lazypiggy999---864056788黄天霸

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Arrested in China

Arrested in China

by Kang Zhengguo, translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

A year ago, after my classes teaching Chinese at Yale were over and the students had left, I set out for my old home in Xi’an, China, to visit relatives. Early in the morning on June 15, the fifth day of my stay in my mother’s house, I had a rude awakening. Before I had gotten out of bed, eight plainclothes agents of the local State Security Bureau burst in, tersely stated their purpose, and forced me to leave with them immediately.

They said they wanted me to take part in a “returnee interview”—which was a standard thing, they said, and nothing for me to be upset about. It was just that my mother’s house was not the most convenient place for a chat, so they would need to use the sedan they had parked in a corner of the compound to bring me to a more suitable place to ask a few questions. The car made a number of turns and then raced toward the guest house of the nearby Electric Power Institute. First I had breakfast with eight agents in the downstairs dining room; then they brought me up to the seventh floor to a room that had been prepared for me. From time to time I noticed other agents heading downstairs toward the dining room. It seemed as if they had moved in during the previous evening to get things ready for me, and now were just finishing their night duty. Agents kept popping in and out of the room, as if taking part in some scheduled deployment.

Their first item of business was to inspect my documents. The agents took my Chinese passport and my US green card, and said they would keep them for the time being. This little move, both they and I knew, was in fact like attaching to me an invisible leg iron. Every Chinese who goes home and gets into trouble knows that once your documents are gone, they’ve got you. Even if they let you go, you can’t move. So there I was, still groggy from sleep, under comfortable detention in a guest house.

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They called it a “chat,” but it was a formal interrogation—it just started gently. In order to create a more relaxed atmosphere, they explained, they had specially recalled an old acquaintance of mine, a man who had in-terrogated me for six months after the Tiananmen events of 1989. I understood the terms of such interrogations, because I had been through them before. The questioner begins from the assumption that you are guilty of many, many crimes and that the police already know the details of all of them. He does not say what the crimes are; it is up to you to show your sincerity and earn forgiveness by confessing. The purpose of this approach is to get as much out of you as possible. If you fall for the promise that “confession brings lenience” and spill everything you know, you only get yourself and your friends more deeply into trouble. So I began by stating my own ground rules: since this was a “returnee interview,” not an interrogation, there would be no need for me to volunteer anything. Their side would have to initiate the questions from start to finish. I would answer what I could.

They began by asking about letters I had exchanged with friends in Xi’an after I had left for the West. Then they asked about my contacts in the US with Liu Binyan and Hu Ping, two well-known critics of the Chinese government. They wanted to make clear their especially profound distaste for an essay called “The Crime of Counterrevolution and the Mendacity of Dictatorship” which I had published in the Hong Kong Ming Pao Monthly in 1995 after Wei Jingsheng had been sentenced to a second lengthy prison term. But both they and I knew that none of this added up to “endangerment of national security” and that my responses were unlikely to yield much of value to them. Hence they were obliged to play their trump card, which revealed more directly why they had arrested me.

They had, they said, concrete evidence that made it necessary for them to talk to me. They had searched the home of an elderly friend of mine the day before, and had confiscated all of the letters, magazines, and newspaper clippings that I had mailed to him after moving to America. Now they had some questions: What publications had I mailed to this friend? How many, all together? To whom else had I mailed similar publications? How many? On whose instructions had I mailed these banned publications into China? And so on. So now things were coming clear: my article supporting Wei Jingsheng had sparked their interest, and their raid on my friend’s house had delivered the goods.

This elderly friend of mine was retired, lived at home, and had time on his hands. But he maintained a lively interest in public affairs, and he kept up a steady correspondence with me after I went abroad. He was always eager to learn, and wanted to use me as a way to get hold of information and opinions that were prohibited inside China. I was over fifty years old, had already been through enough political battles, and perhaps should have put him off. But I thought that, well, if I can supply the needs of an old friend for information and at the same time send some uncensored materials to China, those are things one simply ought to do. So I began to buy magazines like Democratic China and Beijing Spring, which published independent comment on Chinese society, and to mail them to China. The police specifically asked about Liu Binyan because I had given the address of my elderly friend to Liu, who in turn had mailed some writings directly to him. They had asked about Hu Ping because another friend had sent me an article that he wanted to have published, and I had sent it to Hu Ping’s magazine Beijing Spring.

After a full day of questioning, certain things dawned on me. During all that time that I was mailing materials to my elderly friend, we thought nothing was amiss because all of them got through. In fact, though, the police had been reading the mail from the beginning and had let things pass on purpose. They wanted to catch bigger fish; they would cut me some slack, let me pile up a bad record, and then deal with everything at once when I came back to Xi’an to visit relatives.

Now their day of reckoning had arrived. First they raided the home of my elderly friend and took away what they would need for their case; one of the confiscated items, as it happened, was the issue of Beijing Spring that contained the article by my friend which I had sent to the magazine. I now realized why they had asked me about Liu Binyan and Hu Ping at the beginning of the day. They wanted me to confirm and perhaps say more about matters that, from months of reading my mail, they already knew.

My “returnee interview” lasted into the evening. When it was over my handlers made it clear that I would remain on the seventh floor of that guest house while they prepared to spend the night with me.

In the morning they tightened the noose. The section chief who was in charge put on a stern face and said I would have to submit a written self-criticism. They would not let me go home until I put in writing that I admitted my crimes and promised never to mail this kind of publication again. I tried two or three drafts and each was rejected. The two main points at issue were: (1) my statement that “I viewed my mailings of these materials from the standpoint of my context overseas, where, with press freedom and legal guarantees of private correspondence, such mailings violated nothing”; and (2) my insistence that the police had not just happened to discover my mailings during their raid on my friend’s house the day before my arrest, but had long been building their case by opening my mail. This monitoring of my mail, I wrote, gave me a sense of having been entrapped.

