HRW Academic Freedom Committee's Letter to President Clinton
June 18, 1998
President Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Dear President Clinton:
We understand that during your upcoming state visit to China you will
be delivering a speech at Beijing University and will make an
appearance at Tiananmen Square as part of the Chinese government's
welcoming ceremony.
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- Ideological surveillance remains a significant barrier to intellectual
freedom in China.
- Although the China National People's Congress in 1997 removed the
counterrevolutionary acts provision from the criminal code and
replaced it with "endangering state security," and although the
Chinese government has released a number of dissidents in the past
year, numerous proponents of democratic reform remain behind bars.
- The Chinese authorities also continue to violate the basic civil and
political rights of Chinese intellectuals who dare to express their
views by sending them into forced exile and by denying them permission
to visit academic colleagues, family, and friends in China.
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Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee
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On behalf of the Human Rights Watch Academic
Freedom Committee, a group of scholars and academic leaders organized
in 1991 to protest restrictions on academic freedom and abuse of the
basic rights of educators and students worldwide, we urge that you use
every opportunity afforded by your visit, in particular your speech at
Beijing University, to speak out forcefully in support of academic
freedom and the basic rights of the scholarly community in China.
Your public endorsement of academic freedom will have immense symbolic
importance for Chinese scholars and students. As you know, academics
and students at Beijing University and elsewhere have long played a
leading role in the push for democracy and freedom in China, from the
May Fourth movement of 1919 to the Tiananmen Square democracy movement
of 1989. In both 1919 and 1989, many of China's leading scholars and
students called for "Democracy and Science," realizing that the
freedom to pursue research and scholarship unfettered by censorship
and persecution cannot be separated from basic political freedoms.
The following comments, published in 1995, still hold: "A dictatorship
is never interested in academic freedom. This is because such freedom
represents the most effective constraint on power; it is an
uncontrollable source of potential opposition . . . . Why is it that
people who do research and are involved in education have always
conflicted with [authoritarian rule]? The answer is quite simple: the
basic spirit and methods of science require free research, which
directly conflicts with an ideology of tyranny." (Fang Lizhi, "China:
Academic Freedom and Ideological Barriers.")
Although Chinese citizens and scholars enjoy more freedom of
expression and greater liberty to comment on political subjects than
they did in the years immediately following the suppression of the
pro-democracy movement at Tiananmen Square and throughout China in
1989, the authorities continue to imprison dissidents and to impose
far-reaching ideological controls on the academic community. Your
visit to Beijing University presents you with the opportunity to
deliver a message to the tens of thousands of Chinese scientists,
scholars, and students who cherish intellectual freedom and know
firsthand the costs of political intolerance and repression for the
development of Chinese science and society. If you are silent, you
will send a message of tacit endorsement for the Chinese authorities'
repressive policies. If you publicly emphasize the close connection
between scholarly autonomy and protection of citizens' basic right to
free expression, and publicly draw attention to the cases of Chinese
academics still in prison for expressing their views, you will send a
strong message of support to those in China who have been most
courageous in standing for freedom.
A university earns respect and achieves intellectual excellence when
academics are not forced to support a government, an economic agenda,
or a political ideology, but rather are free to use their talents to
advance human knowledge and understanding. In China, that freedom is
fettered by damaging ideological and institutional constraints, the
imprisonment of critical academics, and foreign exile and denial of
re-entry to those who freely speak their minds.
Ideological and Institutional Controls
Ideological surveillance remains a significant barrier to intellectual
freedom in China. This is not simply the legacy of decades past. In
1997, the government introduced a host of new regulations and
restrictions expressly aimed at strengthening ideological training and
Communist Party control over universities in China.
- In January 1997, the government announced new censorship
regulations, effective February 1, banning all publications that
questioned the legitimacy of communist rule or were not in line with
"socialist morality."
- In April 1997, the government announced arbitrary new
restrictions on public opinion research, household surveys, and
studies of demographics, important tools for understanding citizens'
attitudes toward economic reform and other social and political
issues.
- A memo from the Propaganda Ministry, the Office of the
Secretary of the Politburo, and the Office of the State Council, also
made public in April 1997, announced that all social science projects
involving foreign funding henceforth would require approval from the
Public Security Bureau and National Security and Foreign ministries.
The new restrictions coincided with a campaign at the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences against "theories and opinions that are against
Marxism, the leadership of the Party and the people's democratic
dictatorship
- In June 1997, the well-publicized Sixth National Conference on
Party Building in Institutions of Higher Education called on all
members of the academic community to firmly pursue the party's line,
principles, and policies, echoing a government decree issued in
October 1996 ordering university administrators to consult
campus-based Communist Party representatives on all major decisions.
- Also in June, academics in Beijing were ordered to inform the
police in advance if they planned to hold conferences attended by more
than twenty participants, regardless of location. Scholars wishing to
engage in exchange programs or joint activities with foreign and
Taiwanese institutions were required to secure prior permission from
the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Public Security, and
the State Education Commission, as well as from local, campus-based
Communist Party committees.
