Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA

RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE

Research Response Number: CHN31289 Country: China Date: 14 February 2007 Keywords: China – Pro-democracy activists – 4 June 1989

This response was prepared by the Country Research Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to

the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Questions 1. Current treatment of activists from the 4 June 1989 movement. RESPONSE 1. Current treatment of activists from the 4 June 1989 movement. It appears that the PRC authorities have not treated all the activists from the 4 June 1989 movement consistently although no one knows how many of them there are and their treatment. The government’s harsh treatment immediately after the incident gave way to a differentiated handling of some activists and their relatives depending on their profile, influence and the government’s perception of the prevailing political situation. One of the important variables is for now the government’s preoccupation with the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. While many activists who participated in the 4 June 1989 movement (variously called Tiananmen Square Incident, June 4 Massacre or Beijing Spring) have been released, a few of them at least remain behind bars. Still some of those released are subjected to harassment and interference. In June 2006, the Amnesty International Canada raised cases of concern over the four long term detainees of the 4 June 1989 movement. Of the four, two were released and the rest are still in jail. One of the two released continues to suffer harassment for his work campaigning for the human rights of others. Details of the four cases as reported by Amnesty International Canada are as follows:

In February 2006, Yu Dongyue was released after 16 years of wrongful imprisonment. Periodic beatings, torture and years in solitary confinement left him with his mental health severely damaged. A former journalist and deputy editor of the Liuyang Daily, Yu was imprisoned in 1989 for “counter-revolutionary sabotage and incitement” after throwing paint at the Tiananmen Square portrait of Mao Zedong.

Qi Zhiyong, a pro-democracy activist, suffered gunshot injuries during the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy demonstration, which left him disabled. He continues to suffer harassment for his work campaigning for the human rights of others. Liu Zhihua was arrested for taking part in a demonstration against the government’s violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement just after 4 June 1989 with over 1,000 other workers at his factory in Hunan. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 for “hooliganism” and “injury with intent”. After sentence reductions, he is now due to be released in 2011. Hu Shigen was a member of the “Beijing 15”, a group of labour and democracy activists. He was detained in 1992 for planning 4 June memorial activities and later tried for “counter-revolutionary crimes”. As a senior member of the group, Hu received the heaviest sentence of 20 years in prison. His health has deteriorated so much that his friends fear he will not live to see his scheduled release in 2012. His family’s requests for medical parole have not been answered by the authorities. (‘China: Tiananmen 17 years on – the victims deserve justice’ 2006, Amnesty International Canada http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/china_tiananmen_2006.php – Accessed 8 February 2007 – Attachment 1).

In 2004 the Reporters without Frontiers commented that over the last 15 years, more than 130 journalists and Internet users have been jailed, of whom 43 directly participated in “Beijing Spring.” Among them, three are still behind bars – Yu Dongyue, Chen Yanbin and Liu Jingsheng (‘Fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre’ 2004, Reporters without Borders, 4 June http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=10509 – Accessed 13 February 2007 – Attachment 2). However, Yu Dongyue and Chen Yanbin were subsequently released although Chen Yanbin remained deprived of his civil and political rights for the next four years (‘China: Tiananmen 17 years on – the victims deserve justice’ 2006, Amnesty International Canada http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/china_tiananmen_2006.php – Accessed 8 February 2007 – Attachment 1; ‘CHINA: Dissident journalist Chen Yanbin released after more than 14 years in prison’ 2005, Reporters Without Borders, 28 April – Attachment 3). The Reporters without Frontiers also notes that the journalists who participated in the Beijing Spring are harassed and interfered with even after their release (‘Fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre’ 2004, Reporters without Borders, 4 June http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=10509 – Accessed 13 February 2007 – Attachment 2). Another sign of improvement came in the wake of the government’s relaxation of media curbs in the face of the Beijing 2008 Olypmic Games. Bao Tong, the most senior official jailed over the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests was allowed to meet a reporter in his first face-to-face interview since 1998. He has been a thorn in the government’s side and an outspoken critic of China’s human rights abuses and monopoly on power since he was freed in 1996. Bao has lived under tight, around-the-clock surveillance ever since, with media access denied. The Foreign Ministry said in December 2006 that China would allow foreign reporters to travel and report more freely across most of the country in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, but the relaxed rules will expire on October 17, 2008, after the Games end (‘CHINA: China sticks, in part, to vow on media freedom’ 2007, Reuters, 1 January – Attachment 4). A further sign of the relaxation comes from a visit by a senior official representing the Chinese Government to a group of the “Tiananmen mothers” whose children were massacred in the

