Imprisoned Labour Rights Activists in China

20th Anniversary of 4 June 1989

Hong Kong march in support of the victims of Tiananmen June 2009

IHLO Prisoner list June 2009

Thursday June 4th 209 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Each year, a small handful of prisoners from 1989 are released, some after many years imprisonment and many with the mental and physical scars of long term imprisonment.

The role of workers in the events of 1989 was a crucial role – bridging the gap between the intelligentsia and students and the ordinary people, bringing supplies and carrying news as well as leaving their posts in the hundreds to support the pro-democracy protests throughout China – lending weight to the universality of the calls for change.Each year, a small989 was a crucial role – bridging the gap between the intelligentsia and students and the ordinary people, bringing supplies and carrying news as well as leaving their posts in the hundreds to support the pro-democracy protests throughout China – lending weight to the universality of the calls for change.

The anniversary of the events of 4 June is a time for remembering the hopes of the young people, the workers and the ordinary residents of cities across China. They are also a time for us to remember all those detained for their beliefs in China – including those who are working for labour rights and the right to form independent trade unions. Many of these have been detained for little reason other than their desire to secure their pension or their back wages or indeed for a single day-off a month while others have made labour rights and trade union rights their life’s struggle.

It is unclear just how many workers remain in prison for their role in the events of 1989. One group estimates around 30 remaining prisoners. Yet more workers have been detained in the years since 1989 for calling for an open discussion of June 4 and a reversal of the ‘counter revolutionary’ label applied to the protests which effectively categorize all participants as criminals and subversives.

Each year IHLO maps those detained for their involvement in labour related protests.  Our main list covers only those who have been sentenced to lengthy terms in prison or those assigned to long terms of administrative detention – a punishment that exists outside the safeguards of the criminal justice system. It is impossible to keep records of all the workers picked off the streets after a protest or a strike and forced to undergo police detention and interrogations for a week or so. Once released many find their jobs have disintegrated and their families have been told to make sure they remain compliant in the future.

After 20 years the majority of prisoners involved in Tiananmen, including those workers, have been released. Zhao Changqing for example was released in November 2007. He was first arrested in June 1989 and detained for having organised a Students’ Autonomous Committee. He was arrested again in 1998 attempting to stand for election as a factory representative to the National People’s Congress and publicly criticising the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) for failing to defend workers interests. He was sentenced on charges of “subversion to three years’ imprisonment. After his release in November 2002 Zhao helped circulate an open letter demanding, among other things, an official reassessment of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the release of all political prisoners. One month later Zhao Changqing was for the third time arrested and sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment for “incitement to subvert state power”.

Some notable exceptions remain in detention however – for example Wang Jun, an 18-year-old temporary worker in Xian’s Xincheng Factory who was accused of participating in a “serious political disturbance” on 22 April 1989. Initially sentenced to death, after four sentence-reductions, he is now due for release on 11 May 2011 when he will be around 40 years old.

Annual crackdowns

The importance of  4 June is shown not just in the annual demonstrations and vigils that take place all over the world but also in the continued repression and harassment of activists, dissidents and anyone likely to ‘cause trouble’ in the run up to 4 June. Just recently scores of journalists, academics and media outlets have been put under higher surveillance. Last week authorities effectively disbarred some of the most high profile civil rights lawyers as part of a carefully orchestrated campaign of intimidation and legal harassment. Lawyers defending civil rights cases, including labour related cases, have long been a target for official crackdowns but this time at least 18 human rights lawyers have had their annual registrations put on hold. According to rights groups, these ‘18 or so lawyers whose work may be stymied belong to a loose network of advocates who have challenged the government over deaths in prison and labour-reeducation camps, farmers stripped of their land, children sickened by toxic milk powder and other sensitive cases.’

Calls for employment rights and benefits for released Tiananmen prisoners

Many petitions and high profile circular letters emerge periodically – such as Charter 2008 – and are signed by leading dissidents, including some labour activists. This year five former prisoners from 4 June in Zhejiang Province, Wu Gaoxing (吴高兴), Chen Longde (陈龙德), Wang Donghai (王东海), Mao Guoliang (毛国良), and Ye Wenxiang (叶文相) released an open letter.

The letter is concerned with the fate of prisoners released from detention after serving sentences for involvement in the 1989 protests. Many were given heavy sentences, and some were even executed but even though most of these imprisoned have served their time and have been released, they still bear the label of "June Fourth thugs." Many of them have been stripped of their work insurance and retirement benefits. They do not have housing and cannot find work. The years in prison have caused them to be in poor health but they cannot get medical treatment—some can't even get the most basic insurance. The open letter calls on the Chinese government to release those June Fourth political prisoners who are still in jail as soon as possible.

