BIOGRAPHY OF WANG DAN

by Human Rights in China

October 1996

Family name WANG

First name Dan

Sex Male

Age 28

Profession Writer

Address Beijing

Background

Wang Dan came to prominence as an early leader of the 1989 student movement, considered more moderate than some of his fellows. Before the demonstrations began, he had already been organizinng "democracy salons" at Beijing University where he was studying history. Following the crackdown on the protest movement, Wang Dan was No.1 on the Chinese government's list of "most wanted" student leaders. He was arrested on July 2, 1989, and, on January 26, 1991, sentenced to four years in prison on charges of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement. In 1991 he spent a four-month period in solitary confinement. Wang was released on parole on February 17, 1993 several months before the completion of his sentence, officially for "having observed prison regulations." He was formally expelled from Beijing University for his political activities. After his release, he continued to advocate for democratization and respect for human rights, meeting with fellow activists, initiating petitions, writing, collecting fund

s for victims of rights abuses and their families and speaking with journalists.

Following his February 1993 release, Wang Dan was repeatedly detained. Prior to the anniversary of the June 4 anniversary in 1993 and during the 3-week meeting of the National People's Congress, he was sent on one of several "forced vacations." In 1994 he was taken in for frequent interrogations regarding articles he had written which were published abroad. In August 1994, Wang Dan was detained during U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's visit to China. He and his family have been under constant, heavy surveillance and have suffered repeated harassment. In December 1994, Wang Dan received death threats from the police when he tried to file a lawsuit against the Public Security Bureau complaining that the constant police surveillance and harassment were an infringement on his civil rights. He subsequently appealed to the United Nations in an open letter to "respond and persuade the Chinese government to halt this persecution of me".

In December 1995, Wang Dan was mentioned in the verdict against Wei Jingsheng as a person with whom Wei had "planned to unite various forces of illegal organizations to prepare to overthrow the government." The prosecution also referred to a tape-recorded conversation between Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng.

17 months'detention without charge

On 21 May 1995, Wang Dan "disappeared" after he had signed and initiated several petitions over the previous few months, including one requesting a reassessment of the 1989 protests, calling for tolerance towards dissent and for the release of political prisoners. Wang Dan's home was searched and eight bags of his belongings were removed. He was taken away by three uniformed police officers, who said they wanted to question him. On 24 May 1995, police informed his family that he was under investigation for "disturbing social order".

In their reply to the communication dated 31 May 1995 submitted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Chinese authorities said that Wang Dan was held under "residential surveillance", a measure cited in the Criminal Code and which a number of authoritative Chinese legal commentators have said should essentially be a form of house arrest of limited duration. However Wang Dan was held incommunicado in a secret location. His family was given no information about his whereabouts or why he was being held. Wang Dan was neither charged nor tried and had no opportunity to challenge his detention before a court. "Residential surveillance" in this case was in fact a disguised form of arrest. The Chinese authorities never acknowledged that Wang Dan was in detention.

During these 17 months about which very little is known, Wang Dan's mother, father and elder sister enquired repeatedly with the Public Security Bureau and the local police about his whereabouts and the reason for detention, and requested to be able to see him. They also wrote letters to the National People's Congress, to no avail. Public Security Minister Tao Siju admitted in the summer of 1996 that Wang Dan was held in the suburbs of Beijing.

Indictment

On 7 October 1996, the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate issued an indictment charging Wang Dan with "conspiring to subvert the government" through number of acts, including: "accepting a scholarship from the University of California at Berkeley", "publishing anti-government articles abroad", "joining other dissidents to set up a mutual aid plan" and "carrying out a series of criminal acts which endangered the security of the state". Under Chinese law, "conspiring to subvert the government" is a capital offence and entails a minimum sentence of ten years in prison. Wang Dan was charged both under the Criminal Code and the 1993 State Security Law. Please find enclosed articles 90, 92 and 62 of the Criminal Law of the PRC and articles 4 and 23 of the State Security Law.

In the two years after his release, Wang Dan contributed a number of articles to the foreign press, particularly to Chinese papers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, although the indictment (copy attached) refers to some 30 such articles, only three are mentioned by name and only a few sentences are quoted, out of context, as evidence of Wang Dan's guilt. One of these statements runs as follows: "In the mainland today, the authorities are imposing press censorship upon the people and the freedom of speech under the Constitution has become an empty phrase." Another such quote in the indictment is acutally a fabrication composed by putting together into one sentence phrases from various articles that Wang Dan wrote at different times.

Exiled dissident Chen Zhen helped Wang Dan to register at the University of California at Berkeley for a correspondence course in history.

Among the exiled dissidents mentioned by name in the indictment because of their contacts with Wang Dan are Hu Ping (former chairman of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy) and Wang Juntao (director of the China Strategy Institute). Wang Juntao was labelled a "black hand" behind the 1989 Democracy movement. He served four and a half years of a 13-year prison sentence before being released on medical parole in 1994. The funds the indictment charges Wang Dan with receiving from other U.S.-based organizations were distributed by him and others to several former political prisoners and the families of serving prisoners.

All the "acts to endanger the security of the state" and the "subversion" cited in the indictment were, in fact, nothing more that Wang Dan's peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of opinion and expression, assembly and association, rights which are guaranteed under articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and under article 35 of the Chinese constitution. In addition, in article 41, the Chinese constitution allows for "Chinese citizens to make suggestions to the National People's Congress".

