In this issue:
1) Focused only on building workers' rights
2) A Message to Beijing: Don't Push Chinese Workers Too Far
3) A List of Imprisoned Labour Rights Activists in China
__________________________________________________________________
1) Focused only on building workers' rights
http://www.clb.org.hk/public/contents/article?revision%5fid=38199&item%5fid=38198
By Han Dongfang
Published in the South China Morning Post on 3 June 2006
On April 25, 1989, Deng Xiaoping made a speech to Communist Party leaders urging an immediate government crackdown on any sign of an upsurge in the democratic movement. Party leaders "should learn from the experience of Poland's Solidarity trade union", and "must not be soft-handed" in dealing with the democratic movement in China, he said.
Then on June 4, 1989, the government launched its bloody crackdown on the movement by students and workers. The latter was represented in Tiananmen Square by the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation (BWAF), and I was their spokesman. The crackdown was carried out faithfully in the spirit of Deng's speech. A quarter of a century has passed since Lech Walesa and his fellow shipyard workers first raised the Solidarnosc banner. But China's leaders are still haunted by its spectre, and deeply fearful that a similar movement could arise in China to challenge the party's rule. Indeed, this is probably the main reason why Beijing still prohibits the establishment of independent trade unions on the mainland.
In commemorating this year's anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the BWAF, we should remember that the condition of Chinese workers today is in many ways even harsher than it was 17 years ago. But it is also vital to make a pragmatic comparison of the situation that faced Poland's Solidarity in 1980 and that facing the current workers' movement in China. This analysis shows that the Chinese leadership's deep-seated fears about the escalating levels of labour unrest in China are fundamentally misplaced. By taking a more liberal and enlightened approach - rather than resorting to further repressive crackdowns - it could actually pre-empt and resolve the "threat to social stability" that it sees lurking in many parts of the country's industrial relations scene today.
First, the current social situation in China is very different from that of Poland in the 1980s. At that time, Poland was under a centrally planned and state-owned economy. There was no conflict between capitalist employers and workers, because capitalism didn't exist there. Whenever conflicts arose between state-owned companies and the workforce, management had no power or authority to accede to workers' reasonable demands on issues like wages and working conditions.
Any form of worker militancy then tended to escalate to the level of a confrontation with the real owners of the enterprises concerned - usually the local government. As a result, workers' protests of all kinds could evolve only in one direction: political struggle, and ultimately - in the case of Solidarity - a direct challenge to the government's authority.
The situation in China today is completely different. There is no objective reason why workers' struggles have to turn into political challenges or confrontations. After 20 years of economic reforms, countless privately held, foreign-invested and joint-venture enterprises have been established. Even managers at state enterprises can control the company's profits, set the wages and benefits of its workers, and hire and fire employees at will.
Private entrepreneurs have still more authority in all these areas. Denied any effective union representation, the workers themselves have little or no power to negotiate, so profits flow almost solely to the owners and managers. As a result, the scale and intensity of conflict between company owners and their employees is growing more acute by the day in China. But unlike in Poland 25 years ago, the Chinese government today has a choice over whether to interpose itself between the profit-hungry private enterprise owners and an increasingly dissatisfied and militant labour force. In a key sense, it can choose whether to defend the poor working conditions and labour-rights abuses that regularly prompt such confrontations.
For these reasons, the very nature of the labour movement on the mainland today is different from that of Poland's Solidarity. The spearhead of China's emerging labour movement is directed at the owners and management ranks, unlike Poland's Solidarity movement, which was directed at the government. The demands raised by protesting Chinese workers are limited to their own basic economic and social rights. That is to say, China's labour movement today essentially has no political goals. It is addressing labour conflicts, not trying to incite a political movement.
In addition, the collective consciousness of the present Chinese workers' struggle is different from that of Poland's Solidarity. Many Chinese workers still maintain a high level of trust and hope in the government.
They believe that once the central government becomes aware of the inequality and suffering they are enduring, it will definitely come to their aid. Under these social conditions, any independent union that arises would, of course, be very different from Poland's highly politicised Solidarity movement.
In fact, the fundamentally different nature of the economic systems of Poland then and China today means that Beijing has a golden opportunity to establish itself as the neutral mediator in conflicts between labour and management. The government does not need to be haunted by the "spirit" of Solidarity.
Beijing should be able to change the way in which conflicts in our society are resolved, and change the role it currently plays in these conflicts - namely, serving the investor's side. In changing its role, it could become the agent that sets the rules for negotiations. Moreover, that would enable China's labour movement - and any independent trade union that is a part of it - to unite legally. In this way, it would become a means to institutionalise and harmonise the conflict between employees and owners.
