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Thursday, March 18, 2004 |
CHINA:
Joy at news of imminent release of South Korean photographer Seok Jae-hyun [http://www.resolution217.org]
Press Freedom groups Reporters Without Borders and Resolution217 welcomed news of the imminent release of South Korean photographer Jae-Hyun Seok with great joy.
The South Korean High Consul in Beijing, Lee Young-baek, told Soek's wife Kang Hye-won on 17 March that her husband would be released from Weifang prison by Chinese authorities on 19 March and allowed to return to South Korea.
Resolution 217, Soek's support committee, and Reporters Without Borders praised the efforts of his family, friends, lawyers and South Korean diplomats. But both organisations regretted that it had taken the Chinese authorities nearly 15 months to decide to free the journalist, who had done no more than try to inform international public opinion about North Korean refugees in China.
Seok was arrested on 18 January 2003 while covering an attempted operation to evacuate North Korean refugees from China to South Korea and Japan. China had signed an agreement with Pyongyang that obliges it to send any North Korean refugees home.
The photographer was sentenced on 22 May 2003 to two years in prison by a court in Yantai, Shandong province for "trafficking in persons."
Seok's wife Kang Hye-won will go to China on 18 March to be ready to meet her husband when he leaves the prison. The couple will leave Chinese territory again in the afternoon of 19 March from Qingdao, Shandong Province, opposite the Korean peninsula, and arrive back in South Korea at the Incheon airport at 5:00 p.m.
Four other people are still in prison for organising the attempt to evacuate the refugees. There has been no further news about the fate of the North Koreans who were arrested by police.
A freelance photojournalist, who has worked for the U. S. daily The New York Times and the South Korean GEO Magazine, Seok is physically very weakened.
More than 10,000 people had signed the petition for his release on either www.resolution217.org or www.rsf.org.
8:41:46 PM 
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CHINA: Closed-doors trial for Zhang Shengqi [RSF]
The trial of Zhang Shengqi and two other members of the clandestine Catholic Church opened on 16 March 2004 behind closed doors. All three are accused of "divulging state secrets".
Liu Fenggang is accused of carrying out research for a report exposing Chinese government repression of the clandestine Catholic Church. Xu Yonghai is on trial for having printed the report and Zhang Shengqi for undertaking to post it on the Internet and to send it electronically to organisations abroad.
Families were not allowed to attend this first hearing, at the end of which no verdict was announced.
[more]
8:02:31 PM
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CHINESE CHRISTIANS TRIED IN SECRET FOR CRACKDOWN REPORT [RFA]
Just days after the country's parliament voted to enshrine respect for human rights into the constitution, a court in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou is trying three members of an unofficial Christian church for leaking state secrets to foreigners in a secret procedure from which even their relatives are barred, RFA's Mandarin and Cantonese services report. Xu Yonghai, Liu Fenggang, and Zhang Shengqi attended the first session of the Hangzhou People's Intermediate Court Tuesday, but were told that no relatives would be allowed to attend. Chinese courts usually issue special permits to relatives of defendants. [more]
7:56:53 PM
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Family Members Detained In the Court, Three Christians Finish First Trial; Henan Church Leader Deborah Xu Released [ChinaAid]
In the morning of March 16(Beijing Time), When Ms. Li Mingzhi and Ms. Ye Jifei arrived at the gate of Hangzhou Intermediate Court , instead of seeing their dear son and fiancé in the court hearing room, they suddenly found themselves being detained for three hours. The two women were then sent to the train station by the court military police only after they revealed they had purchased their return tickets to their hometown in Shandong and Jilin province thousands miles away. Meanwhile, on the same day,Ms. Li Shanna, wife of Dr Xu Yonghai was “escorted” all the way from Beijing to Hangzhou by two policemen and the chief of the Nurse Section at Pingan Hospital in Beijing where she works. She told CAA that she was forced to “tour “Hanggou city for the whole day without being allowed to even approach the court building where she wants to take a glance at her husband. According to a reliable source who is working within the Chinese government, CAA learned after three hours’ secret trial on Tuesday morning, the three Christians are waiting for court verdict. All of them were charged of providing intelligence to overseas organizations. The charges were brought against Liu Fenggang, Xu Yonghai and Zhang Shengqi in the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou. Sources say the prosecutors accused the three Christians leaking information about a court case which happened in Anshan city, Liaoning province to an overseas magazine in 2000. That case referred to was about an appeal filed by a house church Christian Ms. Li Baozhi who was sentenced to one and a half years re-education through labour after she was accused as an “evil cult member.” Liu Fenggang, Xu Yonghai and Zhang Shengqi were accused of sending out what they investigated about the case. The overseas magazine Christian Life Quarterly was said by the prosecutors as an “evil cult” magazine. The prosecutors reportedly also charged Mr. Liu wrote about reports on the government’s actions on the destruction of the house church buildings in several areas of Zhejiang province in 2003. According to the Article 111 of the Chinese Criminal Law, these Christians could face up to 10 years even life in prison if convicted.