During the entire second day, the relevant section chief and department head took turns delivering harsh warnings to me. So long as I did not delete those two items from my written confession I would continue to be held. At one point the section chief adopted a pose of offering friendly advice: even if I were right about the protracted opening of my mail, he said, this was permissible under security law. I could think what I wanted about my mail; I just mustn’t write it down in black and white. In any case, so long as I persisted in my two points, I would never pass muster with their superiors.

And sure enough, during the afternoon of the second day things escalated. They took out a document that they had prepared in advance and read me an official “summons”: within twelve hours my status would shift to that of “legal detainee.” I went to bed under that cloud.

Early the next morning, before dawn, I was suddenly awakened by one of the handlers. Half-asleep, I saw before me a security agent whom I had not met before. He was using the last moments of my twelve-hour “summons” period to read me a decision on “supervised residence.” The gist was that, from this moment on, I could be held for interrogation for up to six months; I would, moreover, be responsible for my own room and board expenses.

It was well known that the methods for persecuting people had shifted in recent years and that economic punishments now had been added to the others. I suspected that the security agents were planning a shakedown, and so refused their request that I sign my name agreeing to “supervised residence.” They responded that the decision would take effect anyway, with or without my signature.

It emerged that their entire plan to “interview” me had run into some interference. This happened because, as soon as I had arrived in the guest house, I had called home and had asked my family to notify my friends and relatives in New Haven that I had been detained. The response from the US, including the State Department, had been quick, and had quickly reached high levels in Beijing, from where, it seems, word went down to Xi’an Security to be careful. As I look back now, all those procedures about “summons,” “supervised residence,” and whatnot seem likely to have been precautionary measures that the police resorted to after their plan to hold me had run into difficulty.

The third day was the beginning of a weekend, and they told me that my case would have to be resolved before the end of the work day. They kept urging me to write a new statement. Since I did want to go home, I decided to relent and open the way to a solution. I deleted the two points that I had been insisting upon, and yielded to the demand that I acknowledge the crime of which I was accused: I had violated the state security law that prohibits the “production, distribution, or reading of materials that endanger state security.” This self-criticism worked. About 6 PM they announced that “supervised residence is ending at this point.”

I returned to my mother’s house in a foul mood, feeling sour and violated. The three days of detention had swept away my zest for visiting relatives. I lay on the bed and replayed for myself, scene by scene, the various political tests I had faced in my life, beginning with the “reactionary statements” I had made during my student days right through to that protest poster that I had put up after the Tiananmen Massacre and that had almost got me arrested. Like other “troublemakers,” I had over the years made more than a few specious “self-criticisms” in order to get past the interrogators. I lived in America now, and by staying there I could have ended all contact with these functionaries; but the threads that pulled me toward family and hometown would not let go.

So here I was, with no one to blame but myself, back for more—more humiliation by experts in “Chinese-style” self-criticism. It’s been several decades now, and we Chinese are stuck with the same old question: Why aren’t people allowed to talk, write, and read what they want? The Party and state won’t tolerate free expression on the part of the people they rule. The naively optimistic intellectuals recurrently hope that China will turn a corner, that this time we’re really going to get things on the right track. But then it always emerges that nothing fundamentally changes and we start over again. For people like me, writing self-criticism feels like falling into a very old rut.

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During the Cultural Revolution I was sentenced to reeducation through labor for my “reactionary thinking.” Later I was exonerated, but I still suffered a recurring nightmare. In it I saw myself re-arrested and sent back to the labor team to begin serving another sentence. As the intensity of the nightmare increased, I would awake with a start. For years this dream attacked me at night, over and over, like a ghost clinging to my body. Its spell remained in force until I moved with my family to the US. Then I thought I was finally rid of it. But no. Now, here in Xi’an, it had ambushed me again, and this time in broad daylight. My three days in detention had left my family shocked and exhausted and had worried many of my old friends. Everybody was afraid that if I stayed in Xi’an longer something else might happen, and that things might get out of hand. They urged me to go back to America while I still could. So I decided to cut short my visit to my mother. I changed my air ticket to an earlier flight back to the US.

Any Chinese who gets detained during a trip home to China also normally receives “send-off instructions” just before being released. Your handlers tell you to seal your experiences inside yourself, just as you might seal exposed film inside a light-impenetrable canister. And they back this up with a threat: should you ever dare mention anything to the media, your next visit home will be even more rocky—in fact you might just forget about being allowed back into the country at all. This is the reason why, even though hundreds and thousands of people get harassed in things like “returnee interviews,” so few are willing—or dare—to tell what has happened to them once they reach the outside world.

On the day I was released, the State Security department head who had worked on me suddenly discovered that we had gone to the same school. Now she wanted to invite me to a grand banquet to celebrate the end of her department’s interrogation. At this dinner the agents’ admonitions and warnings now took on the flavor of a word game, since their duty to harass me was clearly behind them. Now they wanted me to join them in acknowledging their patriotic enterprise; it all made me feel that I had somehow become an accomplice in their mission to turn me inside-out.

The whole thing was, moreover, a fitting sign of the officially sponsored commercialism of recent years; even an episode of arresting and then releasing somebody was ending in a little orgy of corrupt consumption. Of course, the messages that got passed along amid the clinking of glasses were sharply pointed. For example, when you go back to the US, you should take care to protect the positive image of State Security; everything that’s happened here should be kept under wraps—let’s not have any loose tongues; and so on. And then some intimate advice, delivered in a voice intended to convey sympathetic feeling: your mother’s getting up there in years, remember; someday you’ll need to come back for those final duties of a filial son. The underlying message was clear enough: so long as I had reason to come back to Xi’an, they could do more to me if they wanted.

