China state security trials "find 99 pct guilty"
Posted on: Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 03:50 CST
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Ninety-nine percent of people tried in China for "endangering state security" are found guilty, a prominent human rights activist said on Tuesday, calling on President Hu Jintao to release two detained journalists.
Such state security cases -- many involving perceived threats to Communist rule, spying or the theft of murkily defined state secrets -- have the highest conviction rate of any crime in China, said John Kamm, head of the U.S.-based Dui Hua Foundation.
Moreover, those found guilty get the longest sentences, with two-thirds of all such cases resulting in terms of five years or more, Kamm, the veteran China businessman-turned-campaigner, told Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club.
From the start of 1998 to the end of 2004, there were 4,500 people prosecuted for endangering state security, he said citing data from the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
"The great majority were detained for non-violent expression of their political and religious beliefs," Kamm said.
Citing several polls, Kamm noted that China's image and popularity on the international stage had plummeted in the past year and he put it down to a steady flow of negative news reports out of China, blocking Web sites, arresting journalists, covering up environmental disasters and closing newspapers, among others.
"China's deteriorating international image is impacting the country's ability to achieve its foreign policy goals, and could well affect its ability to stage a successful Olympics in 2008," he said.
Hu, who is scheduled to visit the United States in April, should take action soon if he wants to improve China's image, Kamm said, calling on him to order the release of journalists Ching Cheong and Zhao Yan.
Ching, a reporter for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper accused of spying for Taiwan, has been held since last April, and was formally arrested in August. New York Times researcher Zhao Yan was arrested in September 2004 and charged with exposing state secrets.
"If you want to restore China's international image to what it was 12 months ago, treating journalists better is a good place to start," Kamm said.
Kamm also called on Hu to resume the granting of sentence reductions and early releases for political prisoners -- a practise that he said has been frozen for the past year.
Source: REUTERS
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