On 11 October 1996 the indictment was given to Wang Dan's parents, who were told by the police that they only had 24 hours to find a lawyer. At this point, his family had not been notified that Wang Dan had been formally arrested. With considerable difficulty, they were able to locate a lawyer who would represent Wang Dan in this sensitive case, Yang Dunxian. Wang Dan's mother, Wang Lingyun, also decided that she would defend her son in court. According to Chinese law, only those conducting the defense are entitled to meet detained defendants. In her capacity as Wang Dan's defender, Wang Lingyun met him for one hour on 14 October 1996. She found him "mentally prepared" to face a heavy sentence but in poor physical condition. He is reported to suffer from various back, throat and prostate ailments. He had previously complained of painful urination. It is not known whether he has had access to medical care since he was detained last May.

Trial

On 30 October 1996, the Beijing Number One Intermediate People's Court found Wang Dan guilty of "conspiring to subvert the government" and sentenced him to 11 years in prison and two years' deprivation of political rights.

The trial opened at 9:00am and adjourned at 12:00 noon. At around 12:30pm, the court announced its verdict, and about half an hour later, the official Xinhua News Agency, released a three-page account of the trial, including an interview with the judge, claiming that the trial had been "open, fair and legitimate". Xinhua's statement also contains some factual errors. The most obvious one is: the alleged "collaboration" between Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng did not take place in May 1994 since at this time Wei Jingsheng was already in detention.

Details of the legal process in Wang Dan's case:

- Pre-arrest detention: Wang Dan was detained for 17 months before being indicted. He was held incommunicado with no access to legal counsel and no opportunity to appeal his detention. (cf. supra.) During these 17 months, authorities maintained that Wang Dan was under "residential surveillance" as opposed to being detained.

- Arrest: Wang Dan was formally arrested by the Beijing Public Security on 3 October 1996. The family was notified more than one week later. Public Security Departments should notify the family and work unit of the arrestee of the detention place and reason for detention within 24 hours after the arrest, unless such notification is impossible or unless it would hinder the investigation. Therefore the Public Security Bureau can legally hold people in detention without notifying their family using the pretext of facilitating the investigation.

- Indictment: the prosecution indictment is dated 7 October 1996 (cf. supra and China: Slamming the Door on Dissent, Wang Dan's Trial and the New "State Security" Era, Human Rights Watch/Asia, 29 October 1996).

- Defence: Both Wang Lingyun and Yang Dunxian only had 16 days to prepare their defence. The date of the trial was notified to them both three days in advance. Wang Lingyun, the "other defenser" (non-lawyer) was not able to look through the case file because "other defensers" are prevented from acessing any material produced by the court according to article 27 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Wang Dan, Wang Lingyun and Yang Dunxian argued in their defense that there was nothing illegal about Wang Dan's actions cited in the indictment, pointing out distortions in the prosecution's arguments and showing that none of the evidence presented proved the charge that Wang Dan intended to "overthrow the government". But their interventions were entirely ignored by the court. Neither the legal, factual nor the logical points raised by the defense were considered.

- Witnesses against the defendant: charges against Wang Dan were "backed by another dissident", Liu Xiaobo, Xinhua reported, without further explanation. Earlier this month, Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic, was ordered to serve a three-year administrative sentence of Reeducation Through Labor for writing an open letter to the Chinese government. He was neither charged nor tried. The Xinhua statement refers to several witnesses but only Liu Xiaobo's name is mentioned.

- Witnesses on behalf of the defendant: none. The "testimony material" which Wang Lingyun was allowed to read during the hearing was apparently not given any consideration. It consisted in particular of letters refuting the charges from exiled Chinese dissidents such as Wang Juntao.

- Public and open trial: Wang Dan's father and sister were the only family members allowed in the courtroom, along with some 20 people selected by the authorities, in order to keep up the appearance of a public trial. Foreign journalists and observers were not admitted. International observers who requested to attend the trial were not given any reply. The tribunal was cordoned off by the police. Officers confiscated videotapes from at least two foreign cameramen and towed away several journalists' cars. An Associated Press journalist who was trying to read the court's notice board was forced into a taxi.

- Guilty verdict: the verdict was announced after a three-hour long hearing. Such a short time leads to the assumption that the verdict was decided in advance and. Please find enclosed articles 90, 92, 52, 62 and 60 of the Criminal Code under which Wang Dan was convicted.

- Sentence: the 11-year sentence starts on 3 October 1996, the day when Wang Dan was formally arrested by the Beijing Public Security Bureau. Therefore the 17 months Wang Dan spent in incommunicado detention will not be deducted from the prison sentence. Wang Dan may thus spend a total of 12 years and five months in actual detention.

- Appeal: Wang Dan was allowed to meet his family for 30 minutes after the trial and said he intended to appeal the sentence. On November 15, the Beijing Higher People's Court took ten minutes to reject his appeal. Wang's family plans to lodge a lawsuit against his 17-month illegal detention, which will not be deducted from his 11-year sentence.

HRIC believes that Wang Dan's trial was patently unfair, did not give him an opportunity to have his case considered impartially, except in an entirely pro forma way, and was closed to the public. The organization also believes that the verdict had been decided in advance, and the judges in the case thus merely went through the motions of holding a trial. The proceedings were a blatant violation of Wang Dan's rights to a fair trial, and the actions for which he was sentenced represent a legitimate exercise of his rights.