In China, Would-Be Protesters Pay a Price

Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post
Thursday, March 12, 2009

ZHANGZHOU, China — When Ji Sizun heard that the Chinese government had agreed to create three special zones in Beijing for peaceful public protests during the 2008 Summer Olympics, he celebrated. He said in an interview at the time that he believed the offer was sincere and represented the beginning of a new era for human rights in China.

Ji, 59, a self-taught legal advocate who had spent 10 years fighting against corrupt officials in his home province of Fujian on China’s southeastern coast, immediately packed his bags and was one of the first in line in Beijing to file his application to protest.

It is now clear that his hope was misplaced.

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In the end, official reports show, China never approved a single protest application — despite its repeated pledges to improve its human rights record when it won the bid to host the Games. Some would-be applicants were taken away by force by security officials and held in hotels to prevent them from filing the paperwork. Others were scared away by warnings that they could face “difficulties” if they went through with their applications.

Ji has spent the past eight months in various states of arrest and detention. In January, he was sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum penalty allowed, on charges of faking official seals on documents he filed on behalf of his clients. Ji is appealing.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

His relatives and human rights groups argue that the entire court case was a farce — a punishment for Ji’s refusal to back down during the Olympics.

“It wasn’t fair to arrest him like this. All he did was to help ordinary people get their voices heard. For that they threw some fake accusations at him,” said his sister Ji Xiuzhuang, 63.  

Full story here.

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