WIFE OF SICHUAN DISSIDENT HUANG QI DISCUSSES HIS CASE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 CHENGDU 000006

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/6/2035
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL CH
SUBJECT: WIFE OF SICHUAN DISSIDENT HUANG QI DISCUSSES HIS CASE

REF: A) CHENGDU 99; B) CHENGDU 141; C) CHENGDU 182; D) BEIJING 402

CHENGDU 00000006 001.2 OF 004


CLASSIFIED BY: David E. Brown, Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General Chengdu.
REASON: 1.4 (d)

1. (C) Summary: Zeng Li, wife of imprisoned Sichuan dissident
Huang Qi, told Consul General January 4th that she has not been
allowed to see her husband since he was sentenced on November
23, 2009 to three years imprisonment for possession of state
secrets. Zeng fears for Huang's health -- she is not allowed to
send in medicine for an old head injury incurred during his
previous imprisonment and he has one lump/tumor (rouliu) on his
left chest, and two on his abdomen. The "secrets" possessed
were documents on how to stop local peasants from appealing for
redress to higher levels, which local government officials had
put online, apparently by mistake. Zeng said Huang's post-quake
work to help parents whose children had been killed by shoddy
school construction, not the possession of the "secret"
documents, was the real reason for Huang's prosecution.




2. (C) Huang was arrested at the behest of former Sichuan
Province Party Secretary, and now CCP Central Committee
Political and Law Committee Chairman and Politburo Member, Zhou
Yongkang for helping bereaved parents protest the deaths of
their children. Zeng discussed egregious violations of PRC
court procedures during the trial and sentencing of Huang, and
then sketched Huang Qi's career from helping a Chengdu mother
whose daughter died following Chengdu's June 4, 1989
demonstrations, to working with police to help trafficked women
and children, to becoming a target of police investigations for
helping peasants seek redress after their land had been seized
in collusion of local officials. Zeng said that she and her
son, both of whom have passports, wish to go to the United
States, where her 18-year-old son hopes to attend college. End
Summary.




3. (C) On January 4, Consul General picked up Zeng in his car
and brought her inside the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu so
that she could not be stopped at the gate by Chinese police, had
she entered as a pedestrian. CG opened by: telling Zeng of the
US government's concern for human rights cases like Huang Qi's;
provided her with a Chinese translation of Secretary Clinton's
December 14, 2009 speech "U.S. Human Rights Agenda for 21st
Century;" and expressed the personal hope that, at some point in
the future, Chinese citizens would recognize Huang Qi as a hero.




Huang Qi Convicted August 5, Sentenced Nov 23 For Quake Activism

-------------- --------------




4. (C) Zeng Li then explained that her husband had been
convicted on November 23, 2009, ostensibly for "illegal
possession of documents that are state secrets," an offense he
had ostensibly committed two years before. The offense was
connected to the posting of two documents on Huang's website,
64tianwang.com, and the presence of a third document on Huang
Qi's computer hard drive. Chinese local government officials
had previously put the documents online, apparently by mistake,
and Huang Qi had reposted them. The three documents discussed
how local governments should prevent local peasants from
carrying their petitions for redress to higher levels including
Beijing.




5. (C) Zeng said that, contrary to official claims (ref D),his
support for parent petitioners who lost children in shoddily
built schools that collapsed in the May 12, 2008 earthquake was
the real reason for Zeng's prosecution. From May 13, 2008 until
his arrest on June 10, 2008, Huang made 14 trips to the
earthquake zone to bring aid that he had collected from
donations. Zeng believes that the Chinese government arrested
Huang due to his earthquake-related criticism because:

-- Huang Qi told his Beijing-based human rights lawyer, Mo
Shaoping, that he was intensively interrogated about his
post-quake activities during the first half month after his
arrest. During this period, his interrogators never raised the
issue of "secret documents."