suppression of the Beijing Spring and the payment of “hardship assistance” by the government to the Tiananmen-related victim’s family. A senior official representing the Chinese Government went in person to the home of Professor Ding Zilin, leader of the “Tiananmen mothers”, whose children were massacred in the suppression of the Beijing Spring and told that a review of the June 4 1989 crackdown was “out of the question”(‘Case closed, Beijing tells Tiananmen activists’ 2004, SMH, 31 May http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855439948.html# – Accessed 8 February 2007 – Attachment 5). Tang Deying whose son died in the aftermath of the 1989 pro-democracy protests was given 70,000 yuan ($8,745) in “hardship assistance” by officials in the south-west city of Chengdu (‘China makes 1989 Tiananmen payout’ 2006, BBC, 30 April http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia-pacific/4960762.stm – Accessed 13 February 2007 – Attachment 6). Despite the change in the government treatment of some activists and their relatives, concern has been raised over the less well-known activists imprisoned in the wake of the Tiananmen incident. In 2006, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions noted that:

Dozens of independent labour activists and leaders jailed in previous years remained in prison in 2004... They include activists, notably members of the Workers’ Autonomous Federations (WAF), arrested in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989, and the protests that followed. Most of those imprisoned at this time were sentenced to harsh prison terms for crimes such as “counter-revolution” or “hooliganism”, neither of which exist in present Chinese criminal law (although they have to a large extent been replaced by charges such as “threatening the security of the State” and “disturbing public order”) (‘China, People’s Republic of: Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights (2006)’ 2006, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991223931&Language=EN – Accessed 8 February 2007 – Attachment 7).

As early as in 1993, the Chinese government claimed that it had freed all the students jailed for their involvement in June 1989 movement but its credibility was doubted. (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 1994, DFAT Report No. BJ851 – China: Release of dissidents, 25 February – Attachment 8).

List of Sources Consulted Internet Sources: Government Information & Reports Immigration & Refugee Board of Canada http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/ UK Home Office http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ US Department of State http://www.state.gov/ United Nations (UN) Non-Government Organisations Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org Freedom House website http://www.freedomhouse.org/ International News & Politics BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk Region Specific Links Asian Centre for Human Rights http://www.achrweb.org Search Engines Copernic http://www.copernic.com/ Databases: FACTIVA (news database) BACIS (DIMA Country Information database) REFINFORMATION (IRBDC (Canada) Country Information database) ISYS (RRT Country Research database, including Amnesty International, Human Rights

Watch, US Department of State Reports) RRT Library Catalogue

List of Attachments

1. ‘China: Tiananmen 17 years on – the victims deserve justice’ 2006, Amnesty International Canada. (http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/china_tiananmen_2006.php – Accessed 8 February 2007)

2. ‘Fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre’ 2004, Reporters without

Borders, 4 June. (http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=10509 – Accessed 13 February 2007)

3. ‘CHINA: Dissident journalist Chen Yanbin released after more than 14 years in prison’

2005, Reporters Without Borders, 28 April. (CISNET China CX168650)

4. ‘CHINA: China sticks, in part, to vow on media freedom’ 2007, Reuters, 1 January. (CISNET China CX167890)

5. ‘Case closed, Beijing tells Tiananmen activists’ 2004, SMH, 31 May.

(http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855439948.html# – Accessed 8 February 2007)

6. ‘China makes 1989 Tiananmen payout’ 2006, BBC, 30 April.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia-pacific/4960762.stm – Accessed 13 February 2007)

7. ‘China, People’s Republic of: Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights

(2006)’ 2006, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. (http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991223931&Language=EN – Accessed 8 February 2007)

8. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 1994, DFAT Report No. BJ851 – China:

Release of dissidents, 25 February). (CISNET China CX1627)