This would lead to the true modernisation of the mainland's public governance. Otherwise, if Beijing continues to crack down on the workers' and trade union movements, and to serve the company owners' side, it will only face more and more workers' discontent. Eventually, if denied both the right and the institutional means to negotiate fairly with their employers, workers will indeed direct their anger towards the government.
Beijing's fear of a Solidarity-type situation would then become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Han Dongfang is director of China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based labour rights group. www.clb.org.hk
_________________________________________________________________
2) A Message to Beijing: Don't Push Chinese Workers Too Far
http://www.clb.org.hk/public/contents/article?revision%5fid=38214&item%5fid=38213
Han Dongfang
On 19 May 1989, the flag of the Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation (BWAF) was first raised in Tiananmen Square. It was the first independent trade union group to have emerged in China since the Communist Party's assumption of power in 1949. At the time of the BWAF's formation, hundreds of thousands of protestors had been demonstrating in the capital for more than a month and the protests had spread to most other provinces.
I served as the BWAF's spokesman, and I remember that at that time we raised only general demands for democracy, including freedom of association and freedom of speech. We made no specific demands for workers' rights as such. In retrospect, I realize that it was those more general demands that the central government was most afraid of.
Before 1949, the main purpose of the Communist Party-led labour movement in China had been to assist in the political conquest of the country, and it did little in the way of actually fighting for workers' rights. In May 1989, the BWAF had no political goals: we saw ourselves mainly as worker participants in the wider struggle for democracy, and so we focused on freedom of association and freedom of speech.
But with huge pro-democracy protests taking place across the country at that time, government leaders must have reacted to the news of the establishment of an independent trade union in Beijing with much anxiety. They remembered all too well the role played by their own labour movement 40 years earlier in overthrowing the KMT government in 1949. Because of such fears, the BWAF was allowed to exist for only 15 days, and on June 4 the tanks and the army were sent in to crush the Tiananmen movement completely. Even today, no one knows how many workers and students died in the crackdown.
Terror works – the Chinese Communist Party survived the political crisis of May-June 1989. Later that year, the Berlin Wall was torn down and the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe fell one by one. Two years later, the Soviet Union itself disintegrated. China's leadership continues to believe that the Communist Party's rule would have collapsed had they not decisively crushed the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. But if we revisit the history of the last 17 years and see where China is now headed, it is clear that continued repression cannot shore up the Party's rule indefinitely.
For the first decade or so after June 1989, Chinese workers remained, for the most part, intimidated and silenced. As the economic privatization and restructuring program got underway and as the job security of millions was thrown into question, they had no means of exercising their legally provided right to negotiate with their employers over such things as redundancy compensation or (for those lucky enough to stay in work) their terms of re-employment. Most workers could only watch in dismay as their families' living standards plummeted.
Worse still, after the June 4 crackdown, local government officials became even bolder in cracking down on any actions taken by workers and other ordinary people to protest against the increasingly rampant corruption in government circles. Although those at the top may have realized that they were digging their own graves by allowing such corrupt activities to continue unchecked, their fear of any form of worker protest or organization was apparently even greater.
But then, in the mid to late 1990s, came the massive program of state-owned enterprise reform. According to government statistics, around 30 million workers from state-owned enterprises –some 60 percent of the total SOE workforce – were laid off during the seven-year period from 1998 to 2005.
Most of these workers received totally inadequate severance packages, although there was no unified standard of compensation. Some workers were given as much as 2,000 yuan (US$280) for each of their working years, while others had to make do with only around 300 yuan (US$45) per year worked. Many former SOE workers have still not received any compensation at all for losing their jobs.
Along with a range of other serious social problems – notably education reform and healthcare reform, which have left these vital services beyond the financial reach of millions of ordinary workers – all this has led to the gap between rich and poor in China growing wider by the year.
As a result, more and more hard-pressed Chinese workers are nowadays being forced to take a more confrontational position and to openly stand up for their rights. For many, indeed, it has become a matter of simple survival to do so. If the workers' movement in May 1989 was content to pursue a vague and ambiguous agenda of greater democracy and freedom of speech, it can no longer afford to do so today. What is most urgently needed now is for the range of labour rights and working standards already laid down in Chinese law to be actually implemented and enforced. And if we look at the tens of thousands of collective workers' protest taking place in China each year nowadays, we can see that this is what they are in fact calling for – in other words, they are making worker-specific demands.
Workplace exploitation and abuse of workers' basic rights has also risen sharply since the time of Tiananmen. According to Chinese government statistics, there was a total of 5,600 labour dispute cases around China in 1987, but by 2004 this number had risen to 260,000 – as much as a 45-fold increase. In Guangdong Province alone, the number of labour dispute cases handled in 2004 by the provincial labour arbitration committee was 50 times greater than it was in 1995.
