic, respecting the most basic human rights.

Under house arrest in Beijing’s BOBO Freedom City,

Zeng Jinyan
May 30, 2008

Following his arrest last week, political blogger Guo Quan was released on May 28 and was quick to keep writing. In part 224 of his Democracy Sounding essays, published yesterday, he shares the story and lyrics to two songs written by his street musician friend Huang Wei, himself detained briefly in the coastal city of Wenzhou for raising a sign with the words ‘Human Rights’ on it as the Olympic torch passed through his hometown.

All that remains now of Uighur Online, courtesy of archive.org

As is the norm in China, no reason is given for website closures, just an order. All that can now be found at the site or its sister site Uighur Biz are instructions on how to donate to Chinese Red Cross, and this message:

Friends of all ethnic groups,

Hello everyone! It is with extremely heavy hearts that we hereby notify you that due to those reasons that everyone knows, Uighur Online has been closed.

Thank you everyone for your constant support, care and help for Uighur Online, and even more thanks to the members of the management team, the BBS webmasters, the editors, columnists, experts and the academics who have put so much into Uighur Online. In the two short years that Uighur Online has been around and with the efforts of a multi-ethnic management team, the site receives on average around one million pageviews per day, with tens of thousands of registered users. With all the people we’ve come to know and friends we’ve made from many different ethnic groups, our understanding of each other has both broadened and deepened. Uighur Online provided grassroots communication channels between different ethnic groups, allowing for conversations and discussions which, we firmly believe, were quite meaningful.

E-mail contacts for written contributions to the site: uighurtor@126.com uighuronline@gmail.com

Uighur Online
May 15, 2008

The well-known Uighur Biz blogger on Sina.com adds that the “Harmonization Department” which “cares for” these things was responsible for the closure; one reader there speculates on the reasons for Uighur Online’s closure writes:

The government’s closing of Uighur Online as a way to restrict speech is extremely unwise, because regardless of how much noise was being made on Uighur Online, they are after all still representative, and [the site] advocated for openness, for discussion, for communication, and for learning from Uyghurs in the West (Kazakhs…). Uighur Online’s closure stands to be a major watershed; the shutting down of channels that stood for communication and discussion just means that all the more people now will choose to cut themselves off, refuse to communicate, or even choose underground activities. People inland have lost the window which led straight to understanding what Uyghur people are thinking, and now will have no choice but to turn to research papers from those academics in the ivory towers to better understand the public sentiment there.

From Baidu to Bullog to small local BBS forums, the response has been strong, but it too is being silenced. On May 19 this post already had six pages of comments; on May 20 it is somehow now down to just four pages.

What surprises many Uighur Online users is that the website was even properly licensed, the excuse most often used by authorities to shut blogs and BBS websites down. Indeed, the ‘Crowd of Spectators Out of Control’ blogger, who writes about Xinjiang culture, mentions in a post late last month a conversation s/he had with the Uighur Online webmasters, retelling the absurdities the staff there went through recently in trying to report one UO user for inflaming racial hatred within the forums, and being kicked around like a football from police department to police department in Beijing and then back to the local internet supervision office, with none of them willing to address the situation.

Not to be mistaken as a sign of authorities’ unwillingness to punish people for alleged hate speech. Uighur Online’s attraction was in that it tolerated occasionally offensive and hateful opinions as valid parts of discussion; its closure, aside from being illegal, now only demonstrates the short-sightedness of those responsible. As with any influential blog or BBS forum in China, Uighur Online’s administrators were already in theory forced to censor any language which might alarm authorities. Now, all talks are off.

