CHINA

New information :

Zheng Enchong

lawyer and human rights defender

has allegedly been beaten at  Prison in Shanghai

Prisoner of conscience Zheng Enchong aged 55, lawyer and human rights defender has allegedly been beaten at Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai, where he is currently serving a three-year sentence.
Amnesty International fears he is at risk of further torture and ill-treatment.

On 10 December Zheng Enchong’s family received a call from a prison official  informing them that Zheng Enchong had "violated a prison rule" and that the  family’s monthly visits to the prison were being suspended. The official  refused to specify which prison rule he had violated, or for how long the family would be prevented from visiting him. The family’s request to speak to  Zheng Enchong by telephone was also refused.

Early in the morning of 14 December, members of Zheng Enchong’s family visited  Tilangiao Prison in the hope of being allowed to see or to speak to Zheng, or at least to get reassurance that he was safe and well. However, despite making repeated phone calls to prison officials from the prison gates, being surrounded by half a dozen national security officials, and waiting for several hours, Zheng Enchong's relatives were unsuccessful. They have had no contact with him since the last family visit on 12 November. Amnesty International
believes that Zheng Enchong may have been beaten, and the refusal of the authorities to permit contact with his relatives raises concerns about his safety and the state of his health.

During a family visit on 9 March 2005, Zheng Enchong told relatives that he had been beaten after asking for paper on which to write a letter to the central government, listing the names of people who had died after the authorities forcibly relocated them. According to family members, Zheng requested that they ask the authorities to transfer him to another prison outside Shanghai, as he was afraid he would not survive his sentence in Tilanqiao Prison.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Prior to his imprisonment Zheng Enchong practiced law in Shanghai, advising and representing families who had been forcibly evicted from their homes, or who had received inadequate compensation for their homes after being relocated. His law license was revoked by Shanghai authorities in July 2001. Concerns were raised at the time that Zheng was being deliberately targeted by corrupt city officials who were profiting from their association with wealthy and influential property developers. However, Zheng Enchong continued to offer
legal advice, and it is thought he had represented or assisted over 500 families by the time of his detention.

On 28 August 2003, Zheng Enchong was tried behind closed doors on charges of "supplying state secrets to foreign entities" by Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court. ‘State secrets’ are vaguely defined in Chinese law: whether something constitutes a ‘state secret’ is often an arbitrary and politically motivated decision. In Zheng’s case, the charge related to two faxes Zheng was alleged to have sent to the New York–based organization Human Rights in China. More than 100 people, most of whom Zheng had provided legal assistance to, protested outside the court. He was found guilty and on 28 October 2003 was sentenced to three years in prison.

On 9 December Zheng Enchong was awarded a Human Rights Award by the German Judges' Association in a ceremony attended by the German President Horst Koehler. Zheng Enchong’s wife Jiang Meili, who had planned to represent her husband at the awards ceremony, was refused permission to leave China due to an
alleged property dispute that she was suddenly informed about shortly before her planned departure. The recent beatings of Zheng Enchong, and the suspension of the family’s visiting privileges, may be linked to his having been honoured with this award.

PUBLIC AI Index: ASA 17/047/2005
14 December 2005
UA 315/05 Fear of torture or ill-treatment/ prisoner of
conscience

BACKGROUND INFORMATION :

Mr. Zheng Enchong had been arrested on June 6, 2003 and taken to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau Detention Centre, after assisting displaced families in more than 500 cases relating to Shanghai’s urban redevelopment projects. In particular, Mr. Zheng had been advising families involved in a lawsuit alleging corrupt collusion between officials and a wealthy property developer, Mr. Zhou Zhengyi, despite the revocation of his licence as a lawyer in 2001.

At the court hearing on August 28, 2003, Mr. Zheng’s wife, Mrs. Jiang Meili, and other observers had been barred from the courtroom on the grounds that the case involved state secrets. However, it was reported that the proceedings were monitored by representatives of the Shanghai municipal government. Represented in court by his lawyers, Mr. Zheng pleaded not guilty in the trial.

Mr. Zheng Enchong was  sentenced, on October 28, 2003, to three years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year, on charges of “illegally providing state secrets to entities outside of China” (article 111 of the Criminal Law) by the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court. He had been accused of sending two communications to HRIC, the name of the organisation being referred to 12 times in the judgement. The first one referred to a message from Mr. Zheng about the surrounding by 500 policemen of more than 500 workers who were striking on 9 May 2003 following the announcement that three-quarters of Shanghai Yimin Food Product No. 1 factory’s workers would be laid-off. The second document, on which the conviction was based, was a copy of an internal article of Xinhua News agency entitled “Reporters covering conflict sparked by forced removal come under attack”. Although HRIC never received this article from him and the Court acknowledged that this document never reached the organisation, the content of both communications was considered as “state secrets” by the Shanghai State Secrets Bureau.