Similarly, in the four-year period from 1979 to 1982, about 20,000 petitions and complaints were filed by citizens around the country. But during 2005 alone, more than 30 million petitions and complaints were filed – that is, around 1,500 times as many as in 1979-82. In 2005, moreover, more than 80,000 of those petitions and complaints cases were ones involving more than 20 people – and most of the participants were workers.
Clearly, the limits of the effectiveness of governmental repression of the workers' movement is fast being reached in China. The greatest threat, at this point, to the national "stability and unity" that the authorities claim to be upholding would be for them to continue driving Chinese workers irrevocably into a corner from which, in terms of basic livelihood, they have no peaceful means of escape.
China is no longer, at least in economic terms, the hardline Communist country that it used to be. The country has plenty of laws and regulations in place to protect labour rights – the PRC Labour Law, the Trade Union Law, the Production Safety Law, and also regulations on collective bargaining and wage negotiations. If Chinese workers were allowed to organize their own trade unions, to stand up collectively for their own rights, and to negotiate with their employers in accordance with the legal norms and procedures already formally in place, then much of the current social unrest could be avoided. And the "social harmony" now being sought by the government would move swiftly from being a mere pious hope to becoming a truly realizable objective.
4 June 2006
_________________________________________________________________
3) A List of Imprisoned Labour Rights Activists in China
I. CURRENTLY IMPRISONED
1) Du Hongqi
Du Hongqi and his wife, Li Tingying, both workers at an artillery factory run by the South China Industries Group, were detained for independent trade-union organizing activities on 24 November 2003. The arms factory was going bankrupt and had been taken over by another enterprise, which was planning to convert it to civilian production. Due to a reduced need for labour, 700 out of the 1500 factory workers were then laid off. Du and Li had already founded an unofficial trade union in September 2003 to fight for better working conditions and had organized their fellow workers to carry out several petition and protest actions. After the mass lay-offs, their union helped to voice the workers' demands for 10,000 yuan per person in unemployment compensation and local government aid to find new jobs. Du Hongqi and Li Tingying were subsequently detained by the police, and Du was formally arrested on 8 December 2003 on the charge of "gathering a crowd to disturb social order." On 18 October 2004, Du was tried and sentenced to three years' imprisonment; Li was subsequently released. Du will be due for release in November 2006.
....................................................................................................
......[3 years]
2) Gao Hongming
In January 1998, Gao Hongming, a veteran of China's 1978-79 Democracy Wall dissident movement, and his fellow activist Zha Jianguo, wrote to the head of the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), Wei Jianxing, and applied for permission to form an autonomous labour group called the China Free Workers Union. In a statement faxed to the National People's Congress at that time, Gao said: "China's trade unions at all levels have become bureaucracies, and their officials bureaucrats. This has resulted in the workers becoming alienated [from the official union]."In early 1999, after also playing a leading role in the formation of the now-banned China Democratic Party (CDP), both Gao Hongming and Zha Jianguo were arrested and charged with "incitement to subvert state power." On August 2, Gao was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment and Zha to nine years. On September 17, 1999 the Beijing High People's Court rejected the appeals of both men. Gao will be due for release from Beijing No. 2 Prison on 28 June 2007.
....................................................................................................
......[8 years]
3) He Chaohui
He Chaohui, 44, a former railway worker at the Chenzhou Railway Bureau, and vice-chairperson of the Hunan Workers Autonomous Federation during the May 1989 pro-democracy movement, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in 1990 for organizing a strike by railway workers in May 1989. In 1997 and 1998, He reportedly took part in several more strikes and demonstrations and gave information on the protests to overseas human rights groups. He was also said to have been active at that time in forming a group to support the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In April 1998, the police detained He after finding a US$300 cheque sent to him by an American university professor. This was seen as confirmation that he had provided overseas groups with information about the recent workers' protests in Hunan. He was later released due to a lack of evidence, but was then rearrested May 1999 on the charge of "endangering state security (illegally providing information to foreign organizations." After a three-hour trial the following month, He was sentenced on 24 August 1999 to 10 years' imprisonment. In December 2004, He Chaohui received a one-year sentence reduction, and he will be due for release from Hunan Province's Chishan Prison on 10 October 2007.
....................................................................................................
