Chinese dissident Yang's wife pins hopes on Bush Friday October 25, 3:44 PM
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - If President George W. Bush says two words -- Yang Jianli -- when he meets his counterpart Jiang Zemin in Texas on Friday, Christina Fu will consider the Chinese president's visit to the United States a success. Fu has been lobbying the White House, Congress and the State Department to help win the release of her husband, Chinese democracy activist Yang Jianli, since he was detained in China in April after entering on a friend's passport and later trying to leave on a fake identification card. And she is now pinning her hopes for Yang's release on Bush, hoping he will mention her husband's case to Jiang when the duo hold their third meeting since Bush took office. "It's almost a guarantee of my husband's release if Bush spends one minute to mention his name with Jiang," Fu told Reuters from Washington. "Otherwise, all the efforts made so far were wasted. I can only expect to see my husband be put in jail for years." Yang's case underscores the frustrations exiled, educated activists have trying to affect reforms in China from the outside and the resolve of China's leaders to prevent their influence. But analysts say pressure in the past helped secure the releases of several others jailed in China, like former student leader Wang Dan and veteran democracy activist Wei Jingsheng. Twenty-eight U.S. Representatives and 12 Senators have written letters and issued calls to Jiang and other Chinese government officials to free Yang, Fu said. In a meeting with the State Department on Monday, Fu and her lawyer said they were assured very senior officials were aware of Yang's case ahead of Jiang's visit. BLACK-LISTED BUT DETERMINED Yang, a Chinese national and U.S. permanent resident, supported the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations centred on Tiananmen Square in 1989 by bringing organisers money raised from the United States, where he was studying at the time. He was later black-listed by China, unable to return. But his wife says he could not shake the urge to come back to the country that barred him and research prospects for democracy. "He was frustrated. He's been talking about going back to China for at least five years. He wanted to finish his degree at Harvard" first, she said. "Within a year of graduating he told me, 'Our son is old enough. I'm going to China'." In April, Yang used a friend's passport and returned to China to study the spread of worker protests, which he learned were more widespread than the government had claimed, Fu said. "He said: 'This is more serious than Tiananmen, the student movement. I've been studying democracy for China all these years and this is a form of freedom of speech -- a wave from the ordinary person'," she said. Yang, 39, earned a Ph.D from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in political economy and a doctorate in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. ILLEGALLY DETAINED Yang's legal advisers, Jared Genser, a fellow graduate of Harvard University, and Jerome Cohen, a New York-based Chinese law scholar, said he was being held illegally. Under Chinese criminal law, officials cannot detain a suspect longer than 37 days without sending the family a detention notice detailing the person's location and the charges. Yang's brother, who lives in China, was notified verbally of his arrest in June and the Foreign Ministry told the U.S. Embassy in July that Yang was being held by the Beijing Public Security Bureau. But Genser said neither counted as formal notice. "We've heard in general terms where he's being detained but until they provide a written notification we can't provide him an attorney," Genser said. Chinese lawyers have refused to take the case until a detention notice and charges against him are issued. China's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Yang's case. Cohen and Genser are also are submitting a petition to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, seeking a ruling that Yang is being held in extended and isolated detention illegally under international law -- a strategy proven successful for the release of detainees in countries such as Pakistan, Myanmar and Sudan. On Wednesday, Fu attended an evening rally with Amnesty International near where Jiang ate dinner in Houston to press for Yang's release. Jiang is due to meet Bush at his Texas ranch on Friday. -------------------------- |
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