Case History: Tang Jingling
On 29 April 2019, human rights defender and lawyer Tang Jingling was released from the Sihui Prison in Zhaoqing, Guangdong after serving a five-year jail term for ‘inciting subversion of state power’. The human rights defender’s health has deteriorated during his time in prison and he requires medical attention.
On 29 January 2016, human rights defenders Messrs Tang Jingling, Yuan Xinting and Wang Qingying were sentenced to five, three and a half, and two and a half years in prison respectively.
They were convicted by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court of 'inciting subversion of state power'. The three were initially detained on 16 May 2014 on charges of 'picking quarrels and provoking troubles', but these were later changed to the more serious charge of 'inciting subversion'.
Tang Jingling is a human rights lawyer whose clients have included villagers fighting corruption and victims of land appropriation. His lawyer's license was suspended in 2006, after which he founded a non-violent civil disobedience movement in China. He has been subjected to frequent police harassment and interrogation. In 2012 he was detained for five days following his investigation into the death of human rights defender Mr Li Wangyang in suspicious circumstances in a hospital in Hunan Province. In January 2016 he was sentenced to five years in prison for promoting non-violent civil disobedience in China.
On 29 April 2019, human rights defender and lawyer Tang Jingling was released from the Sihui Prison in Zhaoqing, Guangdong after serving a five-year jail term for ‘inciting subversion of state power’. The human rights defender’s health has deteriorated during his time in prison and he requires medical attention.
On 29 January 2016, human rights defenders Messrs Tang Jingling, Yuan Xinting and Wang Qingying were sentenced to five, three and a half, and two and a half years in prison respectively.
They were convicted by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court of 'inciting subversion of state power'. The three were initially detained on 16 May 2014 on charges of 'picking quarrels and provoking troubles', but these were later changed to the more serious charge of 'inciting subversion'. In a statement made in court in July 2015, Tang Jingling said that he and his two fellow defendants had not been permitted to go outside or send or receive letters or books.
The charge the three were convicted of relate primarily to their involvement in the non-violent, civil disobedience movement, which Tang Jingling founded in 2006. According to the indictment, their 'crimes' were the possession and distribution of copies of works on non-violent, civil disobedience, their renting of an apartment to exchange information and store materials, and their participation in a number of human rights activities.
Tang Jingling, Yuan Xinting and Wang Qingying were arrested following a raid on a flat they had rented, where police found, according to the indictment, “in total 231 copies of the books Breaking the Real Axis of Evil - How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025 by Mark Palmer, Organizing: Guide for Grassroots Leaders by Si Kahn; From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp; On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals by Robert L. Helvey; Self-Liberation by Gene Sharp.”
In November 2014, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the detention of the three human rights defenders was unlawful and “conducted as a result of their legitimate exercise of the rights or freedoms guaranteed by articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” In its opinion, it stated that the three should be released immediately and paid reparations as compensation for harm suffered.
On 16 May 2014 human rights defender and lawyer Mr Tang Jingling was taken from his home by police in Guangzhou and detained on charges of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble'.
A day earlier, it was confirmed that fellow lawyer and human rights defender Mr Liu Shihui is being detained by police in Shanghai, following his sudden disappearance on 13 May 2014. Both Tang Jingling and Liu Shihui are Guangzhou-based legal activists whose licenses to practise law have been revoked as a result of their work in defence of human rights.
At around 10am, police officers reportedly arrived at the home of Tang Jingling and carried out a search of his home that lasted two hours. During this time, Tang Jingling and his wife were instructed to sit still and were not permitted to use the telephone. When the search concluded, the police officers detained Tang Jingling and confiscated a desktop computer, a laptop, three mobile phones and a number of books. Prior to his detention, Tang Jingling had reportedly received a number of warnings from the police for his involvement in commemoration activities surrounding the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and the subsequent crackdown in 1989.
Liu Shihui has been repeatedly targeted due to his work, which has included numerous investigations into rights abuses and helping victims of these abuses file lawsuits. On 20 February 2011, Liu Shihui was brutally assaulted as he attempted to photograph a street protest in Guangzhou. Two days later he was disappeared and held in incommunicado detention for 108 days, an experience which he later blogged about. Since then, he has been subjected to constant harassment by the state security services and has been forced to return to Inner Mongolia several times.
Tang Jingling and Liu Shihui join dozens of human rights defenders around the country who have been detained in advance of the 25th anniversary of the violent crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests on 3-4 June 1989. Among those detained are Messers Pu Zhiqiang, Hu Shigen, Xu Youyu, Hao Jian and Ms Liu Di, about whom Front Line Defenders issued an Urgent Appeal on 6 May 2014.