Well-known novelist Yao Xinyong, who writes on ethnic themes, in an essay published last fall, reprinted now on Gsoms Dong’s Sohu blog, described Uighur Online as such:

The people who participate in this BBS and post messages are Uyghurs, Hans, Zangs, Kazakhs, Huis, Chaoxians and others, who come from all corners of the country; the wide variety of topics touched upon there include culture, politics, traditional customs, the economy, literature, anything you’d hope to find; its focus is primarily on Xinjiang, but it also looks to China and the world. In articles and speech, people are candid, free-speaking, even intense, but still relatively sensible, with everyone promoting understanding, earnestly seeking unity between different ethnic groups, and so the website has an exceptionally good vibe to it. This is directly related to the views held by its owners: “we can denounce the government for its faults, criticize the state for its abuses, and expose ethnic groups’ weak points, but in the things you publish here, please respect both your own ethnic group and the motherland, this is the most essential.” Such are the guidelines they have adopted: on one hand amply respecting online freedom of speech, and on the other, continuously deleting senseless threads which damage ethnic unity as well as locking down accounts which repeatedly post these kinds of words.

Please tell me: is this a just verdict?

Zeng Jinyan, 4 April 2008

In a hearing on 3 April 2008, the court convicted Hu Jia (胡佳) and sentenced him to three years and six months imprisonment and subsequent deprivation of his political rights [1] for one year. They also confiscated his laptop computer, his wireless internet access card, his WiFi router, ZTE ADSL modem, an internet access card, one sheet of A4 printer paper with Cai Chu’s (蔡楚) e-mail address written on it, and his PHS limited-range mobile phone.

After the verdict was announced, I had to struggle with the state security squad police just for the right to walk by myself. They dropped me off at the Babaoshan subway station exit. A group of friends, some of whom I recognised, came running up to meet me. Many of them asked me: ‘Is this a just verdict?’

Now let me ask you: if someone in your family got sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment and one year of deprivation of their political rights for writing five articles and giving two interviews, having already been subjected to long term house arrest – would you think that just?

And let me ask President Hu Jintao and our various leaders responsible for the administration of justice: given that the Constitution accords priority to the protection of freedom of speech, does a verdict of three and a half years of imprisonment and one year of deprivation of one’s political rights for writing five articles and giving two interviews manifest the ‘spirit of the rule of law’? Does it exhibit the justice of our judicial system?

The ‘witnesses’ and ‘evidence’ relied on by the court and the ‘crime’ it found Hu Jia guilty of

I have read the decision carefully several times. (It contains a number of typographical errors.) [2] The court held that ‘the accused Hu Jia engaged in fabrication and slander and the incitement of others to overturn our country’s ruling power and socialist system, by means of articles published on the internet and interviews given to overseas media, with the aim of overturning the ruling power of our country’s people’s democratic dictatorship. His acts constitute the crime of incitement to subversion of state power, and merit punishment according to law.’ These are the essays on account of which Hu Jia was charged with this crime:

1. Catch the train of democracy: Wake up, East Asia’s sleeping lion. [3] This was originally a private letter Hu Jia wrote in 2001 to a friend. It is not known who added the title. The court did not actually rely on this article to convict Hu Jia. For when the police questioned the letter’s addressee Wang Lixiong (王力雄) and Hu Jia about it, neither of them could remember anything clearly, due to lapse of time.

2. The five other articles, which the court relied on for its conviction, were: Revered old Mr Lin Mu passed away at about 2 pm today [4], Guo Feixiong and Jiang Wei and the ‘Shenyang political earthquake [5], One Country Does Not Need Two Systems [6], The Political and Legal Authorities is creating a general atmosphere of terror in the run-up to the Seventeenth Communist Party Congress [7], and A series of rights violations against citizens before the National Holiday and the Seventeenth Communist Party Congress. [8]

3. The two interviews the court relied on for its conviction were entitled Hu Jia comments on the process of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s abduction [9] and Mounting a peaceful challenge to dictatorship. [10] It was said that these interviews given by Hu Jia were produced in the form of audio recordings, and that their content had been edited and the titles added by the interviewer.

Freedom of speech is protected by our Constitution as well as by international law. Hu Jia’s words did no harm to society. Instead they helped to alleviate the contradictions between some groups in society and the government. For instance, some petitioners once said that if it had not been for Hu Jia’s help in passing on reports about the wrongs they had suffered, they could only have taken resort to suicide, or even to blowing themselves up together with others. [11] And anyway, at the very least, citizens have a right to criticize the methods of government officials who violate citizens’ rights. ‘I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.’ (Voltaire). Locking someone up under house arrest just because you don’t like their acrid criticism, and then sending them to prison – who would have thought that it takes a court of law to do that kind of job? Those essays of Hu Jia’s can all be found on the internet. To readers, I suggest that you have a look at them for yourselves.

