(HRW/IFEX) – In an open letter to United States of America President Bill Clinton, the Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee calls on the President to speak out forcefully in support of both academic and political freedom during his planned visits to university campuses in China. During his upcoming state visit, the President is scheduled […]
(HRW/IFEX) – In an open letter to United States of America President Bill
Clinton, the Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee calls on the
President to speak out forcefully in support of both academic and political
freedom during his planned visits to
university campuses in China.
During his upcoming state visit, the President is scheduled to appear in a
welcoming ceremony at Tiananmen Square and to deliver a major speech at
Beijing University. Emphasizing that the President’s presence at such
locations will have “immense
symbolic importance” for democracy advocates throughout China, the letter
urges the President to seize the opportunity by publicly stressing the
inseparable link between intellectual and political freedom, and by drawing
attention to cases of Chinese academics currently in jail for expressing
their views.
Countless Chinese scholars and students have lost their lives or seen their
careers destroyed for their defence of democratic principles at Beijing
University, from the student-led May 4 Movement of 1919 to the pro-democracy
movement that ended with
the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. “What President Clinton chooses to
say during his Beijing University address will be an important test of
whether `engagement’ has any human rights underpinnings,” said Human Rights
Watch academic freedom specialist Joseph Saunders. “If you can’t say what
you believe on campus, where can you?” he added.
A copy of the letter follows.
“June 18, 1998
“President Bill Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.
“Dear President Clinton:
“We understand that during your upcoming state visit to China you will be
delivering a speech at Beijing University and will make an appearance at
Tiananmen Square as part of the Chinese government’s welcoming ceremony. On
behalf of the Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee, a group of
scholars and academic leaders organized in 1991 to protest restrictions on
academic freedom and abuse of the basic rights of educators and students
world-wide, we urge that you use every opportunity afforded by your visit,
in particular your speech at Beijing University, to speak out forcefully in
support of academic freedom and the basic rights of the scholarly community
in China.
“Your public endorsement of academic freedom will have immense symbolic
importance for Chinese scholars and students. As you know, academics and
students at Beijing University and elsewhere have long played a leading role
in the push for democracy and
freedom in China, from the May Fourth movement of 1919 to the Tiananmen
Square democracy movement of 1989. In both 1919 and 1989, many of China’s
leading scholars and students called for `Democracy and Science,’ realizing
that the freedom to pursue
research and scholarship unfettered by censorship and persecution cannot be
separated from basic political freedoms. The following comments, published
in 1995, still hold: `A dictatorship is never interested in academic
freedom. This is because such freedom represents the most effective
constraint on power; it is an uncontrollable source of potential opposition
. . . . Why is it that people who do research and are involved in education
have always conflicted with [authoritarian rule]? The answer is quite
simple: the basic spirit and methods of science require free research, which
directly conflicts with an ideology of tyranny.’ (Fang Lizhi, `China:
Academic Freedom and Ideological Barriers.’)
“Although Chinese citizens and scholars enjoy more freedom of expression and
greater liberty to comment on political subjects than they did in the years
immediately following the suppression of the pro-democracy movement at
Tiananmen Square and throughout
China in 1989, the authorities continue to imprison dissidents and to impose
far-reaching ideological controls on the academic community. Your visit to
Beijing University presents you with the opportunity to deliver a message to
the tens of thousands of Chinese scientists, scholars, and students who
cherish intellectual freedom and know firsthand the costs of political
intolerance and repression for the development of Chinese science and
society. If you are silent, you will send a message of tacit endorsement for
the Chinese authorities’ repressive policies. If you publicly emphasize the
close connection between scholarly autonomy and protection of citizens’
basic right to free expression, and publicly draw attention to the cases of
Chinese academics still in prison for expressing their views, you will send
a strong message of support to those in China who have been
most courageous in standing for freedom.
“A university earns respect and achieves intellectual excellence when
academics are not forced to support a government, an economic agenda, or a
political ideology, but rather are free to use their talents to advance
human knowledge and understanding. In China, that freedom is fettered by
damaging ideological and institutional constraints, the imprisonment of
critical academics, and foreign exile and denial of re-entry to those who
freely speak their minds.
“Ideological and Institutional Controls
“Ideological surveillance remains a significant barrier to intellectual
freedom in China. This is not simply the legacy of decades past. In 1997,
the government introduced a host of new regulations and restrictions
expressly aimed at strengthening ideological training and Communist Party
control over universities in China.
“- In January 1997, the government announced new censorship regulations,
effective February 1, banning all publications that questioned the
legitimacy of communist rule or were not in line with `socialist morality.’
“- In April 1997, the government announced arbitrary new restrictions on
public opinion research, household surveys, and studies of demographics,
important tools for understanding citizens’ attitudes toward economic reform
and other social and
political issues.
“- A memo from the Propaganda Ministry, the Office of the Secretary of the
Politburo, and the Office of the State Council, also made public in April
1997, announced that all social science projects involving foreign funding
henceforth would require approval from the Public Security Bureau and
National Security and Foreign ministries. The new restrictions coincided
with a campaign at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences against `theories
and opinions that are against Marxism, the leadership of the Party and the
people’s democratic dictatorship
“- In June 1997, the well-publicized Sixth National Conference on Party
Building in Institutions of Higher Education called on all members of the
academic community to firmly pursue the party’s line, principles, and
policies, echoing a government decree issued in October 1996 ordering
university administrators to consult campus-based Communist Party
representatives on all major decisions.
