SAN FRANCISCO (March 16, 2008) –
Chinese arrests for "endangering state
security" (ESS) rose again in 2007 to their highest level in eight years,
according to statistics announced by a senior Chinese law enforcement
official on March 10. The increase in Chinese political arrests follows a
doubling of such arrests in 2006 over 2005.
In delivering the Supreme People's Procuratorate's annual work report to
the National People's Congress, China's highest legislative body, outgoing
Procurator-General Jia Chunwang revealed that Chinese prosecutors had
approved "formal" arrests for 2,404 individuals detained by public
security and state security police in ESS cases during the five years from
2003 to 2007.
"The figure cited by Jia means that the number of ESS arrests in 2007
reached 742—the highest number since 1999," noted Joshua Rosenzweig,
manager of research and programs at The Dui Hua Foundation. "There's no
guesswork about this—the numbers for all the other years have already been
published by the Chinese government."
The latest figures show that more than half of all Chinese political
arrests during the five-year period beginning in 2003 were concentrated in
the years 2006 and 2007. The statistics revealed last week also show an
increase in the number of prosecutions initiated in ESS cases, with 619
indictments in 2007, compared to 561 in 2006 and 349 in 2005.
Under Chinese law, "endangering state security" crimes include
prohibitions against subversion and "splittism" (including the incitement
thereof), as well as espionage and "illegally providing state secrets to
overseas entities." Basically replacing the category of
"counterrevolution" following legal reforms in 1997, the ESS provisions
are primarily aimed at suppressing political dissent in the name of
protecting the "security and interests of the [Chinese] state." Other,
non-ESS charges are also commonly brought against individuals who lead
"rights defending" protests against injustice or participate in
unauthorized religious groups.
Among those formally arrested on ESS charges in 2007 were Zhejiang
political activist Lü Gengsong (sentenced in February 2008 to four years
in prison for "inciting subversion"); Runggye Adrak, Adruk Lopoe, and two
other Tibetans connected to an incident in August during which
pro-independence slogans were shouted, and Yang Chunlin, a farmer from
Heilongjiang currently awaiting sentencing for leading protesters in a
demand for "human rights, not the Olympics." (The case of activist Hu Jia,
whose trial for "inciting subversion" is scheduled to open on March 18 in
Beijing, is not counted under the 2007 statistics because he was not
formally arrested until January 2008.)
"These numbers remind us that in spite of all of the information that
comes out of China about the government's crackdown on political dissent,"
said Rosenzweig, "for the most part the arrests are taking place out of
the public view. Even after all of our research, it turns out we still
only know the names of two or three percent of those being arrested."