-- Mo Shaoping also told her that the director of the Chengdu
Detention Center (Anjing Township, Pi County) had told him when
he asked to see his client that, "No, you may not. I have a
written order forbidding any visitors for the prisoner signed by
Zhou Yongkang, Chairman of the CCP Political and Legal
Committee" [Zhengfa Weiyuanhui]. The lawyer was also told that
Zhou Yongkang had ordered Huang first taken into custody and

CHENGDU 00000006 002.2 OF 004


then the details worked out later ("xianzhan houzou"). Zhou had
visited Chengdu just two days before Huang's arrest.



PRC Legal Procedures Repeatedly Violated at Trial and Sentencing

-------------- --------------




6. (C) Zeng said that Huang Qi's trial was originally scheduled
for February 2009, but was delayed when the lawyer protested
that he had been notified one afternoon for trial the next
morning, a violation of PRC legal procedure. At Huang Qi's
August 5 trial, only Zeng and her son attended from among
Huang's family and many supporters. The courtroom was packed
beforehand with police and other government workers in order to
keep the general public out. Zeng explained that Huang was
defended by the two lawyers, Mo Shaoping and Ding Xikui, who
also defended Liu Xiaobo and other Chinese Democratic Party and
rights protection movement activists. Zeng said that, during
Huang's trial, the prosecutor could say whatever he wanted, and
even interrupt the judge, but that the defense lawyers were
constantly interrupted. The family asked permission for Huang
Qi's father, who had late-stage lung cancer, to see him in the
detention center where Huang Qi has been held since his arrest
on June 3, 2008. Permission was refused, and the father died
last August.




7. (C) At the November 23 sentencing hearing, the verdict was
read out, but with no specific reference to the evidence, just
unnamed "secret documents." Huang Qi's lawyers were not able to
attend because of the short notice before the hearing. Huang Qi
was not given a chance to speak. The judge did not ask him, as
PRC regulations require, whether he wished to appeal the
sentence. As the judge said "Take him away", Zeng spoke up,
yelling "Huang Qi wants to appeal," the judge told her to keep
quiet, then Huang Qi shouted "I have a right to speak. I want
to appeal. You didn't give me a chance to speak." On November
26, Huang Qi's lawyers called the judges at the court to say
that Huang Qi would appeal. The judges kept hanging up whenever
they heard Huang Qi's name. Finally, the lawyer called another
judge on the court not involved in the case and said "This is an
official communication from a legal counsel. Huang Qi appeals."
The appeal was accepted, although Zeng does not expect Huang's
sentence to change. Zeng did not receive a copy of the verdict.
Zeng says she is in regular contact with foreign media to try to
maintain international interest in Huang Qi's case.



Wife Fears for Huang Qi's Health

--------------




8. (C) Zeng said that the detention center refuses to accept
the medicine Huang had been taking daily for his the severe head
injury he had suffered as a result of beatings during his first
imprisonment during 2000 - 2005. As a result of that trauma,
his memory has been severely affected, Zeng said. Huang has
been sleeping extremely poorly, as little as two hours a night,
and has been suffering health palpitations, likely due to stress
and exhaustion. She said he also has two tumors growing on his
chest. Zeng said that according to PRC regulations she would
not be allowed to see him until at least six weeks after his
sentence is final. The lawyer told her that the Detention
Center was unheated and had a concrete floor. Prisoners sleep
on shelves built into the wall.



-------------- --

Four Tales From Huang Qi's Long Activist Career

-------------- --




I. Aid to Petitioner re June 4, 1989 Detention Death

-------------- --------------




9. (C) Zeng told Consul General four stories drawn from Huang
Qi's long activist career.

CHENGDU 00000006 003.2 OF 004






10. (SBU) Huang Qi supported the petitions to the authorities
by the mother of a 16-year old girl who had been killed in
prison immediately after Chengdu's large demonstrations of June
4, 1989 (the same day as the Tiananmen protests in Beijing).
Later in the 1990s, Huang worked closely with police to help
trafficked women and children and sometimes took on difficult
cases that had frustrated and embarrassed the police.



