Chinese officials thwart inquiries, says sister of jailed dissident

Josh Gerstein, Globe Correspondent

BEIJING -- For the past week, Yang Jianhua has trudged from government office to government office here with a simple request: She wants to visit her brother, a prodemocracy activist who has been in jail more than nine months.

So far, she has been unable even to figure out where he is being held. ''It's too tough,'' she said, fighting back tears while describing her family's struggle.

Her brother, Yang Jianli, a 39-year-old Brookline resident and father of two, was arrested in April while traveling in the southwest city of Kunming. Jianli has permanent resident status in the United States but remains a Chinese citizen.

A few weeks after his arrest, his wife, Christina Fu, flew to Beijing to seek her husband's release. But Chinese officials denied her entry.

Yang Jianhua, an optometrist who lives in Rockville, Md., has since managed to get into China but has been stymied by bureaucratic obstruction. She said security officials told her they can't help the family without a copy of the written notice of arrest. But the family says it never received such a notice and has been unable to obtain one.

''At least they should tell us where he is,'' said Jianhua, who plans to stay in China another week and is being aided by another brother, Jianjun, a local government official in northeastern China. ''That's our right.''

The only recent news about Jianli's case may deepen his family's worries: The government says the investigation into his actions has widened.

Just after Jianli's arrest, authorities indicated he was likely to face charges that he entered the country illegally using a friend's passport. But a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, said yesterday that he could face new accusations.

''During the legal proceedings, we learned he has committed other crimes,'' she said. Zhang did not indicate the nature of the new allegations but said that part of the delay was due to the continuing investigation.

Zhang insisted that China has followed the law strictly in the handling of Jianli's case. He was detained on the orders of prosecutors from the Beijing People's Procurator Second Division, she said, and formal notice was given to the family.

Jianli's family disputes that. ''We do not have written notification,'' his sister said. Without that, the family is unable to appoint a lawyer to represent him.

The US Embassy in Beijing did not respond to a request to discuss Jianli's case, but US diplomats and legislators have raised the matter repeatedly with the Chinese. In addition, a group of Jianli's friends, some of whom met him while he was earning a doctorate at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, have filed a complaint on his behalf with a United Nations panel on arbitrary detention.

Jianli's family has also continued to draw attention to his case. Earlier this month, they staged a protest outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, the concern of Jianli's family and supporters grew when a Chinese court imposed life imprisonment on another US-based dissident, Wang Bingzhang. Authorities said Wang, 55, was convicted on terrorism and espionage charges.

China's official Xinhua News Agency published a litany of accusations against Wang that spanned more than a decade, including that he provided military secrets to Taiwan and plotted to bomb the Chinese Embassy in Thailand.

The US State Department said Wang's one-day, closed-door trial was unfair and warned China against using the current fervor against terrorism to punish dissidents. ''We've made it clear to China on numerous occasions and at very senior levels that the war on terrorism must not be misused to repress legitimate political grievances or dissent,'' department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

But even Wang's supporters acknowledge he has long been among the most militant opponents of China's communist government. Yongjun Zhou, a leader of the Free China Movement in Washington, D.C., said Wang's writings endorsed the use of force to overthrow the Chinese regime. He also said Wang ''joked with friends'' about blowing up a Chinese Embassy. But Zhou said none of these plans were ever carried out. ''The Chinese government got angry about Wang Bingzhang's words, not really about his activities,'' he said.

Nonetheless, Wang's support for violent action prompted US officials to make his case a lower priority in human rights talks with the Chinese, according to activists familiar with the discussions.

Yang Jianli's case, on the other hand, remains a top priority for US diplomats. But the Chinese government has not budged. His sister, Jianhua, is adamant that he advocates solely for peaceful, democratic change in China.

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Source: "Boston Globe".