I had been given some intimidating warnings, and they were part of the reason why I held my tongue for nearly a year after returning to the US. But there were other reasons as well. The well-intentioned reproach and counsel of my friends and relatives came to be in some ways a bigger psychological problem than the intimidation tactics of State Security. Both in Xi’an and back in the US there were people—including my wife—who made fun of my naive behavior. Why spend good money to mail magazines to China? I had asked for trouble, and had ended by getting it. The root cause of my humiliation was my own stupidity. I hadn’t known how to protect myself.

At one point when the police were pressing me to admit that I had harmed China’s national security, I became exasperated: “I didn’t organize any violence. I didn’t steal national military secrets or sell any economic intelligence—in what way did I harm national security? Is national security all that fragile? A few articles criticizing the judiciary, or the passing around of some things that the authorities don’t want people to read—things like that really threaten security?” The police found my efforts to reason with them laughable, of course. Yet still, even now, I feel the need to make my point: they can look up in their little books whatever empty rule they like, but I did nothing whatever to endanger national security. If “national security” means the security of a nation’s citizens, then the state is the biggest threat to national security.

For the person who lives in a country without legal protections, under an unmoving cloud of intimidation, the best one can often do is to go along, angling for small benefits as best one can. When the price becomes prohibitive even for something like reading an overseas magazine, what other recourse does one have? If we look at my three-day detention, we see that State Security may have failed to change my thinking, but its goal of intimidation has largely been achieved. I am not afraid to mail Beijing Spring to China again, but I no longer know of anyone willing to receive it, and I no longer have the same desire to get in touch with them. The whole episode affected a good many other people besides myself. It also brought disaster down on that elderly friend of mine. I can sense that the Chinese who were hurt or even just tainted by my case feel a certain resentment toward me, and want to keep their distance. They apparently feel that I have become a serious threat to their own security.

So why my delay in writing about my experience? A gross act of persecution can elicit a direct response of indignation. That much is easy. But when you have been persecuted the people around you distance themselves from you, or criticize you, and you lose your self-confidence. It can leave you feeling helpless and frustrated, almost paralyzed, even if still full of rage. When you realize that you have caused trouble to other people, or when people close to you express disappointment at your stubbornness, your resolve to fight back starts to melt away, whether you like it or not. Last year at Christmas and New Year’s I received almost no cards or greetings from Xi’an. The detention episode had put my relations with people there into deep freeze, and had cut me off from my hometown and roots. I feel now that the place where I was born and grew up has been lost to me forever.

I have never had any interest in the kind of attention that can come from telling one’s troubles in public, and for that reason, too, I had no plan to rush into print with my story. But human rights conditions in China are worsening. Over the past year it seems to have become an “open season” on Chinese scholars—some of whom are American citizens—who return to China to visit relatives or do research. Several have been arrested and many others have canceled trips for fear of trouble.

I cannot expect that my voice by itself will do anything to improve the human rights situation in China, but perhaps others can learn something from my account about how to handle it. If you are detained, for example, be sure to try to get word to the outside world as soon as possible; don’t just hope you can quietly plea-bargain your way out. Doing so only gives the other side what it wants: the chance to use pressure in secret. And don’t go along with the other side’s encouragement to confess your mistakes or guilt in detail. You may find no alternative to signing a brief statement to get yourself released; but if the purpose of the authorities is to extract from you the very materials they need in order to nail you, then you only trap yourself by talking.

Here in the US I can speak out, but it’s like shouting at a fire from the other side of a river. The moment a Chinese person steps out of China, he or she is largely separated from the struggles of the people back home who, while lacking both rights and power, somehow hope to sweep away falsity and create a secure system that will use law to serve the true interests of everyone.
After returning to New Haven I applied for American citizenship. The terrifying and absurd experience had ruined my ties to my homeland. The poet Wei Zhuang (836-910 AD) has written:

Until you grow old, do not return home;
Going back only breaks your heart.

My own sadness might be captured by changing the first line to “Once you go out, do not return home.”

—Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

Friday, April 16, 2010

马尾法院，卧槽泥马！

马尾法院，卧槽泥马！
发表时间：2010-4-16 18:37:00 阅读次数:2 所属分类：未分类
福建三网民范燕琼、游精佑和吴华英因言获罪案，今天早上8点30分在福州市马尾区人民法院开庭。上千名来自各地的网友及围观民众在现场声援，大家高喊三网友无罪的口号。今天当地政府派出五百多名警察、保安，在法院的警戒线上戒备。网友通过互联网对现场情况进行了直播。

中午12点左右获悉，福州马尾法院对范燕琼、游精佑、吴华英进行了判决，范、吴当庭表示上诉，游表示会考虑上诉。辩护律师刘晓原接受大纪元记者采访时表示，范燕琼、游精佑、吴华英构成诽谤罪，范燕琼被判处两年有期徒刑，游精佑和吴华英分别被判处一年有期徒刑。罪名这次又改变了，最先涉嫌诽谤罪抓的，逮捕的时候改为诬告陷害，现在又回到诽谤罪。

对于当局的判决结果，刘晓原说：“这个结果我是无法理解的，这个案件我们始终认为，现有的证据和法律规定都不构成犯罪，既不构成诬告陷害，更无构成诽谤，对这个判决，我非常失望和不公。

三网民在庭上为自己做了非常精彩辩护，范燕琼还是呼着氧气，坐着轮椅出庭受审。旁听人员除了家属外，其余都是年轻的便衣。律师坚持要求林秀英和聂志雄出庭作证，仍遭到法庭的拒绝。

