August 4, 2000
His Excellency Jiang Zemin
President, People's Republic of China
Beijing 100032
People's Republic of China
VIA FACSIMILE: 86-10-6512-5810
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by the prolonged
imprisonment of Gao Qinrong, a reporter for China's state news agency,
Xinhua.
Gao has been in jail on trumped-up charges since December 4, 1998, for
exposing flaws in a much-touted irrigation system in drought-plagued Yuncheng,
Shanxi Province, according to his wife, Duan Maoying.
A local newspaper, The Yuncheng Daily, had reported that 67,000
water tanks had been built in just six months, but Gao's investigation
revealed that these cisterns were not connected to any water sourceŅand
that there were no pipes carrying water to irrigate the fields.
The report, which characterized the irrigation project as a "political
project for the sake of leaders' promotion in Yuncheng," was sent to the
Central Disciplinary Inspection Committee, the Communist Party's internal
investigative unit. On April 5, 1998, the Committee sent a local team
of investigators to interview Gao about his findings. According to his
wife, Duan, they instead interrogated Gao about his sources and his motives
for writing the report.
Xinhua never carried Gao's article, which was finally published on May
27, 1998, in an internal reference edition of the official People's
Daily that is distributed only among a select group of Party leaders,
according to CPJ sources. By fall 1998, the irrigation scandal had become
national news, with reports appearing in the Guangzhou-based Southern
Weekend ("Nanfang Zhoumo") and on China Central Television (CCTV).
But local officials were not called to account for their actions in Yuncheng.
Instead, Gao was arrested on December 4, and eventually charged with crimes
including bribery, embezzlement, and pimping, according to Duan. On April
28, 1999, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison after a closed, one-day
trial. He is being held in a prison in Qixian, Shanxi Province, according
to CPJ sources.
As a nonpartisan organization of journalists dedicated to the defense
of our colleagues around the world, CPJ is deeply disturbed by Gao's imprisonment.
Premier Zhu Rongji and other senior members of your administration have
repeatedly called on the country's journalists to help expose corruption
and bureaucratic inefficiency, yet Gao appears to have been punished for
carrying out precisely this role.
As Gao himself wrote from his prison cell, in one of numerous appeals
made to the Party leadership to overturn his conviction: "Fighting against
corruption is a decision made by the
Party Central Committee, so, being a Party member and a journalist, I
feel it is my duty to report the people's grievances" (translated by the
Inter Press Service).
Gao Qinrong has now been in prison for more than 20 months. CPJ believes
there is ample evidence that Gao has been persecuted for doing his professional
duty, and we therefore respectfully urge Your Excellency to order his
immediate release.
We thank you for your attention to this most urgent matter, and await
your response. Sincerely,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
Send a letter to:
His Excellency Jiang Zemin
President, People's Republic of China
Beijing 100032
People's Republic of China
VIA FACSIMILE: 86-10-6512-5810