HRIC Press ReleaseDissidents Sentenced in Unrelated
Murder Trial
September 23, 2004
Sources in China have told Human Rights in China (HRIC) that two Chinese
democracy activists, Kong Youping and Ning Xianhua, have been
imprisoned in relation to a murder in which they had no involvement.
Informed sources told HRIC that the principal defendants in the case were
Fan Zhenwen and Lü Zhengtao, residents of Niuzhuang Town,
Haicheng City, Liaoning Province. On September 16 the Shenyang Intermediate
People’s Court reportedly sentenced both men to death for murder. Sources
indicate that Ning Xianhua and Kong Youping had originally been charged by
the Shenyang Procuratorate in a separate, unrelated case. While Ning Xianhua
was acquainted with Fan Zhenwen, sources state that neither he nor Kong had
anything to do with the murder. However, their cases were apparently
consolidated with Fan and Lü’s cases, and in its judgment on September 16
the Shenyang Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Kong and Ning to 15 and
12 years in prison, respectively.
Kong Youping was born in Liaoning Province in 1952. Although he originally
worked as the union chairman at a state-owned enterprise, his support for
protests by laid-off workers and his sharp criticism of government
corruption and suppression led to his dismissal from both the factory and
the union. In the late 1990s, a group of political dissidents, including
Kong Youping, were working to establish a branch of the China Democracy
Party (CDP) in Liaoning Province. Kong Youping was detained in 1999 along
with fellow CDP members Wang Zechen, Wang Wenjiang and Liu Shizun, and was
imprisoned for a year on charges of “incitement to subvert state power”
under article 105 of the Chinese Criminal Law.
Sources familiar with Kong’s current detention state that the indictment
points to evidence of politically sensitive activities such as planning the
establishment of an independent union and posting articles on the Internet
that criticized official corruption, called for a reassessment of the June
4th Massacre, and advocated the release of detained Internet essayist Liu Di.
Sources indicate that Ning Xianhua, born in Shenyang Province in 1961, was
indicted on similar charges, accused of serving as the vice-chairman of
CDP’s Liaoning branch. Sources state that the indictment also accuses Ning
of providing information to people outside of China from 2001 to 2003, and
accepting financial support from abroad. The indictment accuses Ning and
Kong of inciting discontent and encouraging the overthrow of the Chinese
government.
Sources familiar with the relevant indictment state that it attempts to tie
the murder suspects to the political dissidents by vaguely asserting that
Fan Zhenwen had been a member of the CDP at one time.
“The use of a political association as a means of drawing unrelated
individuals into a murder charge suggests immense procedural irregularities
and misuse of the Chinese Criminal Procedure Law in order to target
political activists,” said HRIC president Liu Qing. “If the indictments
against Kong and Ning do not indicate involvement in the murder case, there
should be a reexamination of their trial to ensure that facts and procedure
have not been manipulated simply to target political dissidents. The two
dissidents’ activities in Shenyang are within the bounds of lawful human
rights activities under international standards, and they do not exceed the
rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association protected in
China’s own constitution.” HRIC calls for a reassessment of Kong and Ning’s
trials and a judgment of their cases based solely on the basis of their
actual activities in the context of international rights and freedoms. |