......[4+9 years]
4) Hu Mingjun
Hu Mingjun and Wang Sen, both leaders of the Sichuan provincial branch of the banned China Democratic Party (CDP), were detained by police in 2001 after they communicated with striking workers at the Dazhou Steel Mill. On 18 December 2000, about 1000 workers at the factory had organised a public demonstration demanding payment of overdue wages, and Hu and Wang subsequently made contact with the demonstrating workers. Wang, a resident of Dazhou, was arrested on 30 April 2001 and Hu, a resident of Chengdu, was arrested on 30 May. The two men were initially charged with "incitement to subvert state power" but the charges were subsequently increased to actual "subversion". On May 2002, at the Dazhou Intermediate People's Court, Hu was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment and Wang received a 10-year sentence. Hu is currently being held at Chuanzhong Prison in Gaoping District, Nanchong City, Sichuan. Wang Shen is reportedly in very poor health and has severe diabetes; he has applied for release on medical parole, so far without success.
....................................................................................................
.........[11 years]
5) Hu Shigen
A former academic at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, Hu Shigen (also known as Hu Shenglun) was a founder in 1991 and 1992 of both the Free Labour Union of China (FLUC) and the China Liberal Democratic Party (CLDP). Arrested in May 1992 along with fifteen other unofficial trade union and party activists from the two groups, he was charged on twin counts of "organizing and leading a counterrevolutionary group" and "engaging in counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement." After two years of detention, Hu Shigen and the other members of the "Beijing Sixteen" were brought to trial in Beijing. Hu received the heaviest sentence of all - 20 years' imprisonment - and he is not due to be released until May 2012. He is serving his sentence in Beijing No.2 Prison.
....................................................................................................
........[20 years]
6) Kong Jun
Kong Jun, female, aged 42, and Li Xintao male, aged 52, two labour rights activists from Shandong Province, were tried on May 11 2005 by the Mouping District Court in Yantai City, Shandong. They were found guilty of "disrupting government institutions" and "disturbing social order" and Kong and Li were sentenced to two and five years' imprisonment respectively. (Li was reportedly detained in November 2004; the date of Kong's detention is not known.) They had organised public protests against the bankruptcy of their factory, the Huamei Garment Company, and had sent official complaints to Shandong provincial officials. According to Li and Kong, managers at the company, which declared bankruptcy in August 2002, had failed to pay the workers' wages or social insurance benefits from March 2001 onwards. Both worker activists expressed the wish to appeal against their sentences but were reportedly unable to find lawyers willing to represent them.
....................................................................................................
.......[2 years]
7) Kong Youping
A former official trade union official in Liaoning Province, Kong Youping was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment on 16 September 2004 by the Shenyang Intermediate People's Court. Kong's colleague and co-defendant at the September 2004 trial, Ning Xianhua, was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment. Kong, 54 years old, originally worked as the union chairman at a state-owned enterprise in Liaoning, but his support for protests by laid-off workers and his sharp criticism of government corruption and suppression led to his dismissal from both the factory and the union. In the late 1990s, a group of political dissidents, including Kong Youping, were working to establish a branch of the China Democracy Party (CDP) in Liaoning Province, and in 1999 Kong was detained and imprisoned for a year on charges of "incitement to subvert state power". Prior to his recent arrest and trial, Kong was reportedly involved in planning the establishment of an independent union and had posted articles on the Internet criticizing official corruption and calling for a reassessment of the June 4th Massacre. The specific charges laid against Kong Youping and Ning Xianhua at their trial are currently unknown.
....................................................................................................
......[1+15 years]
8) Li Wangyang
Li was first arrested in June 1989 and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment the following year on charges of "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement" for founding the Shaoyang Workers' Autonomous Federation and leading workers' strikes during the May 1989 pro-democracy movement. He was released in June 2000, but in February 2001, he staged a 22-day hunger strike in an attempt to obtain medical compensation for injuries to his back, heart and lungs that he had sustained while in prison, and which reportedly left him unable to walk unaided. For staging the hunger-strike protest, Li was again arrested by the police. On 5 September 2001, he was tried in secret by the People's Intermediate Court of Shaoyang on the charge of "incitement to subvert state power" and sentenced to a further 10 years' imprisonment.
....................................................................................................
......[13+10 years]
9) Li Xintao
Serving sentence of 5 years. For further details, see case of Kong Jun (above).
....................................................................................................
......[5 years]
10) Liu Jian
Liu Jian, now in his early forties, and Liu Zhihua, age unknown, were both workers at the Xiangtan Electrical Machinery Plant, Hunan Province, prior to June 1989 and participated in a rowdy demonstration by over 1,000 workers from the factory just after June 4 that year to protest the government's violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement. After one of their fellow workers had his arm broken by the factory¡¯s security guards, the demonstrators then allegedly ransacked the home of the security section chief. Arrested shortly afterwards, the two workers were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in either August or October 1989 on charges of "hooliganism" and "intentional injury." However, the government has not publicly produced any evidence linking either Liu Jian or Liu Zhihua to specific acts of violence or other genuine crime. Two other workers from the same factory, (Chen Gang and Peng Shi, also received life sentences for their involvement in the same protest action, but the sentences were later reduced and both men were reportedly released in 2004.) Liu Jian is apparently the only one of the four detained Xiangtan Electrical Machinery Plant workers who has still not had his life prison term reduced to a fixed-term sentence. He is currently being held at the Hunan Provincial No.6 Prison (Longxi Prison.)
