Local activists decry alleged spy's PRC trial

Tsai Ting-I

Taiwan-based human rights activists yesterday morning appealed to the government of the People's Republic of China to try the U.S.-based Chinese activist Yang Jianli, charged with espionage, in a fair and open manner.

"Regulations for legal procedures were legalized in China, but are rarely implemented," said Chou Tsang-hsin, a lawyer and representative of a legal watchdog group.

Chou added that the group would observe Yang's case very closely, and do its utmost to prevent China from infringing the alleged spy's basic human rights enshrined under the PRC's Constitution.

The Taiwan Association for Human Rights yesterday held a press conference to publicize its view that China was using the cross-strait impasse to stifle the pro-democracy movement. The association bases its claim on the charges laid against Yang of spying for Taiwan.

Yang Jianli, who runs a foundation in Boston that advocates political change in China, was detained in April 2002 after visiting China with his friend's passport to meet other activists and laid-off workers in northern China.

After about twenty months' spent in detention, the communist government yesterday put Yang on closed trial.

The closed-door trial lasted three hours in Beijing's No.2 Intermediate Court, but no verdict was issued. However, a court spokesman, Gao Zhihan, said he couldn't confirm whether the trial took place because it was off bounds to the public.

According to the lawyer of Yang's wife, Jared Genser, the accused is alleged to have acted as an undercover agent for Taiwan's Kuomingtang. He said the charges appear to stem from four US$100 grants given by a foundation run by Yang to activists in China to promote human rights and democracy.

Yang's lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said that Yang pleaded innocent to the charge.

Christina Fu, Yang's spouse said she is convinced of her husband's innocence, but is not optimistic the court will agree.

"The chances of the court meting out a not guilty (verdict) are small. We're worried," Fu, a U.S. national and researcher at Harvard Medical School, told Reuters from Washington.

Fu said after the trial ended: "They did not have any substantial evidence to prove Yang Jianli was a spy."

Yang's brother and sister traveled to Beijing from their home in eastern Shandong to attend the trial but were barred by authorities Fu said.

"That Mr. Yang will be convicted is not in doubt," said Jerome Cohen and Jared Genser, Yang's legal advisers, in a commentary disclosed to Reuters. They noted that the conviction rate for political cases was close to 100 percent in China.

Exiled Chinese dissident Wang Dan said yesterday at the press conference that Yang's case is symbolic, and will demonstrate China's attitude to the implementation of civil rights. The student leader added that he is delighted to speak out for Yang from Taiwan, the closest location to Beijing, compared with other dissidents in the U.S.

"A lot of Chinese dissidents are listed on the government's black list, which means cases like Yang's will happen again and again in the future," Wang said.

The PRC rejected a ruling in June by the U.N. Human Rights Commission that it had acted illegally by failing to give Yang a fair trial on charges relating to using someone else's passport to enter the country.

Fu, who has been lobbying the White House, U.S. Congress and State Department to help win her husband's release, said she would continue to fight.

Yang earned a doctorate in political economy from Harvard University and another in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.

After leaving the United States in 1989 to participate in the pro-democracy demonstrations that were crushed by the army in June that year, China blacklisted Yang and barred his return to his homeland.

Chien Hsi-chieh, a human rights activist, meanwhile, told the Taiwan News that Yang, as an intellectual, could have never been manipulated as a spy.

He, further appealed to the general public to voice support for Yang's release, emphasizing that Taiwan's experience of democratization is a valuable lesson for China future.

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Source: "eTaiwan".