The court relied on the following witness statements. [12]

1. Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕): testified that Hu Jia was using his own white computer to go online.

2. Teng Biao (腾彪): testified that he knew Hu Jia, and that he knew that Hu Hia published essays online.

3. Qi Zhiyong (齐志勇): testified that he knew Hu Jia and that he knew that Hu Jia published essays online, that those essays were sent to the email address of Cai Chu, the Boxun editor, and that the voice on the tape the police gave him was Hu Jia’s.

4. Ye Minghua (叶明华): testified that Hu Jia had once rung him up to ask about the detention of his father Ye Guoqiang (叶国强) by the police, and that Hu had rung him a second time to tell him that he had posted an essay concerning the detention of Ye Guoqiang online on the Boxun website.

Let me just remind everyone at this point that while Hu Jia was in pre-trial detention, I was being kept under illegal house arrest and all my contact with the outside world was cut off. The plainclothes police agents at one point illegally moved into my home. They said to me, ‘If you don’t co-operate, we can detain you too.’ The police came to me several times to take my statements, occasions on which they elaborated, ‘if you don’t co-operate we can take you away too; then as a special kindness on our part you may have the child once every three hours to feed it.’ At last, on 12 February, I agreed to have my statement taken by them. The content of my statement is as described above: After Hu Jia was put into detention, Teng Biao was several times threatened with accusations of ‘the crime of inciting state subversion’ and requested to collaborate; his passport was confiscated, plainclothes police abducted and illegally detained him for two days, and he was subjected to frequent house arrests. Qi Zhiyong was forced to leave Beijing by the plainclothes police and had to stay out of town for over one month, after which time he was subjected to further house arrest. Ye Minghua’s father and cousin were formally detained on suspicion of ‘inciting state subversion’ and are currently at home awaiting trial having been released on bail. His uncle, Ye Guozhu (叶国柱), remains in prison, where he is serving his sentence.

How can it be inferred from these so called ‘witness statements’ that Hu Jia committed any crime? And from a procedural perspective, I would like to ask everyone in the world – but particularly the legal professionals: is it right to use the statements obtained from witnesses who were subjected to abductions, house arrests, and hostage-takings? Is that in accordance with the claim, made by Chinese government officials, that Hu Jia’s case would be handled according to the principle that ‘all are equal before the law’?

Now let us look at the other pieces of evidence used by the court:

1. The Internet Surveillance Centre of the Beijing Public Security Bureau’s Internet Security Supervision Squad [13] provided information, for each of the essays, about the domain names and websites they had been published on and then reposted to, as well as details of the servers used, the number of times they had been viewed, and the number of comments that had been posted on each of them;

2. The Beijing Internet Business Association’s Centre for the Use of Electronic Data as Expert Evidence in Court [14] provided ‘Expert evidence letter no. 1/2008’, testifying that pictures that had been obtained from Hu Jia’s computer were identical with those posted on the internet;

3. Public Security organs provided the essays downloaded from the internet, signed by Hu Jia;

4. Public Security organs provided the number of Hu Jia’s PHS mobile phone number phone 86000663;

5. Chinese Internet Providers (Group) Inc. [15] testified that the user of the PHS mobile phone was Hu Jia;

6. Public Security organs provided Hu Jia’s ID and records of his criminal detention.

I would like to ask everyone, what do these pieces of evidence prove? Do they prove that Hu Jia subverted this country’s state power?