....................................................................................................
......[Life Imprisonment]
11) Liu Zhihua
Formerly a worker at the Xiangtan Electrical Machinery Plant, Liu Zhihua was sentenced to life imprisonment in October 1989 for taking part in a mass protest against the government's June 4 crackdown that year on the pro-democracy movement. (For further details of this incident and of the specific charges brought against Liu, see above: the case of Liu Jian) In September 1993, his sentence was reduced to 15 years' imprisonment with five years' subsequent deprivation of political rights, but in 1997 his sentence was extended by five years after he allegedly committed "injury with intent" in prison. His effective combined sentence then became 16 years' imprisonment (sentence to run from January 1997 to January 2013). In June 2001, Lui Zhihua's sentence was again reduced by two years, and he is now due to be released on 16 January 2011. He is currently being held at the Hunan Provincial No.6 Prison (Longxi Prison.)
....................................................................................................
[Total sentence: 22 years]
12) Luo Mingzhong
Luo, born in 1953, was a retired worker of Tianyuan Chemical Factory, which was owned by Tianyuan Holdings, in Yibin, Sichuan Province. He led other factory workers to fight for compensation after the factory was privatized. On 22 March 2004, Luo was administratively detained for 10 days for blocking highways and obstructing traffic. In July 2005, Luo, together with fellow Tianyuan retired workers Zhan Xianfu, Zhou Shaofen, Luo Huiquan, led other factory workers to block the factory's main gate in protest against the insufficient compensation they were being offered for the loss of their jobs. The Yibin City Public Security Bureau then arrested the four workers' leaders for allegedly "assembling to disturb social order". In April 2006, Cuiping District Court in Yibin City convicted them on the same charges. Luo Mingzhong and Luo Huiquan were each sentenced to two years' imprisonment, while Zhan and Zhou were sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment, suspended for one and a half years. China Labour Bulletin is currently assisting the four workers in their appeals against these sentences.
……………………………………………………………………....[2 years]
13) Luo Huiquan
Luo, born in 1957, sentenced to two years' imprisonment. See case of Luo Mingzhong (above).
……………………………………………………………………....[2 years]
14) Miao Jinhong
Miao Jinhong and Ni Xiafei led a group of migrant workers in Zhejiang Province in blocking a railway line and attacking a police station to protest unpaid wages. Both men were detained in October 2000 and were subsequently tried and sentenced to 8 years' imprisonment (charges unknown.)
....................................................................................................
......[8 years]
15) Ni Xiafei
Serving an 8-year prison sentence. For details, see case of Miao Jinhong (above).
....................................................................................................
......[8 years]
16) Ning Xianhua
Serving a 12-year prison sentence. For details, see case of Kong Youping (above).
....................................................................................................
......[12 years]
17) Shao Liangchen
Shao was a leading member of the Ji'nan Workers' Autonomous Federation in Shandong Province during the May 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations. He was detained by police on 15 June 1989, tried in September that year by the Ji'nan Intermediate People's Court on charges of "sabotaging communications equipment" and then sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. His sentence was subsequently reduced to life imprisonment, and then in July 1994 to 17 years' imprisonment (starting from the latter date). He received two further sentence reductions in 1998 and 2000, totaling three years and six months, bringing his date of release to November 4, 2007. In 2002, he reportedly received a third sentence reduction of one year. Shao Liangchen is currently serving his sentence in Weihu Prison, Shandong Province, and will be due for release on 4 November 2006.
..................................................................................................[Total Sentence: 17 years]
18) She Wanbao
She, a 48-year-old Sichuan native, is a labour organiser and a member of the China Democratic Party (CDP). He was previously convicted of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement by the Guangyuan Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan Province and was sentenced on 3 November 1989 to four years' imprisonment. He was released in July 1993, but was rearrested around five years later in connection with his CDP activities. On 25 October 1999, the Sichuan Higher People's Court upheld a conviction on "subversion" charges against She by the Guangyuan Intermediate People's Court. He was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment, and has been held at the Chuanzhong Prison since 5 April 2000. On 9 September 2005, She's sentence was reduced by six months. He will be due for release on 6 January 2011, after which his political rights will be suspended for three years.