这次声援活动，网友准备充分，文化衫、宣传标语、宣传画，纷纷向路人及围观者展示了案件真相及要求追求民主正义的呼声。网友们把这次维权行动定义为中国民主道路上的转捩点，这是中国人克服恐惧，走向街头的一次实质行动。

大纪元记者和现场网友进行了连线，当庭外守护的上千网友听到宣判结果后，家属和广大线民情绪激动，齐声高唱：亚克西！亚克西！马尾法院，卧槽泥马！现场有序的齐喊：抗议、抗议、抗议……福州法院无耻、王鑫下台，唱起了国际歌……网友都哭了，现场一片哭声。

http://www.youmaker.com/
(判决后现场唱歌和哭声一片)

http://www.youmaker.com/
(判决后现场喊口号)

http://www.youmaker.com/
(较早前现场:传来阵阵高呼口号声：吴华英无罪，我们爱你们，我们支持你们，言论无罪，自由万岁，公平正义，比太阳还要光辉，游精佑、范燕琼、吴华英无罪……)

在现场的维权人士王译说：“我们早上六点钟就到了，今天处于非常有序的状况，排着队，喊着口号上来了，我们的口号是和平理性，非暴力，打不还手，骂不还口。我们怕一旦秩序一乱，被他们抓住口舌。过来后，我们自己拉起了警戒线，免打扰的警戒线，他们(警察)也开始拉警戒线。？”

“现在警察比上次多的多，把我们隔在法庭外面，把我们堵在一条马路上，全国各地的网友都往这边赶，有很多人围观，估计有二千人，还有很多网友被堵在外面，警戒线外面有好多群众。今天三网友的每家家属进去三个人旁听。”

中午十一点左右，屠夫在Twitter发来消息，对目前判决不乐观，大批武警正在来的路上，不知道会怎么样?目前法院门前上下行线已经能全部封锁，已无退路，6辆拉人大巴车隐藏于附近街区……

三网友关注团的成员王荔蕻、屠夫、朱承志、华泽、王译、天天、单亚娟、张健、李金城等，日前先行到达福州声援。Twitter网友发来消息，今天现场约有来自全国各地包括香港的声援者约近千人，艾未未已到马尾庭审现场。

郝劲松律师在Twitter现场直播福建马尾法院审理：人们从四面八方赶来，法院门口越聚越多，估计现在有2000多人。对中国人来讲,从思考到行动是一个坎,今天法院门前,有很多中国人正在跨跃这一看似艰难的坎坷,他们从四面八方聚集在这里,为了三个素不相识的人,他们捍卫着自己的言论自由,捍卫自己的民主表达权。

该案于去年11月11日首次开庭审理。审理后超过了一般的法定羁押期限仍无法下判，律师就此质疑超期羁押。但法院称，经过批准，本案须经马尾区人民检察院补充侦查。

今年3月19日，该案在福州市马尾区人民法院开庭。但开庭不到一分钟，法院公诉人即以补充证据为由申请延期。对此辩护律师刘晓原提出严重抗议，数百网友也在法庭外大声抗议和声援律师。

福建马尾“三网民”的诬告陷害案不仅引起了广大网民的极大关注，还引起了国内外媒体的关注。

现场声援人士有著名维权人士、记者、律师还有平民百姓。有访民在现场哭诉，指控福州的司法腐败。声援活动在中午两点左右结束。

有网友表示，福建“三网民”被判的事情绝不能袖手旁观，发生在他们身上的事情或许终有一天会发生在我们身上。关注此次事件，关注每一个到现场的人，彼此支持、彼此温暖，即使他们要“秋后算账”，也要让他们有所忌惮！

事件背景

福建25岁女子严晓玲离奇死亡一事曝光于2009年6月底，与当时正处于全国舆论刀口浪尖的巴东民女邓玉娇手刃淫官案同样引起人们震惊。

网上根据严母林秀英讲述和相关材料整理披露的文章《闽清“严晓玲”比巴东“邓玉娇”悲惨一万倍》，文中叙述，25岁的严晓玲被闽清黑恶人员聂志雄胁迫卖淫、2008年2月一夜间遭官警匪8人轮奸致死。在家属的质疑下，警方将严晓玲子宫等器官割下以毁灭证据，对外宣称其“宫外孕死亡”来掩盖事实真相。

福建省福州公安局曾于2009年6月24日召开新闻发布会高调澄清，称“闽清严晓玲遭轮奸致死”事件调查鉴定结论是“严晓玲系输卵管妊娠破裂致出血性休克死亡，不存在暴力、中毒或轮奸致死问题。”

这则名为《闽清“严晓玲”比巴东“邓玉娇”悲惨一万倍》的帖子，经19万次转载，引来众多愤怒的评论。网民范燕琼、游精佑和吴华英等人先后因代严母林秀英书写冤情发网帖和上传“严晓玲母亲林秀英口述案件”视频，被福州马尾警方以涉嫌“诽谤罪”刑事拘留，后于侦察阶段再改罪名为“诬告陷害”批捕。

