What Do American Say about Dr. Yang Jianli's TrialYang Jianli Support Group Susan Jakes: the charge of espionage is intended to get mainland authorities off the hook for their mishandling of Yang's case. They held him for more than a year without allowing him access to a lawyer or to his family and—in violation of China's own laws—refused during that time to charge him with a crime. But the charge fails to excuse the Chinese. And it fails to provide an honest answer to the question of why Yang, and many other overseas Chinese dissidents, choose to go back. ...... unless Washington and other democratic governments are willing to back up verbal opprobrium with serious diplomatic consequences, China's leaders may never honestly face the difficult truth that Yang came home because he is a patriot. Times Asia Magazine
Jemome A. Cohen and Jared Genser:
They added an espionage charge, which not only enabled them to start the clock again on the time limit for Mr. Yang's detention, but also gave them a new excuse for denying Mr. Yang access to counsel until they exhausted their investigation -- the case now was said to involve "state secrets." The Beijing Prosecutor's Office approved the State Security Bureau's request for prosecution, as it usually does. By indicting Mr. Yang for espionage, it transformed an insignificant illegal border-crossing case, for which the maximum penalty of one year in custody has already been served by Mr. Yang, into a major political case for which he might, in theory, even be sentenced to death.
Editorial:
The publicity stunt, aimed at portraying Hu as a populist leader, doesn't change the harsh reality of a repressive regime better showcased in a sweltering Beijing courtroom on Monday. There Yang Jianli, a Chinese pro-democracy activist who lives in Boston, went on trial for espionage. ...... A more meaningful move would be to free Yang and let him spread the message of his Foundation for China in the 21st Century: Prosperity and progress follow when people are allowed to be free.
Letter to President Bush:
Chinese criminal prosecutions against political dissidents offer little opportunity to resist the charges such as these. Even in nonpolitical criminal cases, witnesses are rarely brought into court despite the right to cross-examine witnesses which was part of the 1996 criminal procedure reforms. That right is infrequently upheld.
Daniel McGlinchey (a foreign policy aide to Rep. Barney Frank)
It must be that to Chinese authorities, the notion that a man could love his country and his fellow countrymen so much that he would risk his own comfort and safety to return to his homeland so baffles them that they assume instead that there’s some secret threat at hand and there’s something wrong
AFP:
The fact that the hearing was closed to observers has been taken as a sign that the Chinese authorities' evidence was laughably thin.
Chou Tsang-hsin:
Regulations for legal procedures were legalized in China, but are rarely implemented.
John Kusumi:
To proceed with this trial, China's regime must flout the international community that has come to support Dr. Yang in this case. Who is being flouted today? --Both houses of the U.S. Congress. The United Nations. The State Department. National security adviser Condoleeza Rice. Leaders from the European Parliament. In short, the full weight of international opinion has lined up for Dr. Yang Jianli.
Philip P. Pan:
The case has attracted an unusual degree of attention in the United States, where Yang earned doctorates from Harvard and the University of California, and where his wife and two young children are citizens.
Reuters:
The case of Yang Jianli has dented China’s attempts to portray itself as a more open country with a forward-looking administration.
Barney Frank:
I think we have made the mistake often in the US of worrying that if we press these human rights cases, the Chinese will somehow be angered. I believe China needs the US much more than we need China. I think it's in the interest of the world for there to be harmonious US-Chinese relations. But I don't think we ought to see this as a one-way street.
Sharon Hom (Executive Director of the New York based advocacy group Human Rights in China):
The routine kind of cooperation between the police, the prosecution and the judges, you know, really undermines the possibility that you would have an independent decision-maker at the trial of first sentence, which is what this is going to be. Compiled on Aug 10, 2003 -------------------------- |