BEIJING FREES DISSIDENT WITH CANCER

The International Herald Tribune, Thursday, November 7, 1996

by Associated Presse

BELTING - China released the ailing dissident Chen Ziming on Wednesday, less than two weeks before a mission by the U.S. secretary of state, Warren Christopher' to improve relations. Mr. Chen, 44, who was in prison for the second time in connection with his role in the 1989 democracy protests, was freed on medical parole. The dissident, who has cancer, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for leading the 1989 demonstrations, which were crushed by the army. He was convicted of "counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement." He was freed in 1994 on a medical parole after being diagnosed with cancer, only to be arrested again in 1995 for carrying out staging a one-day hunger strike to mark the anniversary of the army's crackdown. The police said at the time that if he was healthy enough to fast, then he was healthy enough to complete his prison term. Mr. Christopher is to come to Beijing Nov. 18 and is expected to raise the issue of human rights, a persistent irritant in U.S.-China ties. Doctors have said

that Mr. Chen needs an operation and should be hospitalized, according to his sister, Chen Zihua. The family had been asking officials to release Mr. Chen so that he could recover either at home or in a hospital. Chen Zihua, who was detained briefly last year after family members held a sit-in protest against Mr. Chen's imprisonment, said Mr. Chen's looked sickly when the family visited him last month in prison. Upon arriving home, Mr. Chen said he was tired, according to his younger brother, Chen Ziping. But the brother added: "Chen Ziming's situation has improved. We are very happy." In the 1980s, Mr. Chen helped found a research institution, the Beijing Social Economic Studies Institute, which conducted some of Communist China's first social surveys and produced studies on political and economic reform.

A colleague of Mr. Chen's, Wang Juntao, who also got a 13-year prison term, was released on medical parole in 1994 and allowed to go to the United States to he treated for hepatitis, which he was believed to have contracted in prison. A Chinese court convicted another leader of the democracy protests, Wang Dan, on subversion charges last week and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. The United States criticized the verdict.