Meanwhile, after intensive international pressure, the detained prominent Henan house church leader Ms. Deborah Xu Yongling was bailed out on March 15. She was detained to unknown location by the Bureau of National Security of Henan Province on January 25, 2004. She was warned not to leave her village within next six months before a formal charge against her is filed. CAA learned the US State Department officials raised her case to the Chinese government recently.
CAA is very glad to hear the news about the release of Ms. Xu and thanks all parties for their tireless efforts to secure her release.
However, in the case of the three Christians first trial, CAA deeply doubted the fairness of the first trial. “This adds up another case of religious persecution with baseless charges,” said Bob Fu, CAA’s president,” first of all, the accused ‘evil cult’ Chicago-based Christian Life Quarterly magazine is a well -known world recognized evangelical Chinese Christian magazine; second, to report a court case open to the public doesn’t involve any national intelligence at all; Thirdly, instead of prosecuting those like the three individuals who boldly report the truth, those officials who lead the campaign destroying the house churches should be brought to justice.”
CAA urges the international community to continue to build up pressure for the release of these three innocent believers.
The address of Ms. Li Shanna is 6-501 Building Ten, De Wai Xin Feng Nan Li,Xicheng District, Beijing City, PRC Zip code: 100088.
Ms. Li Mingzhi’s address is Zhangdian Village, Wangji Town, Cao County, Shandong province Zip code: 260000
www.chinaaid.org
7:53:32 PM
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CHINA: MORE ARRESTS
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- China Aid Association (CAA) has just had confirmation of the arrest of 19 house church leaders in Henan Province. On 24 January 2004, Ms Qiao Chunling and her husband, leaders of a house group church with some 100,000 members, were arrested in their home, and their computer, Christian literature, phone, cash and other belongings were confiscated. The Qiaos had with them the train tickets for 19 of their house church leaders to attend a Seminar on Christian Marriage that day in Beijing.
Later, all 19 house church leaders were arrested either at Luoyang City Train Station or on the train. The Qiaos are reportedly being held in Mangshan Detention Centre, Henan province. The location of eight of the ten still in custody is unknown. Those who have been released all say they were tortured. Some reported the interrogators from Henan told them this operation was directed by the Beijing National Security Bureau. According to CAA, Public Security Bureau officers (PSB) then broke up the Beijing Christian Marriage seminar half an hour after it started.
Human Rights in China reports that Beijing house church leader Hua Huiqi was put under house arrest on 5 March (during China's National People's Congress). When he protested, he and his wife, Wei Jumei, were arrested and later beaten. Wei lost a tooth in the assault.
On Tuesday 16 March, three Christians appeared in the Hangzhou Intermediate Court charged with 'providing intelligence to overseas organisations'. They are Zhang Shengqi (23), a computer technician; Liu Fenggang, a church historian, house church leader and pro-democracy campaigner; and Xu Yonghai, a psychiatrist. They were accused of giving information to an overseas magazine in 2000. The information related to an open-to-the-public court case in Anshan city, Liaoning province, where a house church Christian, Ms Li Baozhi, was appealing against an 18 months' re-education through labour sentence after she was charged as an 'evil cult member'.
Family members were turned away from the court and the 16 March trial was conducted in secret. A verdict could be days or weeks away. Bob Fu of CAA (http://www.chinaaid.org/) reports, 'According to the Article 111 of the Chinese Criminal Law, these Christians could face up to 10 years, or even life in prison if convicted.'
UPDATE from RLP 259 (18 February)
- Zeng Guangbo (36) was re-arrested on 1 March. He is in the custody of the Nanyang PSB and there are grave fears for his safety.
- Ms Xu Yongling (Deborah Xu) was recently confirmed to be held at the Henan National Security Bureau. On 6 March Nanyang police raided her nephew's home. On 15 March, thanks to intense international prayer and advocacy, Deborah Xu was bailed. She was ordered not to leave her village for the next six months while formal charges against her are being filed. [more]
7:45:56 PM
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Underground church leaders on trial in China [ekklesia]
Three underground church leaders in China have been secretly tried for exposing a crackdown against Christians just days after it passed a constitutional amendment to protect human rights. [more]
7:41:40 PM
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South Korea journalist set for release in China. Reuters, March 18, 2004 BEIJING China plans to free a South Korean photojournalist arrested last year as he chronicled a failed escape attempt by North Korean refugees, the Foreign Ministry and South Korean Embassy in Beijing said Thursday. ... [Free North Korea!]
7:14:48 PM
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© 2004 Radio Free China
Last Update: 4/4/2004; 9:15:59 AM
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