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

江平：China's Rule of Law is in Full Retreat

China's Rule of Law is in Full Retreat

By Jiang PingMar 3, 2010 - 9:27:54 AM

China's Rule of Law is in Full Retreat
by Jiang PingFebruary 21, 2010

Attending today's lunch and hearing so much praise makes me feel very uneasy. I don't know how many times I have celebrated my birthday this year, and here comes Sun Guodong, hosting yet another event.The first celebration was with fellow scholars and the second with my family, but I felt like something was missing. There was no event with lawyers, or rather we might say some lawyers wanted to have a birthday celebration for me but didn't have a chance. I think today's event might settle that. However, in listening to these words of praise my ears have pricked up, as I must say you have expressed aspirations I have definitely never fulfilled. Perhaps it was just the circumstances around me. Because today the situation for the rule of law in China is grim. So in these circumstances perhaps your expectations of me are even higher. But I think I have not been able to do enough.Strictly speaking, in the 30 years of reform what I did was call for private rights. I chose civil law and private rights because those areas were weak in China, or rather in a China with such strong public powers, private rights were always in a weak position. Private rights include the rights of private enterprise, of private property, and perhaps even broader personal rights.Today, I will just mention three issues, but these are not the same three you all just suggested. The first private right I will mention is the Shanxi coal mine problem [private coal miners were encouraged to invest then their mines were taken by the state at low or no compensation]. The Shanxi coal miners demonstrate a violation of the rights of private property and private enterprise, a brazen violation of constitutional guarantees.The second is the Li Zhuang case [the defense lawyer convicted of inciting false testimony in the Chongqing mafia crackdown]. When Wu Xiaoji brought over Li's defense lawyer to talk to me, we chatted for a long time about what happened in court that day and the entire procedural history of the case. After hearing about it, I was furious. No matter what you think about it, from the most basic level, procedural justice was violated. The evidence was not brought out and many of the witnesses did not appear in court. From the perspective of evidence, that case had serious problems.The third is the Liu Xiaobo case. When I heard about the Liu Xiaobo verdict, I felt it was a crime of speech -- a very dangerous thing. China has a long tradition of criminalizing speech, and if we let that tradition continue today, and if those with a sense of justice can't express their views, then our problems are just too serious. Or perhaps, for those of us engaged in the rule of law, if even we take a hands-off approach -- if there is not a single voice of justice among us -- then I think that is really dangerous.So, looking at China's current situation, I think we are in a period where the rule of law is in retreat. Or perhaps, building the rule of law, judicial reform, and political reform are all moving backwards. This is my first thought.My second thought: In the last two books I published, I used the term "cry out" in the title. The first book was called "What I can do is cry out." I recently published a book that I edited by hand, putting together some of my prior work in a careful compilation that I called "Private Rights Cry Out." This latest is part of a series of 100 works of top people in the humanities; in that series I am the only one from the legal field. Why did I choose the word "cry out," and why in the last two years? Of course, I have been enlightened by Lu Xun's example, but it is not only that. I think that choosing "cry out" is important because the situation has become more oppressive. That is to say the environment outside has become more and more difficult. In those circumstances, one must "cry out." No matter what words you choose, when the circumstances are urgent, you must call out with your voice.I also use "cry out" to to be clear about another issue: we must both dare to fight and be good at fighting. Given the conditions for building the rule of law today, these two things need to be merged. This is something I have pondered a long time, and it is very difficult. Perhaps you are good at fighting but you don't dare stand up. Or you dare to fight, but lose your sense of proportion. Because the basic essence of the problem in China is problem of the Party's leadership, the foundation of the political system. If the political system does not reform, then nothing else can reform. If the political system does not reform, then your rule of law, your judicial reform, your anything-else will not be much of an achievement. In those circumstances, it is easy for you to "cross the line," to step into forbidden territory. So in China's circumstances how to put those two things together -- to both dare to fight and be good at fighting -- this is a formidable task.I remember that Ji Weidong once wrote about this problem, and this has given me something to think about. He wrote: How is it that someone like Jiang Ping can exist in China's current political conditions, how is that he does not "cross the line" too far? Of course, the leadership values you, but they are also conscious that they need to be careful about you. I could be regarded as "inside the line" and also be regarded as "outside the line." That position is actually very difficult. I think that at this moment we should carefully position ourselves as in between of those "inside the line" and those "outside the line", this way everything will be a bit better.My third thought is that overall I am still an optimist. In the past, I used to love to say that China's rule of law was two steps forward, one step back. I still haven't changed that view today. Because in terms of the protection of private rights, today's China is vastly improved over the past. Needless to say, this is the case in the last thirty years, or even more needless to say it is the case compared to the decade of the Cultural Revolution. In the 30 years of reform, with the "baptism" of the Property Law, rights consciousness about private rights protection has been enormously improved. The Chengdu self-immolation case, or other cases, already demonstrate that people's sense of private rights have woken up. Add the function of law to the awakening sense of rights consciousness and that is something that can be extremely powerful.Twenty years ago, when we passed the Administrative Litigation Law, it was hard to imagine that such a law could help protect private rights. But today, whether by litigation or other methods, protecting your own rights is something we can say everyone understands. Everyone understands that their rights cannot be infringed. Perhaps in some places the projection of private rights is overlooked, or in some places it is abused. But no matter what, today when we stress protecting private rights, we want to stress two things: first, ordinary personal rights must be protected, but we also must pay attention to not abusing power. If we grasp this, everything will be fine.So today I would like to thank everyone here. So many of you are still here. Some of the scholars have left, but you lawyers have persisted to the end. This also helps explain an important issue, as Pu Zhiqiang just put it as well. Like our lawyers today, more and more people are genuinely interested in the fate of China's rule of law. Lawyers definitely don't only want to make money; many lawyers have come to understand and think about our country's destiny, the future of the rule of law, and the protection of human rights. That way of thinking, and that theme, has already taken root in our heads.I think this is very heartening phenomenon. I believe that China certainly has a bright future. The world trends are unmistakable: whether human rights, democracy, or freedom, these are irresistible trends. All the world's people are moving forward. That we are moving backward is only temporary. Or perhaps, for the time that some people reign, they can do as they please. But after he steps down, he has no status. I think this is the truth.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

