|
|
|
Beijing likely to release more political prisoners
Only
'exiled dissidents' will benefit from the move to create some goodwill ahead
of Jiang-Bush meeting, say observers By
David Hsieh BEIJING - China may
release more prominent political prisoners as a gesture of goodwill to the
United States, party sources here said. This comes ahead of
President Jiang Zemin's US visit which begins today and the pivotal 16th
Communist Party Congress next month.
Among the four or five
to be released is Ms Rebiya Kadeer from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
She was sentenced to eight years in 2000 for providing secret information to
US congressional officials. Her name was on a list
that the Bush administration presented to the Chinese side when President
George W. Bush last met President Jiang in February this year. The US officals also
conveyed a message that bilateral relations would improve if the persons were
let off. She was also mentioned
in recent public speeches made by the US ambassador to China, Mr Clark T.
Randt. Also on the list is Mr
Yang Jianli, an exiled pro-democracy advocate since the Tiananmen incident in
1989 and co-founder of the Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st
Century. He was arrested in Kunming in south-west Yunnan in April last year
while trying to buy a plane ticket using false papers. Since January this year,
the Chinese government has released Mr Jigme Sangpo, a Tibetan teacher, Mr
David Chow, a US businessman jailed eight years ago on fraud charges, and
Tibetan nun Ngawang Sangdrol who was imprisoned in 1992 at 15. While party sources told
The Straits Times that it was highly probable that Mr Yang and Ms Kadeer
would be released soon, they have ruled out such a possibility for
55-year-old Xu Wenli, the co-founder of the Chinese Democracy Party (CDP). He was sentenced to 13
years in December 1998 for trying to set up branches of the CDP and for
accepting funding from abroad. Founded in 1998 as an
alternative political party to the Communist Party of China, the CDP was
outlawed quickly and its founders were given long prison sentences. 'Xu Wenli is too
important domestically so the authorities cannot release him to the US. Mr Xu
is not an exiled dissident; his activities are mainly at home,' said one
official of the Communist Party. A Beijing security
officer agreed. 'Mr Xu could be released only when he has served his full
sentence,' he said. The other names on the
list are Mr Su Zhimin, an underground Catholic bishop, Mr Jiang Weiping, an
investigative reporter, a Korean war scholar Xu Zerong, Mr Han Chunsheng, a
farmer and frequent letter writer to the Voice of America, labour leader Liu
Jingsheng and US businessmen Fong Fuming and Liu Yaping. -------------------------- |
|
|