Hu Jia’s and his family’s view on the matter

Lastly, let’s take a look at how the court sums up the statement Hu Jia made during his trial on 18 March 2008: ‘At trial, the defendant Hu Jia acknowledged the facts alleged by the prosecution.’ The announcement of the verdict on 3 April 2008 took about 20 minutes altogether and apart from answering the judge to say that he was ‘Hu Jia’, and nodding once in the direction of his lawyers, Hu Jia did not speak another word or make any other sign on this occasion. He did not even seem to notice his relatives. Apart from his mother and myself there were several housewives, students, and strange men - one of whom I saw falling asleep - in the audience. After the verdict had been announced I saw that Hu Jia, looking apathetic, turned around as though he wanted to leave. I called out to him, ‘Hu Jia!’ At that time he was only about one metre away from me, but he did not hear me. Then he was led away by the police.

Hu Jia acknowledged that he had written those essays. But that does not mean, of course, that he had committed a crime. True, Hu Jia wrote and published essays for the whole world to read. In doing so, he was only exercising his constitutional right to free speech. The law also gives citizens the right to remain silent during a criminal investigation. [16] But Hu Jia is a human being, not a God whom guns and knives cannot penetrate. During the first month of his detention he was interrogated almost every evening over periods of 6-14 hours. During the day he still had to participate in the activities of the police detention centre, such as for instance each morning’s ‘sitting on a bench’ session, where from 6 am to 12 pm one has to sit motionless on a bench. According to what the state security squad police told me, the so-called interrogations for the most part consisted of ‘doing persuasion and education work’ on Hu Jia, ‘to get him to repent and change his mind so that he could be returned to society sooner.’ Should we call that indoctrination or brainwashing? [17] He could not see any relatives or friends who could give him help and support, and he had barely any opportunities to get fresh air. How could he have been able to show any resistance under such conditions of extreme fatigue and perhaps grave danger to his health? Sleep deprivation and deprivation of opportunities to go out for fresh air all violate Chinese police detention centre regulations.

When the announcement of the verdict was over, the judge asked us, the family members, if we had any questions. So I told in detail how Hu Jia has been subjected to illegal house arrest and inhumane treatment, and asked the judge whether these factors had been taken into account. The judge gave an explanation to the effect that it was his professional responsibility to make a decision based on what the prosecution and defence had said, and that what I had mentioned was outside the scope of his professional responsibility.

I insisted on leaving the court by myself but the state security squad police would not allow it. Their attitude was very bad and one of them was really uncivilized, but on the whole they still exercised some self-restraint. I said to them, ‘the court is supposed to be a place that protects human dignity and citizens’ rights. Are you going to unlawfully restrict my rights even here?’ The employees of the court also kept persuading me that I should sit in a police car. I said very sadly to the court employees, ‘our lot will not improve while China has no genuine rule of law.’ Immediately one of the state security squad police officers cut in, saying sharply ‘and that is why you want to subvert state power…’ I retorted, ‘you said that. All I want is genuine rule of law!’

Hu Jia agreed that the lawyers should make a not guilty plea. But he also hoped that the procedure would be over quickly, and above all he did not want anyone else to become implicated in his case. (I think perhaps he was thinking of Lawyer Teng Biao there, because they had jointly published an essay and Teng had already been questioned several times.) He said to Lawyer Li that he did not want even a minute’s delay; he wanted to get home and hold his baby. He did not disclose any further details about what had happened to him in the police detention centre. He did not say anything, so we don’t know. But there are some things I dare not talk about because I fear that it might lead to further retaliation. They have so many ways of inflicting pain on him without beating him. And that may damage his health even more. As his wife, I hope that he will consider his health and take care of himself.

I am terrified. When they said to me, ‘if you don’t co-operate, we can detain you too’ and ‘if you don’t co-operate we can take you away too; then as a special kindness on our part you may have the child once every three hours to feed it,’ I asked myself over and over what I should do. In 1993 when Beijing lost to Sydney its bid to host the Olympics, Hu Jia cried. He was so happy that the Chinese people were finally able to host the Olympics, but he wasn’t hoping for an Olympic Games that would tread on people’s human rights; he was not hoping for an Olympic Games held at the cost of the pain and suffering of weak and powerless ordinary people. He was hoping for an Olympic Games that would really make the Chinese people proud, and that was why he criticized official corruption and called for improvements of the human rights situation, again and again. Now this had landed him in prison. I feel great pain and hopelessness. But no matter what, I will do my best to protect my family, and do all I can to allow Hu Jia to come back home as soon as possible.