圣诞祝福

圣诞祝福

圣诞老人就要出发送礼物了，有几个人的住处有重大变动，礼物送不出去，他们是京城小波，福建游精佑，四川两好人黄琦和谭作人。家人的殷切思恋感动得驯鹿们忘了本民族语言，它们第一次用中文大声鸣唱：妈妈盼望你回家过圣诞节！ less than 5 seconds ago from web

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杜绝良心犯和谐过圣诞 6 minutes ago from web

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圣诞老人的驯鹿不是马，有一个叫鲁道夫，孩子们一起戴黄丝带，唱圣诞颂歌吧，有礼物，最珍贵的礼物是宪政的阳光，而不是夏天的红太阳。 about 2 hours ago from web
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孩子们恶狠狠地唱红歌，几个退休老教师又吓得大小便失禁了，在换了4套第四代尿不湿后，有人发话了：先唱红，再拉黑，接着是学生打老师，人整人，然后就是饿死人，整死人——骗术用一次还管用，指鹿为马的把戏在21世纪想在玩出点新意好难，除非是救世主降临。 about 2 hours ago from web

Friday, May 1, 2009

Return from silence____a comment on Ai Qing
发动群众依靠群众斗群众不受制肘永远做权力的主人玩弄人于股掌他不如湖南毛泽东
行军打仗临阵决机难免最终败亡他不如湖北林彪
研究学问见微知著见识卓越他不如安徽胡适
激流勇进全身而退他不如四川郭沫若
他经受了常人的苦难
矢志不渝
用嘶哑的喉咙
发出真诚的声音
纪念艾青天霸qq864056788
In Wuhan in the winter of 1937 a young poet with a fierce love of his motherland turned an angry eye on the horizon of snow that smothered China--a land being ravaged by the Japanese invaders,frozen by the cowardly lack of risistance of China.
"Cold blockades China,"he wrote."The wind,like an old woman with many grievances,closely follows behind,stretches out her claws,tugs at clothes of passing people,her words as old as the earth,comlaining,never ceasing..."
Twenty years later,in a compaign against "rightists"<1957--1958>in the new People's Republic,Ai Qing was labelled a Rightist.Poems such as Snow falls on the Chinese land,some critics said,were gloomy and pessimistic.They deliberately distorted the meaning of these verses,ignoring those with which the poet had closed his poem---lines that belied their charge:
Oh China,
On this lampless night
Can my weak lines
Give you a little warmth?
Ai Qing and his poems disappeared from public life after these attacks.The silence surrounding him lasted so long that foreign admirers began to believe him dead.In a sense,a new snow was falling on China.Forces trying to undermine the society were slowly stifling demorcracy,working their way into high positions and creating the havoc with which they thought they could seize power from the masses whom Ai Qing had always served.In late 1978 the charges previously against Ai Qing were declared false and he was officially exonerated.Of these two long decades of silence Ai Qing says only,"following the spring of 1958,I went to work on a state farm in Heilongjiang Province for a year and a half and then in the winter of 1959 to a state farm in Xinjiang,wher I lived for 16 years."During this period ,though he continued to write poems,publication was denied to him.
Ai Qing,thoughtout his long life,has asked only one thing of his poems:that they "give a little warmth",a stiffening of will and courage,to the victims of injustice,the disinherited of China.Pessimism has not been a main factor in his life.Even in The Trumpeter<1939>,when his hero,no more than a boy,falls in the smoke and flame of battle,he writes:
No one saw him fall
down to earth he loved above all things,
His hand still grasping the trumpet,
......
Listen!
The trumpet is still singing!