II. Rescuing Women Trafficked to

Sichuan Party Secretary's Hometown

--------------




11. (SBU) For example, Huang persuaded the Sichuan Provincial
Public Security Bureau (PSB) to send six armed officers to the
county seat of Renshou County, where six peasant girls had been
gone after accepting a false job offer by a restaurateur who
turned out to be a whorehouse operator. The girls were raped on
the first night and forced into slavery, except for a seventh
girl who jumped from a balcony and escaped. The father of one
of the girls appealed to the Chengdu police who said that they
could not help because the case was outside of their geographic
jurisdiction. After leaving, the father noticed Huang Qi's
office sign, which was in the same building as a Chengdu City
Public Security office. Since Renshou County had a reputation
for gangster ties to local government, six armed officers from
Sichuan PSB accompanied Huang Qi, the father, the escaped girl,
and a reporter from the Sichuan Public Security's
internal-distribution-only periodical, "Jingyan." When they
arrived at the scene, they were told that the girls had gone to
another county, and reminded that this was the home county of
the then Sichuan Province Party Secretary, Zhou Yongkang. Not
believing that the girls had left, the public security officer
insisted that the girls be handed over and, in the end, the
girls were surrendered to the provincial public security
officers. County public security and county officials were
among the "clients" of the girls who had been forced into
prostitution.



III. PM Zhu Rongji Hears of Theft of

Peasant Salaries Through Internal Media

--------------




12. (SBU) Huang Qi also publicized cases he heard of involving
the deduction, in the form of various "miscellaneous fees," of
about one quarter of the salaries of Sichuan peasants sent
overseas for two years to work by the then Sichuan Province
Labor Export Office. Chinese television journalists came to
report the story for a famed evening magazine show "Jiaodian
Fangtan," but were forbidden to broadcast the story. However,
in the end a Chinese journalist did write up the story in a
government internal-distribution-only news report, which caught
the attention of then Prime Minister Zhu Rongji. After Zhu
ordered the problem fixed and measures taken so that it never
happen again in China, Huang Qi was visited in his office by Pu
Lieping of the Sichuan branch of the State Security Office
(Guo'an ting). Pu abused Huang verbally and physically, waved a
letter, and said Zhu Rongji had heard of this, and if you do
this again, we will get you.



IV. Website, Focus on Human Rights Led to Subversion Conviction

-------------- --------------




13. (SBU) In the years before running afoul again of Chinese
judicial authorities, Huang Qi's website, 64-tianwang.com, at
first publicized mostly cases of families looking for
disappeared women and human rights issues. The name of the
website comes from the date of its founding, June 4, 1999 an
oblique reference to the taboo topic of Tiananmen. The website
won praise from the Chinese media for its work on trafficking.
However, Huang Qi's help to the plight of the weaker members of
society, including peasants seeking redress after losing their
land, alarmed government and party officials. Huang Qi moved

CHENGDU 00000006 004.2 OF 004


the server to the United States to put it out of the reach of
Chinese authorities. The BBS on the website became a forum for
many activists including the China Democratic Party, Tiananmen
veterans like Wang Dan, and Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.
Huang Qi was arrested on June 3, 2000, held for many months in
violation of PRC legal procedures, and indicted for incitement
to splitting the country and incitement to overthrow state
power. The splittism charge was dropped but he was convicted on
the subversion charge, sentenced to five years in jail, and
released in 2005.



Huang Qi's Son Hopes to Study in the U.S.

--------------




13. (SBU) Zeng said harassment of landlords had forced her to
move constantly. She now lives with a cousin in Chengdu. Her
son's education was disrupted by his father's situation and he
had few friends. The son was denied his right under Chinese law
for a free public education and so went to a private elementary
and middle school run by a Taiwanese. Later he went to high
school in Neijiang, located halfway between Chengdu and
Chongqing, where her parents live. The son, 18, is now a
first-year student at a commercial college in Chengdu. The
family cannot afford to pay for a U.S. education, but hope he
could win a scholarship. Several months ago, both mother and
son successfully applied for PRC passports for the purpose of
personal travel.




14. (SBU) Consul General suggested that Huang Qi's son visit
the PAS library to investigate U.S. schools and consider
applying this summer, and arranged for PAO to provide him with
student advisory services.




15. (SBU) Reference: Links to many articles on Huang Qi are
available in the English and Chinese language versions of the
Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) article "Huang Qi".
BROWN