Who will be able to meet with President Hu Jintao? If you meet the President, please ask him on my behalf what he thinks: was Hu Jia’s verdict just?

Appendix: Xinhua News Agency article, English and Chinese versions.

新华社对胡佳案宣判的中英文报道：

新华社：胡佳被判处有期徒刑3年6个月新华社北京４月３日电记者从北京市第一中级人民法院获悉，北京市第一中级人民法院３日对胡嘉煽动颠覆国家政权案宣告一审判决，认定胡嘉犯煽动颠覆国家政权罪，判处有期徒刑３年６个月，剥夺政治权利１年。法院经审理查明：被告人胡嘉于２００６年８月至２００７年１０月间，先后以在境外互联网站发表文章、接受境外媒体电话采访的方式，多次煽动他人颠覆中国国家政权和社会主义制度。在其发表的《中共十七大之前中国政法系统大范围制造恐怖气氛》、《一国无需两制》等文章和接受媒体采访时的谈话中，胡嘉进行恶意造谣、诽谤和煽动，妄图达到颠覆中国国家政权和社会主义制度的目的。胡嘉撰写的煽动性文章以及被制作成音频或整理成文字的采访录音，被境外多家网站链接和转载。北京市第一中级人民法院认定，被告人胡嘉诽谤、煽动颠覆国家政权和社会制度，其行为已构成煽动颠覆国家政权罪。鉴于胡嘉在法庭庭审中能够悔罪，表示愿意接受法律制裁，依法可对其酌予从轻处罚。遂依照《中华人民共和国刑法》第一百零五条第二款、第五十六条第一款和第五十五条第一款的规定，作出前述判决。本案审理期间，法庭充分保障了被告人胡嘉的诉讼权利。在庭审中，胡嘉除自己行使辩护权，其委托的辩护律师也发表了充分的辩护意见。庭审和宣判时，胡嘉的家属均到庭旁听。

胡嘉（曾用名胡佳），男，１９７３年出生，汉族，大学文化，无业。（完）

Hu Jia sentenced to 3.5 years in jail

Hu Jia was sentenced Thursday by the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court to three and half years imprisonment, with one year deprivation of political rights, for subverting the state. The verdict said Hu, a married father aged 34 and the holder of a college degree, libeled the Chinese political and social systems, and instigated subversion of the state, which is a crime under Chinese law. Considering Hu’s confession of crime and acceptance of punishment, the court decided the ruling with leniency and announced a less harsh prison sentence. The court heard that from August 2006 to October 2007, Hu published articles on overseas-run websites, made comments in interviews with foreign media, and repeatedly instigated other people to subvert the Chinese political and socialist systems. In his two website articles, ‘China Political Law-enforcement Organs Create Large-scale Horror ahead of CPC National Congress’, and ‘One Country Doesn’t Need Two Systems’, Hu spread malicious rumors, libel and instigation, in an attempt to subvert the state’s political and socialist systems, the court said in the verdict. The articles written by Hu and his interviews were widely relayed by overseas-run websites, the court said.

Link: http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2008/04/200804042040.shtml

Footnotes:

[1] Including the right to free speech under Chinese law. Article 54 (2) PRC Criminal Code.
[2] Examples of typographical errors are provided in the original.
[3] 赶上民主列车时 东亚睡狮猛醒日.
[4] 林牧老先生于今日下午14：00前后过世.
[5] 郭飞雄和江伟与〈沈阳政坛地震〉.
[6] 一国无需两制.
[7] 中共十七大之前 中国政法系统大范围制造恐怖气氛.
[8] 国庆及十七大来临 警方连续侵犯公民权利.
[9] 胡佳谈高智晟律师被绑架前后的情况.
[10] 向专制的体制发起和平的挑战.
[11] Directed against those who had wronged them.
[12] The statements were taken before the trial and none of the witnesses were allowed to attend the trial.
[13] 北京市公安局公共信息网络安全监察处监控中心.
[14] 北京市网络行业协会电子数据司法鉴定中心.
[15] 中国网通（集团）有限公司.
[16] The P.R.C. Criminal Procedure Code actually requires criminal suspects to answer truthfully when questioned about their case. Hu Jia’s lawyers argued that in this case, the truth could at any rate not support a guilty conviction. To quote: ‘Article 93 When interrogating a criminal suspect, the investigators shall first ask the criminal suspect whether or not he has committed any criminal act, and let him state the circumstances of his guilt or explain his innocence; then they may ask him questions. The criminal suspect shall answer the investigators’ questions truthfully, but he shall have the right to refuse to answer any questions that are irrelevant to the case/ 侦查人员在讯问犯罪嫌疑人的时候，应当首先讯问犯罪嫌疑人是否有犯罪行为，让他陈述有罪的情节或者无罪的辩解，然后向他提出问题。犯罪嫌疑人对侦查人员的提问，应当如实回答。但是对与本案无关的问题，有拒绝回答的权利.’
[17] [Note in the original:] The highly secretive persuasion and education session conducted with Hu Jia to make him ‘correct his thinking’ are by no means a new method. The scholar Zhu Hongzhao (朱鸿召) once mentioned to Wu Si (吴思) that in October 1942 a meeting of high cadres of the Northwestern Bureau had the purpose of making certain persons who did not share Mao Zedong’s viewpoint change their mind; the meeting lasted 88 days and it was not dissolved as long as they had not changed their view. (Wu Si, The hidden order – decoding history’s chess game [隐蔽的秩序-拆解历史弈局] at p. 181.

No kidding.

Enjoy your Olympics, Beijing, but spare us your whining. You did ask for it, after all.

Hu has ten days in which to file an appeal. For more on the different ways bloggers have shown Hu and his wife Zeng Jinyan their support, please see here.

Charging Hu with state subversion is proving as difficult for the legal process as it is for Chinese premier Wen Jiabao; when asked directly last month, during one of the most public appearances Wen gives each year, about Hu Jia’s situation, the response Wen gave sounded to many like a denial that any ‘dissidents’ had even been arrested.

Playing Captain Kangaroo may work in Zhongnanhai, but the reality that Hu and Zeng and their supporters have chosen to live in goes more like a Kanye West song. When Hu was first kidnapped around this time two years ago, Zeng Jinyan started a blog on which she documented the bureaucratic games she saw being played as she ran around Beijing trying unsuccessfully to find out what had happened to her husband, who was dropped off miles from home and with no notice over a month later.

When Zeng herself soon became subject to constant surveillance, she slammed on the brakes and started getting in their face.

Placing Hu under ongoing house arrest in 2006 effectively put an end to the environmental protection and AIDS awareness work for which he had already become quite well-known, and so trapped at home with little more than an internet connection, he not only created a whole new approach to activism, which some are calling Tiananmen 2.0, he switched gears to become a social worker of sorts, enabled by technology to keep constant track of a whole range of cases, and where possible, enabling others [zh] to do the same.

In 2007, Zeng Jinyan was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world.

This will no doubt go down as a landmark moment in Chinese history, but to this day anyone looking to China’s largest search engine for more information needs to be prepared for disappointment. In the China of today, though, someone like Hu Jia just doesn’t quietly disappear, and when state agents abducted him again last December, near-blind family friend Zheng Mingfang went straight to the streets and did what she could, walking up to strangers and explaining Hu’s situation, collecting signatures for a petition calling for his release. Early last month, however, Zheng too was arrested.

On Facebook, there are Hu Jia support groups. There’s a cause.

Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan spent months filming their would-be captors for a documentary, Prisoners in Freedom City. After Hu was abducted a second time in December last year and not quickly released, someone got hold of a copy and put it online, and not just in one place, but several.

Following Hu Jia’s arrest late last December, when it came to appear that his and Zeng Jinyan’s newborn baby’s health was at risk, enough momentum grew out of scattered online chatter that a group of netizens tried to force their way up to Zeng’s door to deliver milk powder. When that proved unsuccessful, someone thought it through, and got it right. And still others went on to try.