………………………………………………………………………[4+11½ years]
19) Wang Miaogen
Wang, a manual worker in Shanghai at the time of the May 1989 pro-democracy movement, was a leading member of the Shanghai Workers Autonomous Federation which was formed that month. Detained shortly after the June 4, 1989 government crackdown, Wang then spent two and a half years in untried police detention undergoing "re-education through labour" on account of his involvement in the banned workers' group. In April 1993, after he committed an act of self-mutilation in front of a Shanghai police station in public protest against having recently been severely beaten up by the police, he was redetained and then forcibly incarcerated in the Shanghai Ankang Mental Hospital, a facility run by the Public Security Bureau to detain and treat "dangerously mentally ill criminals". Wang has been held incommunicado at the Shanghai Ankang now for more than 13 years.
..............................................................[2½ years in jail + 12 years' psychiatric detention]
20) Wang Sen
Serving a 10-year sentence. For details, see case of Hu Mingjun (above).
....................................................................................................
......[10 years]
21) Yao Fuxin
After the Ferro-Alloy Factory in Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, was declared bankrupt in early 2002, the local workers founded the "All-Liaoyang Bankrupt and Unemployed Workers' Provisional Union" and elected Yao Fuxin as their spokesperson to conduct negotiations with the local government. In March 2002, Yao and Xiao Yunliang (see below for details) then helped to organize a series of massive protest demonstrations in Liaoyang. Both men were detained later that month and then charged with the crime of "illegal assembly and demonstration". Subsequently, on account of their alleged involvement in the banned China Democracy Party (CDP) – Yao and Xiao have consistently denied such involvement – the much more serious charge of "subversion" was brought against them. Tried at the Liaoyang Intermediate People's Court on 15 January 2003, Yao was sentenced to seven years in prison and will be due for release in March 2009. Xiao received a four-year sentence and was released from prison on 23 February 2006. Both men had been plagued by serious health problems throughout their imprisonment; and according to his family, who visit him regularly, Yao Fuxin's health situation at Lingyuan No. 2 Prison remains very poor.
....................................................................................................
......[7 years]
22) Yang Jianli
A US-based research scholar and political dissident, Yang participated in the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement in 1989; his name was on a 1994 PRC police blacklist of 49 Chinese pro-democracy activists who were barred from re-entering China. Yang Jianli entered China in April 2002 by using a friend's passport, as part of a plan to try and investigate the rapidly growing labour unrest situation in Shenyang City, Liaoyang City and Daqing City in northeastern China. He was detained on 26 April 2002 and officially arrested by the Beijing State Security Bureau on 28 April 2002. He was then held in incommunicado detention for the next 15 months - well beyond the legally permitted maximum period for pre-trial detention. On 13 May 2004, Yang was tried in a closed court hearing on charges of "espionage" and "illegal entry," and was duly pronounced guilty and sentenced to a term of five years' imprisonment.
....................................................................................................
......[5 years]
23) Yue Tianxiang
In 1995, Yue Tianxiang, a driver at the state-owned Tianshui City Transport Company, Gansu Province, was laid off from his job despite being owed three months' back pay. When the company refused to negotiate a settlement regarding their wage arrears and to provide them with a legally-entitled living allowance, Yue and another laid-off driver, Guo Xinmin, decided to take their case to the Tianshui Labour Disputes Arbitration Committee. The Committee ruled that the company should find new positions for the two workers as soon as possible, but the company manager refused to implement this decision. When Yue and Guo learned that many of their fellow drivers in Tianshui faced the same kind of treatment, they set up a journal called China Labour Monitor and used it to publish articles on various labour rights-related issues, including reports of corruption at their former company. They also wrote an open letter to President Jiang Zemin asking for the central government to take action on these issues. In late 1998, after receiving no response from the authorities, they distributed their letter to the international news media. A few weeks later, in January 1999, they were detained by the Tianshui police and were eventually charged with "subversion of state power". On 5 July 1999, Yue Tianxiang was tried and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. (His fellow activist Guo Xinmin was also sentenced at the same time, but he was freed from prison around one year later.) Yue will be due for release in January 2009.
....................................................................................................
......[10 years]
24) Zha Jianguo
Serving a 9-year sentence. See case of Gao Hongming (above) for details.
....................................................................................................