- New controls on the Internet also were introduced in 1997,
requiring all Internet service providers to apply for licenses from
the authorities and provide data on the scope and nature of their
activities. Meanwhile, dozens of World Wide Web sites that had been
proscribed and electronically blocked by the government in 1996,
including those of overseas-based dissident groups and human rights
organizations, remain inaccessible to the country's estimated several
hundred thousand Internet users.
- Finally, the Chinese government continues to deny visas and
research access to overseas scholars, including many prominent
American sinologists, whose works the government finds ideologically
or politically objectionable.
Arrest and Imprisonment of Critical Academics
Although the China National People's Congress in 1997 removed the
counterrevolutionary acts provision from the criminal code and
replaced it with "endangering state security," and although the
Chinese government has released a number of dissidents in the past
year, numerous proponents of democratic reform remain behind bars.
Although we are unable to present a complete list of cases because the
government strictly limits access to information on political
prisoners, individual cases that you should raise with Chinese
authorities include:
- Chen Lantao, a thirty-seven year-old marine biologist, was
sentenced in 1989 to eighteen years in jail, with five years
subsequent deprivation of political rights. Although he was charged
with "counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement" (since dropped
from the criminal code) and "disturbing the social order and traffic,"
Chen apparently was arrested for a speech delivered just days after
the June fourth incident in which he excoriated the government for the
crackdown and called for political reform.
- Ngawang Choephel, a thirty-five-year-old U.S.-based Tibetan
ethnomusicologist, was sentenced in December 1996 to eighteen years in
prison by a Lhasa court for alleged "espionage" in connection with
research he had been carrying out in Tibet.
- Li Hai, a former philosophy student from Beijing University
who had been detained incommunicado since May 1995, was sentenced in
late 1996 to nine years in prison on state secrets-related charges for
compiling a list of names and other details of Beijing residents still
in prison in connection with the 1989 pro-democracy movement.
- In January 1997, five prominent dissidents from Guiyang,
detained since mid-1995 for advocating democratic reform, were tried
and sentenced for alleged "subversive activities." Chen Xi, leader of
the group and a lecturer at Guizhou Jinzhu University, received a
ten-year prison term. The other men received sentences ranging from
two to five years.
- Two members of the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance,
Hada and Tegexi, were sentenced to fifteen and ten years in prison
respectively on charges of separatism and espionage on December 6,
1996, had their appeals rejected in late January 1997. Both are being
held in a crowded cell in Inner Mongolia No.1 Prison. The two were
part of a group of ten intellectuals arrested in late 1995 for their
association with the Alliance, a social organization to promote
Mongolian culture and "the concept of a high degree of autonomy for
China's minorities as guaranteed by the constitution." In two
peaceful protests following the arrests, some 200 people including
university students and teachers demonstrated their support for those
arrested. Police broke up the demonstrations and held more than
several dozen for questioning. Hada and his wife managed the
Mongolian Academic Bookshop in Hohhot. The bookstore was closed after
Hada's arrest and its contents confiscated. His wife has twice
petitioned two government agencies to permit her to reopen it. Neither
agency has replied.
- Wang Youcai, No. 15 on the government's most wanted students
list after the 1989 pro-democracy movement and a former Beijing
University student, was held for eight days beginning on April 27,
1998, when he tried to participate in the celebration of Beijing
University's one-hundredth anniversary. To keep him from contact with
current students, Wang was returned to Hangzhou on April 28 and held
until May 5.
Forced Exile
The Chinese authorities also continue to violate the basic civil and
political rights of Chinese intellectuals who dare to express their
views by sending them into forced exile and by denying them permission
to visit academic colleagues, family, and friends in China. As you
know, dissident leaders Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan were among those
released into forced exile in the past year. They are just two of
dozens of exiles who are prohibited from returning to China. Until
all Chinese are free to express their views in China, the release of
dissidents cannot be called an unqualified victory for democracy or
human rights.
Many other Chinese now residing overseas face harassment upon return
to China. Most recently, Li Xiaorong, a researcher at the University
of Maryland who now holds an American passport, flew to China in early
April 1998 to visit her parents. She had just arrived at her parents'
house in Sichuan province when the police came and took her away,
driving her to the airport that night. She believes that she was
forced out of the country as a result of her active support of human
rights in China.
By speaking frankly on the above subjects during your speech at
Beijing University and at every other opportunity afforded by your
visit to China, you can send a strong signal of support to the Chinese
academic community and to advocates of freedom and democracy both in
China and abroad.
Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
Sincerely yours,
/s/
Fang Lizhi
Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee Professor of Physics,
University of Arizona
/s/
Jonathan F. Fanton
Co-Chair, Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee President, New
School for Social Research