Hu Jia kept it simple; in preparing posts for his blog, he did interviews over Skype, then sometimes sent them out over e-mail as .mp3 attachments. Clearly there were things he could have done better, but shortly after his arrest we saw the formation of a Netizen Party, with clearly stated intention to stick to using the highly encrypted services offered by Gmail and Skype.

One of the first things the authorities did in December last year when Hu was taken away and Zeng placed under house arrest, where she remains today, was to cut off her internet connection and confiscate her phones. Despite this, Zeng’s blog kept on getting updated. And supporters kept translating it.

The second she got her cellphone back, Zeng started sending out photos. When Hu had his first day in court, we saw drive-by vlogging. Zeng’s even managed to release a podcast.

Wen Jiabao almost seems justified in denying that any activists or netizens have or are being detained, given all the networks of bloggers out there so equally resolved not to accept it. If the bogus charges against Hu do somehow end up being dropped today, we only have more of ingenuity in blogging to look forward to. If they don’t, and Zeng and her daughter remain captive to their squadron of nosepickers, didn’t China finally launch 3G networks this week? It won’t be long before we’ll see a House Arrested Beijing channel on Qik.com.

Speaking of which, a post this week on Zeng Jinyan’s blog says that Hu’s trial at 9:30 a.m. on April 3 in courtroom 23 at Beijing #1 People’s Intermediate Court will be open proceedings, and Zeng intends to be there.

Here’s a poem from Hu-Zeng friend Teng Biao, written in prison after he himself was kidnapped for two days early last month and translated now by Under the Jacaranda Tree blogger C.A. Yeung, ‘To my wife, from jail‘:

Presently as I confront prison walls,
Now I write this poem for you, my Love, my Lady, my Wife.
Even tonight, the stars glitter in the cold sky of apparent isolation.
Glowworms yet appear and disappear among the shrubs.

Please explain to our child why I did not have a chance
to bid her farewell. I was compelled to embark on a long journey away from home.
And so, everyday before our daughter goes to bed,
And when she awakes in the morning,
I will entrust to you, my Lady, my Love, my Wife:
I entrust to you, my warm kisses on our daughter’s cheeks.

Please let our child touch the herbs beneath the stockade.
In the morning on a beautiful sunlit day,
If she notices the dew on the leaves,
She will experience my deep love for her.

Please play the Fisherman’s Song every time you water the cloves.
I should be able to hear the song, my love.
Please take good care of our silent but happy goldfish.
Hidden in their silence are memories of my glamourous and turbulent youth.

I tread a rugged road,
But let me reassure you: I have never stopped singing, my Love.
The leaves of the roadside willow tree have gradually changed colour.
Some noises of melting snow approach from afar.

Noises are engulfed in silence. This is just a very simple night.
When you think of me, please do not sigh, my Love.
The torrents of my agonies have merged with the torrents of my happiness.
Both rivers now run through my mortal corpse.

Before the drizzle halts,
I would have returned to your side, my Lady.
I cannot dry your tears while I am drenched in rain;
I can do so only with a redeemed soul after these times of testing.

Tech blogger Rick Martin on the CNET Asia Little Red Blog has done some tests which confirm what many have assumed:

There were some videos uploaded to Youtube already about the demonstrations, but this block will definitely throw a wrench anyone’s plans to upload more. That said, Chinese versions of Youtube, which have been told to censor this kind of sensitive content, are all still up and running as I write this.

At the same time, other tech bloggers have noticed increased sensitivity online in general recently.

Which begs the question of authorities in Beijing: just how stupid do you think people are?

March 17 update:
Jeremy Goldkorn at Danwei.org has been following closely reports of further problems people in China have been having online:

Youtube is blocked, the websites of The Guardian and L.A. Times newspapers are not currently accessible in Beijing; we have reader reports of the Yahoo home page not loading from around the country.

See the comments on Goldkorn’s post for feedback from around the country, and many more on his earlier post.

March 23: Bloggers in China began reporting Saturday that YouTube can once again be accessed. However, as Martin points out and others have noticed, what’s being seen at present is only a partial recovery.