“- Also in June, academics in Beijing were ordered to inform the police in
advance if they planned to hold conferences attended by more than twenty
participants, regardless of location. Scholars wishing to engage in exchange
programs or joint activities with foreign and Taiwanese institutions were
required to secure prior permission from the Ministry of State Security, the
Ministry of Public Security, and the State Education Commission, as well as
from local, campus-based Communist Party committees.
“- New controls on the Internet also were introduced in 1997, requiring all
Internet service providers to apply for licenses from the authorities and
provide data on the scope and nature of their activities. Meanwhile, dozens
of World Wide Web sites that had been proscribed and electronically blocked
by the government in 1996, including those of overseas-based dissident
groups and human rights organizations, remain inaccessible to the country’s
estimated several hundred thousand Internet users.
“- Finally, the Chinese government continues to deny visas and research
access to overseas scholars, including many prominent American sinologists,
whose works the government finds ideologically or politically objectionable.
“Arrest and Imprisonment of Critical Academics
“Although the China National People’s Congress in 1997 removed the
counterrevolutionary acts provision from the criminal code and replaced it
with `endangering state security,’ and although the Chinese government has
released a number of dissidents in the past year, numerous proponents of
democratic reform remain behind
bars. Although we are unable to present a complete list of cases because the
government strictly limits access to information on political prisoners,
individual cases that you should raise with Chinese authorities include:
“- Chen Lantao, a thirty-seven year-old marine biologist, was sentenced in
1989 to eighteen years in jail, with five years subsequent deprivation of
political rights. Although he was charged with `counterrevolutionary
propaganda and incitement’ (since dropped from the criminal code) and
`disturbing the social order and traffic,’ Chen apparently was arrested for
a speech delivered just days after the June fourth incident in which he
excoriated the government for the crackdown and called for political reform.
“- Ngawang Choephel, a thirty-five-year-old U.S.-based Tibetan
ethnomusicologist, was sentenced in December 1996 to eighteen years in
prison by a Lhasa court for alleged `espionage’ in connection with research
he had been carrying out in Tibet.
“- Li Hai, a former philosophy student from Beijing University who had been
detained incommunicado since May 1995, was sentenced in late 1996 to nine
years in prison on state secrets-related charges for compiling a list of
names and other details of Beijing residents still in prison in connection
with the 1989 pro-democracy movement.
“- In January 1997, five prominent dissidents from Guiyang, detained since
mid-1995 for advocating democratic reform, were tried and sentenced for
alleged `subversive activities.’ Chen Xi, leader of the group and a lecturer
at Guizhou Jinzhu University,
received a ten-year prison term. The other men received sentences ranging
from two to five years.
“- Two members of the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, Hada and
Tegexi, were sentenced to fifteen and ten years in prison respectively on
charges of separatism and espionage on December 6, 1996, had their appeals
rejected in late January 1997. Both are being held in a crowded cell in
Inner Mongolia No.1 Prison. The two were part of a group of ten
intellectuals arrested in late 1995 for their association with the Alliance,
a social organization to promote Mongolian culture and `the concept of a
high degree of autonomy for China’s minorities as guaranteed by the
constitution.’ In two peaceful
protests following the arrests, some 200 people including university
students and teachers demonstrated their support for those arrested. Police
broke up the demonstrations and held more than several dozen for
questioning. Hada and his wife managed the Mongolian Academic Bookshop in
Hohhot. The bookstore was closed after Hada’s arrest and its contents
confiscated. His wife has twice petitioned two government agencies to permit
her to reopen it. Neither agency has replied.
“- Wang Youcai, No. 15 on the government’s most wanted students list after
the 1989 pro-democracy movement and a former Beijing University student, was
held for eight days beginning on April 27, 1998, when he tried to
participate in the celebration of Beijing University’s one-hundredth
anniversary. To keep him from contact with current students, Wang was
returned to Hangzhou on April 28 and held until May 5.
“Forced Exile
“The Chinese authorities also continue to violate the basic civil and
political rights of Chinese intellectuals who dare to express their views by
sending them into forced exile and by denying them permission to visit
academic colleagues, family, and friends in China. As you know, dissident
leaders Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan were among those released into forced
exile in the past year. They are just two of dozens of exiles who are
prohibited from returning to China. Until all Chinese are free to express
their views in China, the release of dissidents cannot be called an
unqualified victory for democracy or human rights.
“Many other Chinese now residing overseas face harassment upon return to
China. Most recently, Li Xiaorong, a researcher at the University of
Maryland who now holds an American passport, flew to China in early April
1998 to visit her parents. She had just arrived at her parents’ house in
Sichuan province when the police came and took her away, driving her to the
airport that night. She believes that she was forced out of the country as a
result of her active support of human rights in China.
“By speaking frankly on the above subjects during your speech at Beijing
University and at every other opportunity afforded by your visit to China,
you can send a strong signal of support to the Chinese academic community
and to advocates of freedom and democracy both in China and abroad.
“Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
“Sincerely yours,
“Fang Lizhi
Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee
Professor of Physics, University of Arizona
“Jonathan F. Fanton
Co-Chair, Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee
President, New School for Social Research”