Tibet : Woeser Detained on Arrival at Lhasa Airport

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Tibetan Writer Woeser Detained on Arrival at Lhasa Airport

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Background

Woeser under house arrest, Barred from collecting Prince Claus Award

Woeser participating in a video conference with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Chinese human rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Teng Biao on January 4, 2011.

DHARAMSHALA,ourageous Tibetan writer

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Woeser participating in a video conference with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Chinese human rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Teng Biao on January 4, 2011.

Three Human Rights Defenders Held in Unknown Locations, 'at Risk of Torture'
Reported by Qiao Long and Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service.
Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2016-12-01


Detained Chinese rights lawyer Xie Yang, in undated photo.
Photo courtesy of an RFA listener. 'Passing the buck'

Jiang had been visiting the family of detained rights lawyer Xie Yang, in Changsha, at the time of his "disappearance."

Chen Jinxue told RFA that there is no record of Jiang's having boarded the train, however.

"I think they are just passing the buck," Chen said. "The Xizhan police station have accepted our missing persons report, and now they're trying to back-track on it."

"They could get the necessary evidence from Changsha themselves."

Xie's wife Chen Guiqiu said on Thursday that her husband had been beaten up by guards in the police-run Changsha No. 2 Detention Center ahead of a recent visit from a different lawyer.

"His defense attorney finally managed to meet with Xie Yang, who was cruelly beaten up by guards inside the detention center before their meeting," she said. "While lawyer Zhang Zhongshi was waiting to see Xie, he heard cries of pain and screams drifting in from the corridor outside."

"It went on for five or six minutes in total," she said.

Zhang confirmed her account in a separate interview.

"He wanted to bring a document into the meeting to give to his lawyer, and the police wouldn't let him," he said. "I have spoken to the detention center director and to the prosecutor's office about the the police beating him up, and demanded an investigation."

Meanwhile, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, rights activists said Huang Qi's elderly mother is now incommunicado following the detention of her son.

"It is now 40 hours since Huang's mother was taken away by Neijiang police to an unknown location," activist Wu Suyun told RFA.

No due process

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China Holds Rights Lawyer on Suspicion of 'Providing State Secrets Overseas'
Reported by Ng Yik-tung, Ho Shan and Lee Lai for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin and C.K. for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2016-12-16


Amnesty International China Researcher William Nee holds poster of detained human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, Dec. 13, 2016. Courtesy of William Nee

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Hunan are holding rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong under criminal detention on suspicion of fraud and "illegal possession of state secrets," a state-backed Chinese news site reported on Friday.

Jiang, who has been incommunicado since Nov. 21 during a trip to Hunan's provincial capital Changsha, is currently under "coercive measures" which allow for a suspect to be held in secret for up to six months where national security-related crimes are claimed by police, the report said.

Jiang is being investigated for "fraudulent use of identification," "illegal possession of state secrets," and "illegally providing state secrets," The Paper news site reported.

He was detained by China's railway police at Changsha Railway Station while attempting to use someone else's ID card to buy a ticket for the D940 express train back to Beijing, it said.

He was initially held under administrative detention, but "further searches" revealed a large number of mobile phones and banking cards, the report said.

"Jiang was found to be in illegal possession of multiple documents containing state secrets, as well as links to overseas institutions, organizations and individuals, to whom he was suspected of supplying state secrets illegally," it said.

It said Jiang was criminally detained on Dec. 1, and his family duly informed.

Jiang's relatives had previously told RFA that police claimed to have released him on that date.

No detention notice for family

His defense lawyer Qin Chenshou said Jiang was continually targeted by the authorities wherever he went, and had used someone else's ID card because he was unable to buy a ticket using his own.

"Jiang Tianyong was constantly being targeted by the authorities," Qin said. "They stopped him from moving around freely, and he wouldn't have been able to buy a ticket for the train if he had used his own ID card."

"That's the only reason he used someone else's."

He said the authorities have yet to send formal notification of Jiang's criminal detention to his family.

"They actually said that he had already been released [from administrative detention], but they didn't say what had happened to him after that," Qin said.