......[9 years]
25) Zhang Shanguang
Labour activist Zhang Shanguang, formerly a secondary school teacher, was first sentenced to seven years imprisonment after the June 4, 1989 government crackdown for his role in organizing the Hunan Workers' Autonomous Federation in May of that year. While in prison, he contracted severe tuberculosis. After his release, in early 1998, Zhang was interviewed by several overseas radio stations about widespread labor and peasant unrest in his home county of Xupu. He also gathered supporters for, and attempted to officially register with the authorities, a labour rights group that he had recently founded - the Association to Protect the Rights and Interests of Laid-Off Workers (APRILW). By July 1998, this association had attracted more than 300 members from all walks of life, including workers, peasants, intellectuals and cadres, and even some local officials were initially supportive of the group's aims. On July 21, 1998, the police detained Zhang, searched his home and confiscated all documents and correspondence relating to APRILW. Zhang's wife, He Xuezhu, was questioned and threatened by the police, who also urged her to divorce her husband. His many supporters in Xupu County rose swiftly to his defense, writing numerous appeals and even staging hunger strikes demanding his release. According to one such appeal letter, "The work of Zhang Shanguang will surely encourage the people of Hunan and the whole country to wage an even wider-scale struggle to win democracy and freedom." Subsequently charged on the twin counts of "passing intelligence to hostile overseas organizations" and "incitement to subvert state power," Zhang was tried on 27 December 1998 and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. His tuberculosis has continued to worsen and he is reportedly now in very poor medical condition.
....................................................................................................
......[7+10 years]
26) Zhao Changqing
Zhao, now 36 years old, was first arrested in June 1989 and detained for four months at Qincheng Prison, Beijing, for having organized a Students' Autonomous Committee at the Shaanxi Normal University during the pro-democracy movement in May that year. He was arrested again in 1998 while teaching at a school affiliated with the Shaanxi Hanzhong Nuclear Industry Factory 813, after attempting to stand for election as a factory representative to the National People's Congress and publicly criticizing the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) for failing to defend workers interests. In an open letter to his fellow factory workers, dated 11 January 1998, Zhao wrote: "You should treasure your democratic rights. Even if I cannot run as a formal candidate, if you believe I am capable of representing you and of struggling for your interests, then I ask you to write in my name on the ballot. If elected, I will be worthy of your trust and will demonstrate my loyalty to you through my actions." Before the workers' ballots could be cast on January 14, Zhao was secretly detained by the police on suspicion of "endangering state security." In July that year, he was tried at the Hanzhong City Intermediate People's Court on charges of "subversion" and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. After his release, in early November 2002 Zhao drafted and circulated an open letter to the National People's Congress demanding, among other things, an official reassessment of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the release of all political prisoners. In due course, 192 other political dissidents signed the letter, thereby attracting widespread international attention to what was the most significant political action by Chinese dissidents in recent years. In December 2002, Zhao Changqing was arrested by police for the third time and was later sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment for "incitement to subvert state power". Zhao has reportedly been held in solitary confinement for refusing to take part in military training and having contact with detained Falun Gong practitioners.
.............................................................................................[4.5 months and 3 + 5 years]
II. OTHER CASES OF CONCERN/ CURRENT STATUS UNCLEAR
1) Ding Xiulan and Liu Meifeng
Ding and Liu, both workers at the Zhongheng Textile Factory in Funing County, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, reportedly led laid-off factory workers to stage protests at the factory's entrance and demand reasonable compensation following the privatization of the former state-owned enterprise. After receiving no response from the company, on 2 October 2004 Ding and Liu then led several hundred workers to demonstrate outside the Yancheng City government building in an attempt to get the local government to intervene with the company on the workers' behalf. On 20 October, both Ding and Liu were arrested for "assembling to disturb social order." There has been no further news of their fate since then.
.................................................................................................[sentences unknown]
2) Jiang Cunde
Jiang, a Shanghai native, was a worker at the Dong Xin Tool Repair Works when, in 1985 and 1986, according to the authorities, he began to advocate "imitating the model of Poland's Solidarity Trade Union to overthrow the present political powers." He reportedly also planned to establish a "China Human Rights Committee." In May 1987, Jiang and two others were convicted on charges of planning to hijack an airplane, and he was sentenced to life in prison for counterrevolution. In January 1993, Jiang was released from Shanghai's Tilanqiao Prison on medical parole. Six years later, however, he was rearrested for having allegedly "joined a reactionary organization, written reactionary articles and sent them to news agencies, and used the occasion of the US bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade in 1999 to stir up trouble." Jiang was returned to Tilanqiao Prison in June 1999 to continue serving his life sentence. In August 2004, his sentence was commuted to 20 years' imprisonment, and he is currently due for release in August 2024. [NB: Although Jiang was originally convicted of an internationally recognized criminal offence (hijacking an airplane), CLB has included him on this list of non-violent detained worker activists because a) the grounds officially given for his re-imprisonment in 1999 related solely to his exercise of the right to freedom of association and expression, and b) because of his earlier espousal of independent trade unionism in China.]
