A Voice from Peking's Gulag

Jailed without a trial, a dissenter describes his ordeal

One of the early victims of the current Chinese drive to crush dissent was Liu Qing, deputy editor of the April 5th Forum, the most widely respected of the unofficial journals that sprang up during the ill-fated democracy movement of 1978-79. A copy of Liu's account of how he challenged China's legal system and what happened to him afterward was recently smuggled out of the labor camp and obtained by TIME. Some excerpts:

When Ren Wanding [head of the Chinese Human Rights League], Wei Jingsheng, Fu Yuehua, Chen Lu, Zhang Wenhe and others were arrested in March 1979, the event was followed closely by the Chinese and foreign press. Why this concern about the fate of a few ordinary Chinese citizens? It is because the arrests had created a cold March wind that was blowing across the Chinese political horizon.

Wei Jingsheng had violated the law against divulging secrets, but the court convicted him of two other more serious crimes and sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment and a loss of his political rights for three years. This kind of harsh judgment is a mockery of the Chinese judicial system, and it is a warning to everyone to be very cautious in speaking one's mind. Real liberation of thought and true freedom of expression must wait until man is willing to struggle for them.

Liu took on the job of spreading the word about Wei's unjust punishment. "If I had not pointed out this unfairness," he writes, "I would have had to be either a coward or the worst kind of human being." On Nov. 11, 1979, Liu went to "democracy wall" in Peking to sell some of the 1,000 copies of the Wei trial transcript he had mimeographed. Agents of China's secret police, the Public Security Bureau (PSB) arrested some of the buyers. Liu then went to the PSB headquarters in Peking to seek redress for them.

I was confident that what I did was all legal and that the PSB had no legal basis to defend its arrests. After seriously thinking things over, I decided that I must never retreat. Those who enforce law must have respect for the law.

My insistence on the law and on legality enraged the PSB interrogators. Finally one of them said angrily: "Now that you are here, you don't have to answer our questions. But as long as you refuse to answer our questions, you'll never be allowed to leave."

I reminded them that detaining me without proper papers was illegal, and that I had no intention of submitting to illegal detention.

Their reply: "This is the office of the dictatorship."

Without a trial, Liu was detained for more than six months in prison, where, still insisting upon his innocence, still demanding that the authorities observe their own laws, he was held in solitary confinement for over five months. "Even for real criminals, "he notes, "solitary confinement is illegal."

The period of my solitary confinement was not long and naturally it has not affected me very seriously. But changes are already noticeable. One day, I noticed a lot of loose hair on my sheet. When I looked at myself in the small mirror on the cell door I discovered that part of my head is already bald. The dampness and coldness in the cell, plus my habit of curling up in a corner for long periods must have been the cause of my swollen left foot which still gives me pain. My nearsightedness has considerably worsened. I started to talk to myself, sometimes loudly, debating with an imaginary opponent. I also try to recall some mathematical or physical problems and do exercises against the wall. Please don't laugh at me. I think a lot about my mother, worrying about the anxiety I have brought her in her old age. This makes me very sorrowful. I looked through a broken window in the toilet and saw a small patch of grassy ground near the foot of the high wall. The green blades appeared to have just emerged from the dark muddy soil. I was suddenly overcome by a strong desire--I wanted to get out and be closer to the grass!

Liu tells of how the PSB interrogators promised him he would be released if he would only confess to his crime of "violating the administration of public security. " When Liu was allowed out of solitary, his sympathetic fellow prisoners gave him baths and mended his clothes. Some guards were friendly to him, but others came to take him away.

When I was brought back to the small cell my body was covered with blue wounds from the beating. I had been forced to wear a heavy gas mask that made it very hard for me to breathe, and I was laden with a heavy chain cutting into my flesh.

I met Zhang Wenhe, a founding member of the Chinese Human Rights League. Like me, Zhang also behaved badly in prison--constantly protesting and arguing with the guards. Consequently he also suffered more. He was forced to wear chains for several consecutive months, which gave him much pain and trouble whenever he tried to eat, go to the toilet or sleep. He was also forced to wear such headgear as a gas mask or a tank helmet after being cruelly beaten several times. His cell was close to mine. We were often let out of our cells at about the same time. By deliberately slowing down our steps we sometimes would get a chance to shake hands and to exchange a few words.

On July 21, 1980, still without having been tried, Liu was taken to a "labor reform camp" called Lianhua Temple in Hua County, Shaanxi province. Liu is scheduled to remain in the labor camp until November 1981. Liu evidently wanted the account of his ordeal to be sent to major Chinese newspapers and to Deng Xiaoping and other Peking leaders. "Dare you publish it?" Liu asks in a letter to the editors. "Judging by my limited wisdom, I believe I need not wait for the answer. In any case you may regard this material as a small gift from me that may entertain you during your leisure hours. "In the 200-page account, Liu has a message for China's leaders. He asks for a public trial but acknowledges that officials have the power to ignore the law and punish him. "In any event," says Liu, "I am a little bird having fallen into your cage, and have no choice."

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