Change Jianping, a journalist was sentenced to one year "reeducation through labor" .
D a quick gesture, Hua Chunhui dismantle batteries and smart cards of his two mobile phones, he handed to his right on the restaurant table. "habit" , "he said in explaining the surprising agility for its operation. "The police may have placed a monitoring system on my aircraft." His tragic experience encouraged him to proceed with caution. Employee of an insurance company, Hua Chunhui, 47, was to marry his fiancee on Oct. 28, Change Jianping, five years his junior. "That day she was arrested. The day of our marriage. " Two weeks Later, she was sentenced to one year "reeducation through labor" .
His crime: a "tweet." A sentence of eight characters posted on the U.S. site Twitter microblogging: "Go, angry youth, go for it! Go ahead! "It was just a joke . Cheng Jianping addressed to young Chinese nationalists that the government had left demonstrate in Beijing to protest against the arrest by Japan of the crew of a Chinese ship off the Senkaku, a Pacific archipelago that are competing for the two countries. Hua Chunhui explains "For her, as for me, chauvinism is unbearable. I posted a message on Twitter to ridicule these nationalists encouraged by the government. If they are really sincere, why do not they attack the Japanese pavilion at the International Exhibition in Shanghai, "I joked. Cheng "reposted" my message by adding a voice of humor, which earned him incarcerated. "
A confusing sentence
If dozens of Chinese Internet users have already been sentenced to prison for expressing themselves on websites or blogs, the police had previously never punished, and for so little, the user of instant messaging. "This is the first martyr of Twitter" , said Teng Biao, a friend and lawyer Cheng Jianping, which has mobilized to try to appeal this sentence confusing. Much unnecessary effort: the sentences of RTL work "(a form of forced labor imposed in the Maoist era) does not fall within the courts and judges. They are marked by "committees" where it is for police to judge and condemn. Virtually no appeal is possible. This system is quasi opaque, while the penalties can range up to four years of forced labor. A rate of twelve hours per day in total silence, hundreds of thousands of prisoners toil in some 300 camps and factories. Men make tools of all kinds, women textiles.
camp where rehabilitation is owned Cheng Jianping called Shibalihe. It is located in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province. It has its own rules: "Cheng has heart problems and for this reason, the camp initially refused to take charge. The police insisted, so they still jailed, but the work of providing " says Hua Chunhui. "I've been locked up in detention centers ," he said. It is up to fourteen on the same bed of brick, so tight you can not sleep on that side. The lights never go out. Two inmates must stand guard at night. The toilets are in the same room, without a screen. " Food, says he is still insufficient. "We are hungry all the time. You just think to eat. " Camp administration sells everything needed to overcome the thinness of his rations: ready meals, fruit, drinks - at an exorbitant price. To eat, a prisoner must spend and, in addition to food allocation, about 3000 yuan per month (334 euros) twice the monthly salary of a worker, said he. "Since I do not want my fiancee suffers too, I send him money."
Records sensitive
In its award, buffered by the Committee reeducation through labor, it is stipulated that Cheng Jianping is convicted of "unlawful conduct" characterized by a "tweet that encourages users to go to Shanghai to destroy the Japanese flag" . By entering this pretext, the police made him pay for his activism. "In 2005, Cheng was a magazine journalist in Zhejiang. She was outraged by the case of a woman raped and murdered. The alleged perpetrator was the son of a local official, police crime disguised as suicide. " Since then, Cheng Jianping travels the country in search of sensitive issues on which it investigates and publishes it on the Internet . His blog has been censored, it reiterated on Twitter - Network forbidden but still accessible - denouncing the forced evictions, abuse power ...
The couple is part of an informal network called wei guan ("observers" or "bystanders"). They are hundreds and the numbers continue to grow. Equipped with cell phones and blogs, they travel the country in search of miscarriages of justice, they tell the menu to mobilize support for victims. Whether illegal mining accidents or case of milk contaminated with melamine which has poisoned hundreds of children without parents to obtain satisfactory compensation for wei guan , more a case of known impact, the less chance of being stifled. Authorities fearing social unrest, the presence of hundreds of onlookers flocked to the courts where these cases are considered sometimes enough to free the defendants. With their success, some wei guan work full-time to these activities which have a priori nothing illegal. Donors, often with small amounts, sustain anonymously to their needs. "With the development of the Internet, fewer and fewer people afraid to speak, "said Hua Chunhui, and there may be thousands or even hundreds of thousands of onlookers in China."
"Our goal is to mobilize civil society, because it is through it that China will change " , says he. On his lapel, pinned like a Legion of Honor, Hua Chunhui wears a small badge "civil society". Once tolerated, this word has recently been proscribed in the official press. "The government said "the people" feared above all the creation of a society of citizens. Yet in this direction that we must evolve. "The people" and "citizens" are really two very different concepts. A citizen has obligations but also rights. " repression of pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 " was a revelation for me and many people of my generation " says explain it to her activism. "China urgently needs a social transformation. It can happen so violent or nonviolent, based on democracy and justice. "
repression against wei guan grows. Constantly, you have to play cat and mouse with police who struggles to find excuses more or less legal to stem the spread of this movement certainly very marginal but felt threatened by power. If only because it relates, via the Internet, what the official press silent. "Two days ago, I had an appointment with a group of people whose homes were destroyed strength. The police, who learned it, invited me to the restaurant at the agreed time of appointment. I had to go to dinner with five police officers! They escorted me home after dinner and stayed in the car at the foot of my building to make sure I'm not going to this meeting. " He is also aware that dozens of policemen rushed in a restaurant to arrest wei guan who dine together. "It happened to me several times, as well as the lawyer Teng Biao and many others."
Lawyers struck the bar
Simply write what you think the Internet does not frighten the authorities, says Hua Chunhui. "What really scares the government, are those who step out of the Internet, even a small step." This new crackdown succeeds that applied for about three years another movement, the wei quan , "advocacy," conducted by a group of lawyers. They have tried, through many business (protection consumers, AIDS patients, victims of environmental pollution, forced expropriations, etc..) officials to condemn the courts. The Communist Party has put its foot down. Gongmeng, the most prominent of these groups of lawyers, was dissolved in 2009. Many of these lawyers were removed from the bar, some imprisoned. Others, such as Gao Zhisheng, were tortured and disappeared.
"In China everything is possible" sighs Hua Chunhui, who feel that the noose is closing in on him. In this day of October who brought him the sad news of the arrest of Cheng Jianping, not less than twenty-one police officers, uniformed and plainclothes, went to call his business. History impress. Asked in a hotel room where he was guarded by four policemen, he was jailed and then released after ten days, without conviction. But the police pressured his employer for the dismissal. "I'll probably lose my job , says he. Regardless, I will become a full-time wei guan. The Chinese economy has grown incredibly. When I tell Youth poverty in which they lived thirty years ago, if it is just believe me. However, politically, or the right of citizens, there has been no change or evolution. The Government always condemns those who think and express themselves. "
On 1 December, an official with the Ministry of Public Security visited the camp is held Cheng Jianping to offer him a contract . It will be released on three conditions: that she would write a self-criticism, accepts his conviction and waives any social activism. She refused. "The profile given to his tweet tragic and notoriety she remove the protecting. She is treated relatively humanely, and she was not tortured. But the authorities can extend his detention, as they see fit " sighs employee insurance languishing away from his girlfriend, whom he met on the Internet.
Correspondent in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province
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