The Full Wiki

List of political offences that attract jail terms in China: Wikis
  

Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles.

Encyclopedia

Updated live from Wikipedia, last check: May 21, 2013 23:53 UTC (38 seconds ago)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article contains Traditional Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

This is a list of political offences that attract jail terms in China. During the Maoist era, judicial system of the People's Republic of China was often used for political persecution of rivals, in the sense that penalties (either long jail terms or capital punishment) were largely imposed on the authority's political enemies, or anyone who dared to challenge it. During those times, vague accusations such as "counter-revolutionary" (反革命), Capitalist roader (走資本主义路线), "running dog of the imperialist " (帝国主义走狗) could have had the accused imprisoned.

In more recent times, accusations such as "possession of state secret" (拥有国家机密), "inciting the subversion of the state" (煽动推翻国家政权) carry jail terms.

In Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday estimate that perhaps 27 million people died in prisons and labor camps during Mao Tse-tung's rule.[1]

Contents

Counter-revolution

Chinese constitution Article 28. The state maintains public order and suppresses treasonable and other counter- revolutionary activities; it penalizes actions that endanger public security and disrupt the socialist economy and other criminal activities, and punishes and reforms criminals.[2]

The crime of counter-revolution (反革命)was established in February 1951, involving accusations such as the following:

  • collaborating with foreign forces
  • to incite government officials, military personnel and/or people's militia to revolt;
  • taking part in a group revolt using weapons
  • taking part in special agents and/or spy organization

In 1997, this law was replaced by a new law: Inciting subversion of the government.

Lin Biao counter-revolution clique

Lin Biao (林彪反革命集团)was accused of plotting against Mao zedong, and subsequently died in a plane crash in Mongolia.[3][4][5][6]

Jiang Qin(Gang of Four)

Jiang Qing Gang of four counter-revolution clique.

Students reported faculty professor to the police

Professor Yang Siquan (杨师群) of East China University of political science and law was accused and reported to the police for alleged counter-revolution activities by his students. Professor Yang said all he did was writing a blog on ancient Chinese culture, and feel very sad that his own students would reported him on a out of date Maoist era political charge.[7]

Accused

Anti-party and anti-socialism

The Chinese version is (反党反社会主義), which could result in death penalty.

Reactionaries

The accusation of reactionaries(反動份子) often resulted in long jail term and/or death penalty. This accusation was discontinued following the end of the Maoist era.

Class enemy

The accusation of Class enemy (階级敌人)often resulted in long jail term and/or death penalty. With the demise of Maoism in China after the rise of Deng Xiaoping, the use of the term "Class enemy" is now extraordinarily rare in China.

Inciting subversion of the state

Inciting subversion of the state (煽动颠覆国家政权) was announced in a 1997 amendment of PRC criminal law, often used by the regime to prosecute political reform dissidents and petitioners and Weiquan people.

The phrase inciting subversion of the state was claimed by some activists to have been used as a reason to arrest critics of the state in China.

Accused

  • Guo Quan, on 13 Nov 2008 , was arrested in the city of Nanjing. According to his wife, the police's charge was "subversion of state power". Chinese police routinely uses the charge of "subversion of state power"to imprison dissidents for years.[8]
  • Gao Zhisheng, was sentenced in Dec 2006 of 3 years of imprisonment, no political right one year.
  • Liu Xiaobo, was arrested in 2008 due to the publication of Charter 08, but the government has yet present any explanation.
  • Hu Jia (activist), was sentenced in April 2008 of 3 and half years of imprisonment.
  • Huang Qi, was sentenced in Feb 2003 to 5 years of imprisonment, with one year of no political rights.
  • Yang Chunlin, was sentenced in Feb 2008 to 5 years of imprisonment, with 2 years of no political rights.
  • Wang Xiaoning (王小宁) was arrested by the government of the People's Republic of China for publishing controversial material online. In September 2003, Wang was convicted of charges of "inciting the overthrow of the state" and sentenced to ten years in prison.[9]

Inciting splitting of state and sabotage of the state unity

Inciting splitting of state and sabotage of the state unity (煽动分裂国家、破坏国家统一) would also warrant long jail term. The Chinese government used this law to prosecute those who it saw as separatists.

Stealing state secrets

Stealing state secret(竊取國家機密罪) is the crime of stealing state secrets and giving them to foreign powers.

  • Shi Tao in 2005 was sentenced to prison for ten years, and lose his political rights for two years, on the charge of leaking state secrets to foreigners.[10]
  • Song Yongyi宋永毅, a researcher on Cultural revolution, was arrested and jailed by the Chinese government, and was released after the intervention of the US government.[11]

Espionage

Espionage, or being a foreign spy, carries a long jail term and possible death penalty.

Ching Cheong (Chinese: 程翔; pinyin: Chéng Xiáng) (born in 1949) is a senior journalist with The Straits Times. He was imprisoned by the communist government from April 2005 to February 2008 for alleged espionage, namely providing state secrets(國家機密) to Taiwan in exchange of millions of dollars in rewards.

Hong Kong Journalist Association's chairwoman Fan Ho-tsai added the association believed that Ching Cheong is innocent.[12]

See also

Further reading

  • Julia Strauss. "Paternalist Terror: The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and Regime Consolidation in the People's Republic of China, 1950-1953," in Comparative Studies in Society and History 44 (2002), p. 80-105.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. p. 338: "By the general estimate China's prison and labor camp population was roughly 10 million in any one year under Mao. Descriptions of camp life by inmates, which point to high mortality rates, indicate a probable annual death rate of at least 10 per cent."
  2. ^ "CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (Adopted on December 4, 1982)". www.people.com.cn. http://english.people.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html. Retrieved 2009-05-09.  
  3. ^ Hannam, Peter (January 31, 1994). "Solving a Chinese puzzle: Lin Biao's final days and death, after two decades of intrigue". U.S. News & World Report: 54.  
  4. ^ Kozyrev, Andrei (March 24, 1994). "Delo Lin' Biao: zagadka pochti razreshena [The Lin Biao affair: the mystery is almost solved]". Moskovskaya pravda.  
  5. ^ Dmitriev, Iurii (April 9, 1994). "Poslednii polet kitaiskogo marshala [The Last Flight of the Chinese Marshal]". Trud.  
  6. ^ Ivavniuk, Ivan (May 7, 1994). "Marshal Lin' Biao razbilsia v Mongolii [Marshal Lin Biao crashed in Mongolia]". Krasnaia Zvezda.  
  7. ^ "In Chinese:教授被学生举报为反革命续：争议讲课内容曝光". Sina news. 5 Dec 2008. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-12-05/162416791645.shtml. Retrieved 2009-04-30.  
  8. ^ China democracy activist Guo Quan detained. Reported by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS|Date:13 Nov 2008|Cnews World watch
  9. ^ "Chinese couple sue Yahoo! in US over torture case". The Independent. 2007-04-20. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2465946.ece.  
  10. ^ "EastSouthWestNorth: The Case of Shi Tao". http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050501_1.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-21.  
  11. ^ "(Chinese)文革学者宋永毅获释返美". BBC Chinese.com. 29 Jan 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_620000/newsid_623200/623295.stm. Retrieved 2009-05-17.  
  12. ^ Thestandard.com. "The standard.com." The spy who came in from the cold. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.

References

Additional source








Got something to say? Make a comment.
Your name
Your email address
Message