China, intellectuals to government: "Enough censorship, uphold rule of law"
Beijing (AsiaNews) - A group of Chinese intellectuals have written an open letter to the Communist Party calling for an end of censorship on the internet and a less repressive policy within national courts, "full" of government interference. The text was signed by 71 people, students or analysts on a national level, and was published on the blog of Professor Zhang Qianfang, a law professor at Beijing University. At the same time, however, come new reports of repression throughout the country.
The document calls on the
government to take advantage of the change of leadership to address a variety
of social "urgent" reforms. The
party must "end
its oversight of government personnel decisions, leave court decisions to
judges and lawyers, and allow people to speak and assemble freely". The
end of political interference in the courts is one of the
four reforms advocated by the great dissident Bao Tong.
Zhang
said: "I don't
think society should simply wait passively for whatever comes up but we should
express our ideas and try to build a social consensus. Now is a good time to do
something new and if we miss such a chance then our social problems will become
more serious."
The reference is to the seizure
of power by the "fifth generation" of Communist leaders. The
18th General Party Congress in fact crowned Xi
Jinping as the new Secretary and National President last November: with him
the other six members of the Central Committee of the Politburo will come into power
next March. In
his first speech as elected leader, Xi said he wanted to fight corruption and
build a more just society.
The
letter recalls in tone and content, the famous "Charter 08", the document
also published on the internet by dissident Liu Xiaobo. For
his commitment to democracy, Liu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 but was also
condemned by Beijing to 11 years in prison and currently is imprisoned in the
north of the country, while his
wife and daughter live under arrest home in the capital. Also
according to Zhang "none
of this is new and it's not something that's really against the Party's will. They
already expressed their will in the constitution or in the charter of the party
itself."
However, from the practical point
of view things seem very far from any real change. A
proposed new law will require internet users to register their blog using their
real name and address, while internet providers are required to cooperate
"in any way" with the Chinese justice. The
draft aims to "strengthen content protection," but according to
bloggers is just another way to limit freedom of expression.
The field of
civil rights is faring no better. Hunan
authorities have announced that it has impeached Zhu Chengzhi, one of the best
friends of the deceased union leader Li Wangyang. The
suspicious death of Li, which took place on June 6 at the hospital, was
presented as a suicide but the protests of his family and friends - including the
same Zhu - forced the authorities to back
down and talk about murder . Now,
however, Zhu is on trial for "inciting subversion of state power".
It went even worse for Wang Zaili, disabled, who was looking for a job in early December in the city of Changde. The man, a farmer with mental health problems, was arrested along with another man by police handcuffed and beaten for a whole night. The day after the authorities ordered their release, but Wang was dead. A hundred people went outside the offices of the local government to protest in response, the authorities offered 51 thousand Yuan (about 7,800 Euros) to silence their protest.
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