Zheng Enchong

a Shanghai-based human rights lawyer who has provided legal assistance to many residents who were victimised by Shanghai’s eviction policies.

Since his release in 2006, Zheng Enchong has been under continued surveillance and has been harassed repeatedly by the authorities.

Zheng Enchong, (born September 2, 1950), a lawyer in Shanghai, had advised more than 500 families displaced by Shanghai’s urban redevelopment projects on their rights to fair compensation. In particular, Zheng, despite the revocation of his licence as a lawyer in 2001, had been advising families involved in a lawsuit alleging corrupt collusion between officials and a wealthy property developer.

 
Zheng Enchong had been arrested on June 6, 2003 and taken to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau Detention Centre, on charges of “illegally providing state secrets to entities outside of China” (article 111 of the Criminal Law for sending two communications to HRIC).

At the court hearing on August 28, 2003, Zheng’s wife, Jiang Meili, and other observers had been barred from the courtroom on the grounds that the case involved state secrets. Zheng Enchong was sentenced, on October 28, 2003, to three years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year by the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court. The Shanghai appeal court upheld the sentence on December 18, 2003.

Jiang Meili, the wife of Zheng Enchong, has been detained for three days illegally until March 1, 2004. On February 28, 2004 Mrs. Jiang went to Beijing to petition the National People's Congress on behalf of her husband. In the same day, five women and two men burst into her hotel room, bound and gagged her. She was forced into a vehicle and taken to another hotel in Hubei's Canzhou City. The next day, five person took her back to Shanghai, where she was held in the Guangdi Hotel in Hutai Road. Jiang Meili was finally released on March 1.
During Jiang Meili’s next visit to her husband on November 10, 2004, along with other family members, Zheng said he had been visited a number of times by the director of the Shanghai’s Judicial Bureau and Prisons Bureau, Miao Xiaobao, who had told him that if he admitted wrongdoing, his three-year sentence would be reduced by one year. However, Zheng Enchong refused to do so.

According to information from HRIC, since the beginning of his imprisonment, 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, 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, Zheng said also that he has been denied several times his right to call his family.

According to the information received, during the visit of Zheng’s wife to the prison he asked her to urge displaced residents to persevere in their legal action against 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 Zheng and carried him out of the visiting room. After the visit, Zheng’s wife and other family members have written an open letter to the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, and Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, calling for their intervention to grant him an appeal through the Supreme People’s Court.

Zheng Enchong was released on June 5, 2006 after serving a three-year prison term for “illegally providing state secrets overseas”. Since his release, Zheng and his family have been under effective house arrest and constant surveillance by police.

 
On July 24, 2007, when Zheng Enchong Jiang Meili, went with his wife to the Shangai Municipal Higher People’s Court, he was knocked to the ground, beaten and dragged him nearly 200 metres in an hour-long assault that was witnessed by hundreds of neighboring residents. As a result, Zheng sustained serious abrasions to his left hand during the struggle.

On February 16 and 17, 2008, Zheng Enchong was reportedly beaten by police officers who were following him and his wife Jiang Meili. Later on February 17, 2008, he was summoned to the police station and was kept in detention. The police asked him about the recent legal aid he provided to petitioners and victims of land grabs, as well as the interviews he gave to the Epoch Times on February 12, 2008, in which he talked about the corruption case of Shanghai tycoon Zhou Zhengyi and the possible involvement of former Chinese Communist Party leader Huang Ju. While in detention, he was beaten by unidentified men.

On February 19, 2008, the interview to the Epoch Times went to press and on February 20, 2008, Zheng was again arrested, before being released in the evening. He was once more beaten by an unidentified person while in detention. As a consequence, he was wounded and bleeding. He would allegedly plan to sue the authorities.

On 10 April 2009, Zheng Enchong did an interview with The Voice of America in which he discussed an anti-corruption action by the Shanghai Government authorities requiring high-level officials to account for their housing purchases. In the interview Zheng Enchong stated that Shanghai departmental-level officials were buying housing at sub-market prices and that ordinary home buyers were bearing the costs in the difference. He claimed that if there were genuine attempts to investigate the allegations then 50% of those officials would be sent to jail and dismissed from their positions. 

On 15 April 2009, at 8:30 am, more than ten officials from the Zhabei Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau entered Zheng Enchong's home. They proceeded to ransack the house, emptying contents from drawers, throwing books from bookshelves, and throwing items such as bedding and teacups onto the floor. At 9:00 am Zheng Enchong was taken to the Zhabei branch police station where he was not officially registered until 3:00 pm and then sent home again at 7:30 pm. This was the fifth time this week that Zheng Enchong has been summoned by the police.

On June 17, 2009, Zheng Enchong, who has advised residents claiming to have been forcibly evicted,  was summoned by  Police as part of an "economic investigation, during a nine-hour detention.  Police officers slapped Zheng's face repeatedly, hit the back of his head and tried to burn his lips and eyelids with cigarettes. At one point, the officers pulled him up from his chair, kicked off his shoes and stripped him, leaving him standing in only his briefs.Officers then threw the contents of his pockets onto the floor, including money, keys, a pen and the Bible that Zheng, a devout Christian, was carrying.

Zheng has been detained 62 times since he was released from prison in June 2006 after serving a two-year sentence, but the latest incident was the most violent.

On 9 December 2005 Zheng Enchong was awarded a Human Rights Award by the German Judges' Association. 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.

D J  Detention : 6 June 2003 - 5 June 2006 = 3 years. 

Copyright © 2008 IDHAE - European Bar Human Rights Institute.