……………………………………………………………………[20 years]
3) Wang Dong and Zhao Yongmin
In 1998, the Inner Mongolia No. 2 Machinery Factory (affiliated to NORHEINCO, the Inner Mongolia North Heavy Industries Group Ltd) in Baotou City tricked thousands of workers into accepting unfair retrenchment packages, leaving them and their families in great financial difficulty. In early 2005, Wang Dong, Zhao Yongmin, Shi Jun and several other workers representatives distributed leaflets and organised the workers to demand negotiations with the company's management. In July that year, Wang, Zhao and Shi were detained by the police. Although all three were subsequently released, the Qingshan District Public Security Bureau of Baotou City has continued to seek criminal prosecutions against them on the charge of "disturbing social order". The Qingshan District People's Procuratorate has notified Shi Jun that he will not be prosecuted; but as of June 2006, Wang Dong and Zhao Yongmin continued to face the threat of criminal trial and imprisonment.
....................................................................................................
..[status unclear]
4) Zhan Xianfu
Zhan, born in 1956, sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment, suspended for one and a half years. See case of Luo Mingzhong (above) for details.
……………………………………………………………….[suspended sentence]
5) Zhou Shaofen
Sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment, suspended for one and a half years. See case of Luo Mingzhong (above) for details.
……………………………………………………………….[suspended sentence]
6) Zhu Fangming
In May 1989, Zhu, a 28-year-old worker at the Hengyang City (Hunan Province) Flour Factory and vice-chairman of the Hengyang City Workers Autonomous Federation, organized demonstrations and took part in a sit-in protest in front of the municipal government offices. After the June 4 crackdown that year, he allegedly led workers to the municipal Public Security Bureau to denounce the repression and demand justice. According to a report in the Hunan Daily, Zhu was arrested and then sentenced in December 1989 by the Hengyang City Intermediate People's Court to life imprisonment on a charge of "hooliganism". He is currently believed to be held in Hengyang Prison (Hunan Provincial No.2 Prison). In October 2005, the Chinese government maintained that Zhu "was never punished" for his activities in 1989 and it stated that he is once again working at Hengyang's Xihu Flour Factory. This information is at total variance, however, with the original report in Hunan Daily.
....................................................................................................
......[Life Imprisonment?]
III. RECENTLY RELEASED
1) Liao Shihua
A worker at the Changsha Automobile Electronics Factory, Hunan Province, in October 1998 Liao Shihua led a mass protest action against corruption at the factory and calling for proper health care coverage and housing benefits for the factory's retired and laid-off workers. In June 1999, Liao joined with more than 100 laid-off workers to stage a demonstration in front of the Hunan provincial government headquarters, demanding a resolution to the area's unemployment problems. After addressing the crowd, Liao was escorted away by an unknown person and then officially detained on grounds of "inciting the masses to attack a government office." On 7 July 1999, he was formally charged with "conspiring to subvert state power" and "assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic," and he was subsequently tried and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. (The subversion charge is believed to have resulted from his involvement in the now-banned China Democratic Party [CDP.) Liao had assisted Tong Shidong, now 71 years old, a professor at Hunan University who in November 1998 had founded the Hunan University Preparatory Committee of the CDP, to edit the dissident group's magazine "Opposition Party" [Zaiye Dang]. Also detained in June 1999, Professor Tong was later charged with "subversion" and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, but was granted early release in March 2006. Liao Shihua, now 56 years old, was released on 5 June 2005 after completing his six-year sentence.
....................................................................................................
......[6 years]
2) Xiao Yunliang
In March 2002, Xiao Yunliang, a former worker at the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory, Liaoning Province, and another local worker, Yao Fuxin (see above for case details), led around 2,000 workers from the same factory, along with a further 15,000 workers from five other factories in Liaoyang, in a series of major public demonstrations. The workers were protesting against alleged corruption in the factory – which they argued had directly caused its recent bankruptcy – and calling for unpaid wages and other owed benefits, including pensions, to be paid to the workers. Xiao was secretly detained on 20 March 2002 and then formally charged with the crime of "illegal assembly and demonstration." Subsequently, on account of his alleged involvement in the banned China Democracy Party (CDP) - he has consistently denied such involvement - the charge of "subversion" was brought against him. Tried at the Liaoyang Intermediate People's Court on 15 January 2003, Xiao was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released on 23 February 2006, 24 days before his prison sentence ended. Like his fellow prisoner Yao Fuxin, he suffered serious health problems throughout his imprisonment, and his health situation has remained poor since his release. Xiao is suffering from various illnesses including chronic respiratory disease.
....................................................................................................
......[4 years]
---------------------------
China Labour Bulletin
4 June 2006