Jiang also stands accused of receiving "long-term foreign funding," of deliberately intervening in politically sensitive cases, and using the internet to incite protest and disturb public order, the report said.

"Police are carrying out further investigations," it said.

'Slanderous accusations'

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Wife of Detained Chinese Rights Lawyer Hits Out at Party Video
Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service.
Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2016-12-22


Rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, who went missing on Nov. 21, 2016, after meeting relatives of jailed lawyers, in an undated photo.
RFA

The wife of a prominent detained human rights lawyer has said she can prove that he was tortured, after a YouTube video posted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party's youth wing claimed there was no evidence for his injuries.

Jin Bianling, who is currently in the United States, told RFA that the video was "total lies," after it accused him of connections to an "evil religious cult" and accused him of fraudulent behavior.

The video, posted by the the Communist Youth League Central Committee's official tweeting account, said that Jiang's claim that he sustained several broken bones in beatings while in detention was "ridiculous."

It also accused him of becoming a propaganda tool in the hands of "overseas forces."

Jiang was beaten at the hands of security guards in Sichuan's Ziyang city in May 2013, fellow lawyer Tang Tianhao, who recorded audio of the incident, told RFA at the time.

But it was unclear whether the injuries were sustained in that beating, or on a separate occasion.

Tang Tianhao told RFA that guards at an unofficial detention center known as the Ziyang Municipal Legal Education Center in Sichuan had beaten him, Jiang and fellow rights lawyer Tang Jitian after they tried to visit detained members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement there.

According to the video, Jiang had produced no medical evidence to back up his account of the attack.

"There are so many many cheats and chancers around nowadays," the video said, referring to Jiang as an "imposter."

Jin told RFA on Thursday: "I would like to tell everyone that that everything they have said is pure lies."

"I have here in my possession the clinical diagnostic proof that Jiang Tianyong sustained fractures in eight different places," she said.

"People are welcome to view the hard evidence, and yet they announce it in this pseudo-official manner that Jiang Tianyong had no evidence," Jin said. "It's nothing but lies; a smear campaign."
Libel lawsuit

Jin said she had recently filed a libel lawsuit against a number of official media outlets claiming that they had infringed Jiang's rights.

"In the past couple of days I have hired and lawyer, and Jiang Tianyong's father went with him to the court to file the complaint," she said.

The lawyer in question, Beijing-based Chen Jinxue, said he would be filing the lawsuit on Friday.

"[The defendants are] the Procuratorate Daily and the Legal Daily," Chen said. "We are planning to lodge complaints in multiple locations."

"We will sue Beijing-based media in Beijing, and also media in Guangzhou and Shanghai," he said.

He said the lawsuits alleged that the media had damaged Jiang's reputation.

"The content of the reports was not true," Chen said. "For a start, they allege that Jiang Tianyong doesn't have a license to practice, but his license was never revoked."

"They also said that he has been in receipt of funding from overseas for a long time, and that he always gets involved in sensitive cases," he said.

"But to allege that Jiang Tianyong has broken the law before he has been tried in court is a breach of the presumption of innocence principle."

Jiang's parents questioned
In a related development, Jiang's elderly parents were recently questioned following a visit to their home by diplomats from a number of European countries.

The couple were questioned by police from their hometown of Xinyang in the central province of Henan, acting "on orders from higher up," sources told RFA.

Police apparently wanted to know all the details of the conversation between them, the sources said.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping is increasingly using allegations of involvement by overseas organizations to target peaceful dissidents and rights activists.

Xi has repeatedly warned against "hostile foreign forces" attempting to overthrow Communist Party rule by infiltrating China with "western" religious practices and ideas like democracy, constitutional government, and human rights.

More than 300 lawyers, law firm staff, rights activists and relatives were detained, questioned, or placed under surveillance or other restrictions in a nationwide police operation targeting the legal profession launched in July 2015.

At least 16 remain in criminal detention on subversion charges, while four have been handed jail terms of up to seven years, according to the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group.

Many others have been denied access to lawyers, and to family visits.

rfa.org