The Shanghai appeal court upheld the sentence on December 18, 2003.

Mrs. Jiang Meili, the wife of Mr. Zheng Enchong, has been illegally detained for three days until March 1, 2004. Mrs. Jiang had gone to Beijing on February 28, 2004 to petition the National People's Congress on behalf of her husband. On the same day, shortly after 1:00 a.m., five women and two men burst into her hotel room and bound and gagged her. She was forced into a vehicle and taken to another hotel in Hubei's Canzhou City. The next day, five people took her back to Shanghai, where she was held in the Guangdi Hotel in Hutai Road. During this time, Mrs. Jiang Meili was not presented with an arrest warrant or given any reason for her detention. According to the information received, the persons involved in her detention included officials of the Shanghai Representative Office in Beijing, the Shanghai Letters and Petitions Office and the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB). Mrs. Jiang Meili was finally released on March 1.

According to the information received, Mr. Zheng Enchong’s wife, Mrs. Jiang Meili, went to visit him on November 10, 2004, along with other family members. During the visit, Mr. Zheng said he had been visited a number of times by the director of the Shanghai’s Judicial Bureau and Prisons Bureau, Mr. Miao Xiaobao, who told him that if he admitted wrongdoing, his three-year sentence would be reduced by one year. However, Mr. Zheng Enchong refused to do so.

According to information from HRIC, since the beginning of his imprisonment, Mr. Zheng has not been allowed to see his lawyer, as a result of which he has not been able to file an appeal application against his sentence before the Shanghai Supreme People’s Court. His wife has filed an application on his behalf but the Court has not acknowledged it.

Moreover, Mr. Zheng reportedly also told his visitors that in spite of his relatively light sentence, he has been housed in the prison’s high security section, where he is obliged to share his 3.5 square meter cell with two other prisoners. In addition, Mr. Zheng said that repeated requests to telephone his family have also been denied.

According to the information received, during the prison visit, Mr. Zheng asked his wife to urge displaced residents to persevere in their legal action against Mr. Zhou Zhengyi, a wealthy property developer, and others involved in a redevelopment project. When he began speaking about this subject, prison guards immediately ended the visit, and five or six guards grabbed Mr. Zheng and carried him out of the visiting room.

After the visit, Mr. Zheng’s wife and other family members have written an open letter to the Chinese President, Mr. Hu Jintao, and Prime Minister, Mr. Wen Jiabao, calling for their intervention to grant him an appeal through the Supreme People’s Court.

The Observatory recalls that it considers his detention as arbitrary since the sentence pronounced against him only aims at sanctioning his activities in favour of economic and social rights in China.

ACTION REQUESTED :

Please write to the authorities of China urging them to :

i. Guarantee in all circumstances Mr. Zheng Enchong’s physical and psychological integrity;

ii. Guarantee Mr. Zheng’s right to meet with his lawyer as well as his right to file an appeal application before the Shanghai Supreme People’s Court, so that the charges against him be dropped;

iii. Put an end to all forms of harassment against lawyers and human rights defenders in China;

iv. Conform to the provisions of the Declaration on Humans Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, in particular article 1, which states that "everyone has the right, individually or in association with others, to promote the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”;

v. Conform with the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers;

vi. Conform to the provisions of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and international human rights standards;

Addresses :

President Hu Jintao, People's Republic of China; c/o Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China, Chemin de Surville 11, Case postale 85, 1213 Petit-Lancy 2, Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +4122 7937014, E-mail: mission.china@ties.itu.int

President Hu Jintao, People's Republic of China, c/o Embassy of the People's Republic of China; 2300 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., 20008, USA, Fax: +01 202 588-0032

Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China, 10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Chaoyangqu, Beijingshi 100020, People's Republic of China, Fax: +86 10 65 292345

Paris - Geneva, November 12, 2004

Kindly inform the Observatory of any action undertaken quoting the code number of this appeal in your reply.

URGENT APPEAL - THE OBSERVATORY

CHN 001 / 0803 / OBS 041.4

Arbitrary detention / Unfair treatment

China