Liu Zhengyou

Human rights defenders Mr Liu Zhengyou, Ms Hu Yulan, Mr Ma Xingquan and Ms Feng Guiqin have been convicted of fraud in Zigong City, Sichuan Province.

Further Information

Liu Zhengyou has been sentenced to two years in prison, while his wife, Hu Yulan, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison on the same charges, but received a reprieve and was released. Both Ma Xingquan and Feng Guiqin were sentenced to two years in prison but have also been released. Ma Xingquan will serve his sentence outside of prison due to illness, while Feng Guiqin has been released on medical parole. All four human rights defenders were members of a group known to local residents as a “non-governmental letters and visits office,” which works to defend the rights of villagers and petitioners in Sichuan Province.

Liu Zhengyou is a defender of land and housing rights who has opposed government land confiscation, particularly of farmland. In addition, he has researched human rights violations including arbitrary detention and use of psychiatric institutions as detention centres. He has been the subject of harassment by the authorities for several years as a result of his work, including arbitrary detention, physical assaults, surveillance, interrogation and periods of house arrest. In 2006 he was prevented from leaving China in order to attend a human rights training session in Geneva, Switzerland, on the basis that he was under criminal investigation for his role in leading a protest by villagers in Shandong Province who had lost their land to developers without proper compensation.

On 20 August 2010 during an afternoon court hearing, Ziliujing district court in Zigong city sentenced Liu Zhengyou to two years in prison on charges of fraud. Although some 100 of Liu Zhengyou's supporters reportedly gathered outside the courthouse, his daughter Liu Jing was the only member of his family allowed to attend the hearing. Another supporter, Luo Shimo, had applied for permission to attend but was apprehended by police and held in a tea house until the proceedings had ended later that evening.

Liu Zhengyou was originally arrested on 11 November 2009 and placed in criminal detention on charges of fraud. It is believed that these charges stem from an accusation that Liu Zhengyou and Hu Yulan falsified documentation about their work to qualify for an insurance policy, which they have both denied. While waiting for trial, Liu Zhengyou staged two hunger strikes in protest at Hu Yulan's denial of bail and deteriorating health while she was held in detention. The start of the trial for the four human rights defenders was much delayed; the prosecutor reportedly returned the case to the police twice for further investigation due to a lack of sufficient evidence to go to trial. The trial eventually began on 6 July 2010.

Mr Zheng Jianwei, Liu Zhengyou's lawyer, has complained about procedural irregularities throughout the trial. He has alleged that the defence were not allowed access to all the evidence nor given enough time to analyse the evidence they were allowed to see, and that the prosecution presented evidence during the trial which had not been previously submitted to the court. In addition, the court refused multiple requests to conduct proceedings in Mandarin and refused to provide a translator so Liu Zhengyou could follow the hearings. It is also reported that under the relevant legal provisions, the court was obliged to pass sentence no later than 5 August 2010 but delayed the delivery of a verdict until 20 August.

Liu Zhengyou is reportedly in very poor health as a result of his months in detention; during a meeting with Zheng Jianwei in June 2010, Liu appeared “extremely weak” and had to be supported by two policemen. He currently suffers from high blood pressure, and reportedly appeared very thin and frail in court.

Front Line believes that the trial and sentencing of Liu Zhengyou, Hu Yulan, Ma Xingquan and Feng Guigin is directly related to their work in the defence of human rights in Sichuan Province. In particular, Front Line sees the imprisonment of Liu Zhengyou as forming part of an ongoing pattern of harassment by the Chinese authorities in relation to his work in the defence of land rights. Front Line is concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of Liu Zhengyou, particularly in the light of his deteriorating health.