blind before the storm

Zhao Yan, imprisoned news researcher (NYT photo)

Times Researcher Receives 3-Year Prison Term in China

The New York Times

August 25, 2006

By JIM YARDLEY and JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, Friday, Aug. 25 — A Beijing court Friday morning unexpectedly dismissed a state secrets charge against a researcher for The New York Times but sentenced him to three years in prison on a lesser, unrelated charge of fraud.

The verdict against the researcher, Zhao Yan, 44, spared him a prison sentence of 10 years or longer and also served as a blunt rebuke to the investigation by state security agents. Agents detained Mr. Zhao almost two years ago and accused him of leaking state secrets to The Times. He has consistently stated that he is innocent of both charges.

In another closely watched case, a Chinese court in Shandong Province on Thursday convicted an advocate for peasants rights and sentenced him to more than four years in prison. The advocate, Chen Guangcheng, is a blind man who tried to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of women who were subjected to forced abortions. His case, like that of Mr. Zhao, was considered a test of China’s legal system, and his defense team described the conviction as a sham.

The case against Mr. Zhao has been filled with unexpected legal developments. Earlier this year, the court withdrew both charges against him, prompting his lawyer to predict that he would soon be released. Instead, the court continued to hold Mr. Zhao despite the lack of charges, and prosecutors later reinstated the same charges. Mo Shaoping, the defense lawyer, vehemently complained that the tactic was illegal, but to no avail.

Jerome A. Cohen, an expert in Chinese law who has advised the Times on Mr. Zhao’s case, characterized the dismissal of the state secrets charge as “a welcome surprise.” He said that typically in state secrets cases, a defendant would face a near automatic conviction when investigators had made such a lengthy effort to pursue the case.

“As we have maintained consistently, there simply wasn’t the evidence to convict him on the state secrets charge,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. Cohen, in an email, described the verdict “an unusual and welcome precedent” but added that it was “marred by conviction on the fraud charge, which was originally introduced as a fig leaf to justify the continuing detention of Zhao.”

He said “conviction on the fraud charge helps to ‘save face’ for the law enforcement agencies.”

In Mr. Zhao’s case, the court rejected the state secrets charge in strong language in a 10-page verdict released Friday morning.

“On the charge against the defendant Zhao Yan that he provided state secrets abroad, the evidence is insufficient,” the court ruling read. “The charge for this crime cannot stand, and this court does not accept it.”

Mr. Zhao’s case has attracted international attention, including lobbying from President Bush, and it has been marked by legal irregularities.

The verdict had been postponed, and many legal experts have suggested that the final result would be as much a political decision by high-level government officials as a legal one.

The lead defense lawyer, Mr. Mo, said this morning that he doubted prosecutors would pursue new charges but that doing so was not impossible. Mr. Mo said prosecutors could choose to contest the verdict. Mr. Mo also said that Mr. Zhao runs the risk of another judge revivifying the state secrets case if he chooses to appeal his fraud conviction. Mr. Zhao must decide within 10 days whether to appeal.

Mr. Zhao has been imprisoned since September 2004, which under Chinese law will count as time served against his three-year sentence. Mr. Mo said the court ruling stated that his release is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2007.

Outside the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court after the verdict this morning, Mr. Zhao’s older sister, Zhao Kun, expressed relief about the dismissal of the state secrets charge but maintained that any conviction was unjust.

“I am not satisfied,” she said. “The fraud charge also has no basis in fact. He should have been found completely innocent. According to my own feeling, the first charge also should never have been introduced. On this charge, the court respected the law.”

Mr. Zhao, formerly a muckraking journalist for different Chinese publications, joined The Times’ Beijing bureau as a researcher in April 2004. The Times has consistently denied that he leaked any state secrets to the newspaper.

“If the verdict is what it appears to be, we consider it a vindication,” said Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times. “We have always said that to best of our knowledge the only thing that Zhao Yan committed is journalism.”

The rights advocate, Mr. Chen, was convicted of destroying property and organizing a mob to block traffic. He earned the enmity of local Communist Party leaders in Shandong Province, in eastern China, when he sought to organize a class-action lawsuit against forced abortions and sterilizations there.

The New China News Agency announced the sentence, four years and three months, in a terse dispatch on its English-language news wire. The information did not appear in Chinese, and other state-run media have been banned from reporting on the matter.

Mr. Chen’s two-hour trial last week and the long sentence announced Thursday appear to reflect a concerted effort by Chinese authorities to punish lawyers and rights advocates, who increasingly in recent years have helped defend people aggrieved about land seizures, environmental abuses, religious persecution and population controls.

The Beijing police last week detained Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer and one of China’s most outspoken dissidents, on suspicion of criminal activity. Mr. Gao’s family has also been put under police guard. His whereabouts and the exact charges against him are unknown.

Chinese lawyers and human rights advocates say they believe that President Hu Jintao has ordered a broad crackdown on people who call themselves “rights defenders” because he worries that they have tried to use legal pressure to undermine the Communist Party.

The police and judicial officials also appear to be moving assertively to resolve a slew of the most important human rights cases, possibly calculating that the Western governments and the international news media will pay less attention to such matters at the height of the summer vacation season.

The case of Mr. Chen, a 34-year-old peasant, came as a particular shock to the legal and human rights community.

Mr. Chen, blind as a result of a childhood illness, taught himself the law. He became a minor celebrity in China after he helped disabled people win cases against government agencies that did not grant them the full protections and benefits they are entitled to under Chinese law.

But Shandong government officials turned bitterly against him in early 2005 when he sought to defend thousands of local residents forced to have abortions or sterilization operations so that Linyi City could meet its population-control quotas.

Though central government investigators later found that abuses had occurred in enforcing population policies there, local authorities put Mr. Chen under house arrest for months and then charged him with destroying property and blocking traffic.

A team of the top rights lawyers in the country came to Mr. Chen’s aid. They argued that the charges against him were fabrications. The crimes would have been difficult for Mr. Chen to commit, they said, given that he cannot see and was under constant police guard at the time.

But the Beijing lawyers were harassed, beaten and prevented from gathering evidence to support Mr. Chen in court, numerous people involved in his defense said.

On the eve of Mr. Chen’s trial last week, three of his lawyers were accused by local thugs of stealing property. The lawyers were then detained by the local police and one of them was held until after Mr. Chen’s trial had ended.

When his other lawyers complained to the court that the harassment made a mockery of the legal proceedings and called for a delay, the court appointed new lawyers.

The appointed defense lawyers did not contest any of the charges against Mr. Chen and did not call any witnesses on his behalf.

“I believe the court officials there have lost their minds,” said Xu Zhiyong,sort one of Mr. Chen’s chosen lawyers, who was prevented from attending his trial by the local police. “The entire process was illegal.”