U.S. lawmakers appeal to China to release jailed dissidentAP Thursday, October 7, 2004 (10-07) 01:56 PDT BEIJING (AP) -- A group of American lawmakers is appealing to China to release a U.S.-based Chinese activist who is imprisoned on charges of spying and entering the country illegally. A letter calling on President Hu Jintao to parole Yang Jianli when he becomes eligible Oct. 26 was delivered Wednesday to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Jared Genser, a lawyer for Yang's family. The letter was signed by 21 senators and 85 members of the House of Representatives, Genser said by telephone from Washington. Yang, who runs a Boston-based foundation that advocates democratic change in China, was meeting with Chinese dissidents and laid-off workers when he was detained in 2002. He was sentenced in May to five years in prison. "Your government has expressed interest in resolving differences regarding human rights matters through dialogue and consultation, rather than through confrontation," the U.S. lawmakers' letter to Hu says. The Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing was closed Thursday for a national holiday and no one was available for comment. Yang is one of a series of Chinese dissidents imprisoned in recent years on subversion or espionage charges. Another U.S.-based activist, Wang Bingzhang, was sentenced to life in prison last year on charges of spying for Taiwan and plotting to bomb the Chinese Embassy in Thailand. Yang's family denies the spying accusations but acknowledges that he was traveling with a friend's identity card. His family says he was forced to do so because he was banned from China after helping student protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. The U.N. Human Rights Commission ruled in 2003 that Yang was denied a fair trial. Yang's imprisonment is "causing great pain and anguish to his family," the U.S. lawmakers' letter says. Chinese authorities haven't released any evidence to support charges that Yang spied for rival Taiwan. According to Genser, the charges appear to stem from four $100 grants to student researchers by a group founded by Yang in 1992 while attending the University of California at Berkeley.
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