Born Jiang Haicheng in 1910,Ai Qing came from a landlord's family in Jinhua County,Zhejiang Province.Because a fortuneteller had declared that it was his fate to harm his parents,he was sent away to be brought
up by a poor peasant woman.This poor women did not even have a name,so people called her by the name of her village,Dayanhe.When he was 5 years old he was brought back home.As a further guarantee against the interference of fate,he was not allowed to call his parents "father"and "mother"but had to call them "uncle"and"aunt".for the rest of his life he was to detest fortune telling and all other superstitions.In his home,he remarked later,"I grew up in a milieu of indifference and disdain."..."My childhood and the relations between me and my family weae portrayed in my poem Dayanhe---my nurse and My father,The first written in 1933,the second in 1941.Yet in these works his memories of both are so vividly expressed---the one glowing with love,the other sadly scornful of a man who passed his life"the most tranquilly in an epoch the most troubled"."Dayanhe,"he says to his foster-mother,"I an the son of a landlord..."and in the same breath finishes the line with "and I drank your milk to the last drop"."My father,thrash his children to train them and became the tyrant of the family."Whatever else this training did for Ai Qing,it was a school for rebellion.His father thought that book knowledge gained in regular school was useful"first,to ornament the facade,second,to safeguard the family patrimony".Worse still to a youth in a time of fervent national patriotism:
My father,unmoved before the revolution,
Waited,indifferent,for progress.
He knew that this was the wave
but strove to avoidthe torrent,
Keeping his distance and watching it...
He was a most ordinary man,
Poltroon enough to stick calmly to his duties.
The" middle way",conservative,greedy,complaisant,
......
As did innumerable landlords of China.
He considered his tiny lost village
As his immutable kingdom.
He had received from his ancestors a patrimony
That he would pass on to his descendants,
Neither larger nor smaller.
That was hie entire life---
And it was for this that I pitied him.
It was in primary school during the May 4th Movement in 1919 that he first heard of such ideas as "democracy"and "science",In middle school he read some works of Lu Xun,he first heard of the idea of class struggle and read a mimeographed copy of Introduction to historical materialism in his home district.In 1928 he entered the National West Lake School of Art ih Hongzhou,where the artist Lin Fengmian《林风眠》was then the principal.Lin recognized his talent but told him,"You won't learn anything here.You'd better go abroad."One evening in 1929 ,now no longer able to hold his son in this"decrepit village",Ai Qing's father dug up 1000 Mexican silver dollars from under a plank in the floor and,"with trembling hands and a sombre mien"said,"return in a few years.Don't let any pleasure make you forget to come back."Thus he left to study in France.Here he read widely,supporting himself by working in a small factory making Chinese lacquer ware.He became familiar with the poems of Rimbaud,Yesenin,Blok and Mayakovsky and especially those of the Belgian poet,Verhaeren.In January 1932 Ai Qing return to Shanghai where he promptly joined the Left-wing Artists Association and organized a group of painters.In July of the same year he was thrown into prison for being opposed to Chiang Kai-shek《蒋介石》.His three years in prison were productive years.Here he wrote Dayanhe---My nurse and a number of other poems,for the first time using the pen name Ai Qing.The poems were published as a collection in 1936 and mark Ai Qing's turn from to literature.His time behind bars carried him closer to the poor and the oppressed.His release in October 1935 began what one writer has called"a wandering,fighting life",a poet-soldier sharing the life of millions of Chinese patriots in those years.When the war against Japan broke out in 1937 he left Shanghai,went to Wuhan first,the went back to the north,to Shanxi and Shaanxi,the went to south again,spent some time in Guilin as editor of The South,a supplement of the Guangxi Daily,taught in a teacher-training school in Hunan and went to Chongqing in 1940.Finally with the help of Zhou Enlai《周恩来》，He arrived in Yanan.working for communist work.Here he witnessed"Zhengfeng Movement"sponsored by Mao Zedong to extinct his political opposers.In early 1949 he entered Beijing with the PEOPLE'S Liberation Army,He took part in the Congress of Literature and Art Workers.At Liberation he was given the task of taking over the Central Art Academy and at the same time became the vice-editor of People's Literature.
The mirror<1978>,which he thinks is one of his best poets:"It loves truth deeply,/never hiding defects./It is honest with those who seek it./...Some avoid it/because it is too frank./There are even some/who hate it and wish to smash it."marks his straightforward,uncimplicated honesty.Like most Chinese they grope and trample in darkness,sometimes struggle and enduring are not enough,without checks and balances to prevent abuse of public power,the so-called liberaters might have turned into oppressers far more quickly than we might think.without ballot papers,commom people,although far outnumbered,have little influence on public decisions and conmsequently cannot command our own fate.

By Robert C. Friend《中国文学》英文月刊1979年第6期
Adapted by黄天霸
Apr. 30 2009

Friday, October 24, 2008

tank aming at Kafka

Monday, August 4, 2008

The Guide 向导

The Guide 向导

没完没了连绵起伏的丘陵，中间夹杂着一片一片的由单调乏味千篇一律的仿古建筑组成的乡村寨子，如同这里的千人一面的乡民一样让人感到厌倦。这样说有点不对，他们的面孔实际上有差别，只是区别不太明显。他们的总是由不合体的衣服包裹的躯体或许隐藏着什么不同的想法，但是一经他们的喉咙过滤，由他们的嘴里传达出来到达他的耳道的却是一样的死气沉沉的声音——过时，无趣，沉闷，肉麻，倒胃口——让他不时地产生一种幻觉：他自以为乘坐的是波音737却不小心登上了未来太空梭来了一次惊天时空大逆转，不然，他是如何可能由资讯发达的核子时代而置身于野蛮愚昧的黑暗中世纪？如果此刻他感到头晕目眩，浑身不适，那只能怪他自己自找烦恼，寻穷开心。要在一个出产了屎皇，糠喜，卡门猫等民主自由思想不共戴天的最凶恶的敌人而闻名于世的国度寻找新奇发现真是比登天还难。尽管如此，他还是不费力的将他一路见到的各色人等归结为三类：阴险狡诈的三角形面孔，狂妄跋扈堆满横肉的圆形面孔，麻木沉闷的牛型马型面孔，当然拥有最后一种面孔的人数最多。不过要让如此多的人享受有组织的集体贫困，让他们习惯于不能兑现的空话和空头支票，让他们按照英明神武的领袖的强盗逻辑自发地附和不绝于耳的鬼话，让他们有条不紊按部就班地进行指鹿为马的把戏——说明这个国家的治国精英（他们被一些不怀好意的人称为“矮子堆里的将军”）的智商丝毫不比西方民主国家的政客逊色，更有甚者，这里的一些手腕之圆熟老道让世界上一些野心勃勃的政坛奇才们折节叹服不已。原以为将柏林罗马的无耻喉舌文人缔造的堪称奇迹的一模一样的报纸电视新闻舆论抛在身后来到这个遥远的看似与世隔绝的史前部落一定会发现些许古老文明的光辉，此刻却证明了那只是他的一厢情愿，他明白了残酷的集权制度何以在东方更深叶茂了2000多年。他停留在这颗大树的树荫下，实在不想再朝前走了。

“先生，今天就到此为止吧。”导游的脸上掠过了一次不快的情绪。他将旅行背包放在大树下，“我的任务到此算是结束了，您可以另外找一个导游。”

“怎么回事，不是说好了——”

“已经到目的地了，您可以就近住宿，也可以返回你原来的旅店，都是相当方便的。”

“好吧，我看时间还早，索性在这里多休息一会。”

“那好，再见！”

“你的小费。”

“不必了，中午出发时您已经给过了。”

望着导游消失的背影他心存疑惑，猛然记起来出发时朋友在机场送别时的一番话：“东方人是好客友好的，不过不管你看到什么，听到什么，不要忘了多说good，wonderful，这对你和他们都有好处。”一定是刚才自己脸上的不屑，无意中伤害了这位向导的民族自尊心。这也许才能解释这位向导的反常举动。东方真是不同于西方，我们信奉批评和攻击政府有时是必要的和合法的。他这样胡思乱想着，不知不觉入睡了。

