A letter to the Chairman of Standing Committee of the National People's CongressYang Jianli (Translation) To the Chairman of Standing Committee of the National PeopleĦ's Congress Mr. Wu Bang Guo: As the third conference of the 10th National PeopleĦ's Congress draws near, I wish it a success in advancing the progress of democracy and rule of law in China. Due to a possible contradiction and conflict between the article 47 of the Prison Laws of the PeopleĦ's Republic of China concerning rules and practice of prisoner's correspondence and the article 40 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China concerning citizen's freedom and privacy of correspondence, I -- a Chinese citizen prisoner serving my sentence in the prison -- request the National PeopleĦ's Congress to clearly interpret the article 40 of the Constitution, and to make a judgment based on the Constitution on the article 47 of the Prison Laws in terms of its contents and implementation. Prisoners are one of society's marginalized groups. And a society's spirit and level of rule by law can be truly and deeply reflected by whether or not the rights of the marginal or weak groups are protected. Sincerely, Yang Jianli February 24, 2005 -------------------------- |