For those already released, the letter urges the government to guarantee them social rights and benefits, and help them solve the problems regarding their livelihood, medical treatment, retirement, and survival.

Human Right in China issued and translated the English version of the letter which is here and below.

The IHLO list of currently imprisoned labour related activists and those who have supported worker rights – such as lawyers and academics – is found here. This list, issued for the 20th anniversary of the 4 June anniversary also contains some details of those recently released and those who are believed to be detained but whose whereabouts are unknown.

More details can be found on the IHLO website and Duihua and HRIC

IHLO Prisoner list June 2009

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Following is the open letter in English translation by HRIC.

Open Letter to Central Government Seeking Right of Economic Redress for June Fourth Victims
Chairman Wu Bangguo of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao:

We come from four different districts in Zhejiang Province, and are victims of the June Fourth Incident of 1989 and their fellow prisoners. Twenty years ago, each one of us had a secure job and a steady income, but since our imprisonment after the June 4, 1989, crackdown, we not only lost our jobs, we were also stripped of the cumulative benefits of our past labor and lost our pension rights. Of the five of us, some are now past retirement age, yet have no source of income to cover living expenses and no medical insurance; others, although they have not yet reached retirement age, are middle-aged and have no choice but to drift from place to place doing temporary manual labor to support their families, while living apart from their wives. In this society that claims to be harmonious, we have become "first-class citizens of three have-nots": we have no regular jobs, no pensions, and no health insurance; if we get sick, we can only wait to die, and all this just because twenty years ago we were sentenced for political reasons!

For the past 20 years, the civic figures among us have been issuing endless appeals to the central government demanding redress of June Fourth, like cuckoo birds crying until they spit blood. One of us, Chen Longde, ended up paying a heavy price for those appeals: unable to bear prison mistreatment, he jumped out of a window attempting suicide, broke the femur in his right thigh and suffered permanent disability. But the government has been afraid all along that redressing June Fourth would open the floodgates, and so a belief among the people that the party is not qualified to redress June Fourth has gradually become the mainstream point of view and the June Fourth Issue has turned into a Gordian knot. We are presently no longer concerned with how the government which is held in power by the noble party will evaluate June Fourth politically, but what we must emphasize is that an individual's political problems should be separated from economic problems. A person cannot be deprived of the fundamental rights of survival and development because of political problems. In any case, we have accrued benefits of our past labor, and this accrual, like a bank deposit, cannot be expropriated. We believe that, including those among us who have received prison sentences in the June Fourth crackdown, we all have the right to enjoy the comfort of our old age based on the accrued benefits of our past labor, and the right to return to our original workplaces to resume our jobs; this is incontrovertible.

We therefore request of you the following:

First, let all previously employed June Fourth victims who have already passed the retirement age retire based on their work at their original work units; as for those June Fourth victims who did not originally belong to a work unit and did not purchase old age insurance, have the government assume the responsibility to provide for their old age.

Second, regarding all previously employed June Fourth victims who have not yet reached retirement age and whose original work units still exists, have the government step forward to arrange their return, provided they wish so themselves, to their original work units and implement equal pay for equal work; as for those victims whose original work units have been dissolved, resolve the issue of compensation and social security in the manner accorded other employees at their former units. We believe that separating political issues from economic issues and resolving economic problems left behind by June Fourth case by case is a good way to resolve conflict and promote social stability, and may gradually untie the June Fourth Gordian knot; it is a way to provide a soft landing of the June Fourth Issue while maintaining social stability. We think that this is consistent with the wishes shared by both those responsible for the June Fourth crackdown and its victims, and that it is, naturally, an aspiration shared by all people of good conscience. Moreover, it completely conforms to the guidelines of the noble Party's major policy to construct a harmonious society. We hope the Central Government will seriously consider our suggestions and requests!

Citizens:
Wu Gaoxing (吴高兴), former Director, Political Affairs Department, Zhejiang Taizhou Supply and Marketing School (now Taizhou Vocational and Technical College).
Chen Longde (陈龙德), former Zhejiang Aluminum Products Factory worker
Wang Donghai (王东海), former Manager, Wenlan Market in Hangzhou
Mao Guoliang (毛国良), former teacher Huzhou City, Anji No. 4 High School
Ye Wenxiang (叶文相), former accountant, Jinhua Lanxi City Agricultural Bank
cc:
Secretariat of the CCP Central Committee