也有可能是我无心所说的某句话引发的不快。“你看，你们的当权者总是习惯于以家长自居，似乎以这种特殊身份公共权力，国家公职就可以顺理成章地继承下来，乾纲独断，之死不休。这无疑是当今世界最无耻的一种政治现象。这不仅是对人类理性的公然挑战和愚弄侮辱，也是对这个国家的国民意志的极端蔑视嘲弄和无所顾忌地公然践踏。可是从你们的家长们的表现可以推断——他们跟你们国家历史上和当今世界上其他国家的专制独夫没有什么两样，因此这里不断上演无辜子民数以万计被饿死和全副武装的军警悍然屠杀手无寸铁的请愿平民的惨剧。看得出来，你们的国民意志对于这种侮辱和践踏反应迟钝，承受力也超出正常人的想象——”自己当时只顾逞口舌之快，把朋友的忠告忘到了九宵云外，也没有顾及向导的感受。他有可能把我看作一个西方敌对者，而我只是自认为是一个痛恨集权制度的旅游者，一个不愿掩饰自己真实情感和感受的外国人。我实在无意与这个国家的国民为敌，只是不愿意见到这些勤劳友善的东方人被肆意地愚弄，权利被践踏，不愿意见到由于他们的麻木消极间接地纵容了寡头政治，更不愿见到他们被专制独夫胁迫沦落为独裁体制的帮凶最终与其他民主的人民为敌制造所谓的“黄祸”。他或许把我看成是自以为高人一等喜欢对别人指手画脚的家伙——他翻了个身，醒了。他不知道自己睡了多久，只知道现在天完全黑了，四周亮起了灯火，或许是星星，似乎东南西北各处景象都差不多，他迷路了。对于星座他很陌生，他不可能靠它们来确定自己的方位，他刚来时的旅店似乎在这样的黑夜里轻易地消失了，他只得向着他感觉较近的灯火走去。

不一会他就来到了一所他似曾见过的有年头仿古建筑前面。这里的人们喜欢用青砖和木材造房子，由于这样的材料不能耐久，因此这样的房子能保存下来应该是相当难得，更多类似的房子在自然力或是人祸的作用下不可避免地毁坏了。一方面是居民的极度贫困，另一方面是他们在为衣食生计辛苦操劳的同时不得不负担新建或维修住房的重荷，艰苦的付出和微不足道的福利回报之间触目惊心的对比非外人所能想象得出。为什么不用石头呢？造价问题。窗户总是太小或者太少，家具样式和摆设布局缺乏生气，这种房子似乎更适合于供奉神明而不适合于让大活人来居住。房主人似乎对他这样的迷路游客见过很多，稍微费力地比划一番，看起来弄懂了来客的意图。他打开正房的后门，领着他穿过一个有着相当规模的天井——正房是他一家子住的，此外还空余着不少侧房多是用来接待游客的，它们都收拾得相当干净。“绝对确保原汁原味！”他这样解释着，一边打开一扇门，来到一个小小的庭院。“这是后花园，游客可以随意赏玩小憩，那些房间都有窗户对着花园，总的气氛相当幽静雅致，保证宾至如归。你不能在这里小住真是相当可惜。”房主人加重语气似地摇头叹息，又继续带着他来到一座小巧精致的假山后面，推开一个竹篱笆门。“从这里出去，沿着这条小路不停地走，不要担心一路上没有岔道，穿过这个村庄在走上5，6里路就到了高速公路，你可以很方便地叫道出租车，不过你现在改变注意还来得及。”

他还是很友好地告辞了。这个村庄很大可是住户稀疏，这一点可以从零零星星的灯光推断出来。有时前面看似漆黑的一片，走过几处阴森森的树影或是转过一堵坍塌的围墙又可以看到一两点灯火。这一两点光亮和它们后面的稀疏的灯火形成了一个谜一样的不可分割的整体。记得导游说过以前为了防备盗匪袭击这里的居民往往几百户上千人住在一起构成一个很大的村落。突然一只狗在某处吠叫起来。盗匪——在他的头脑里飞快地闪过，他匆忙从旅行包里取出一把手斧，那是他在野外宿营时劈柴取火用的。两只手紧握着唯一的自卫武器，两只耳朵丝毫不敢大意。东方的残忍是和东方人的孱弱的身体恰好成反比的，二战时日本武士对待战俘的种种令人发指的恶行已经清楚地地表现出来了，贫穷与不公滋生犯罪——那么自己的处境真是万分凶险了。

他就这样走了很久，由于紧张时间似乎淤滞不前。也许他只走了不到一个钟头，高速公路依然只出现在他的期待中。他真的应该在那个旅店里住上一宿，明天接着赶路也还是来得及的。店主人最后的话分明是包含着某种罪恶企图，很有可能店主和盗匪是一伙的。自己怎么就愚蠢到了爱惜身外之物超过了爱惜自己的身家性命呢！在一棵大树下赫然站着一个不怀好意的人，只等他走近了。

“谁？”他厉声问道，想以虚张声势来掩饰自己的恐惧，只待对方发话，即刻准备将随身所有的美元和手上的瑞士名表投降出去。

“请原谅我的过失，如果因此导致意外，我的良心会折磨我一辈子。现在请你跟我走吧。”是向导的声音，“您没事吧？”

“没事。”没事才怪！现在他头脑中一团雾水。这不就是他睡觉时的那棵大树吗？他辛苦折腾了半夜只不过绕了一个大圈子。东方，东方，此时就象在他眼前的向导一样更加显得神秘莫测，即使他走得更近，也不会看得更清楚。