U.S. State Department formally called for Yang Jianli's releaseyangjianli.com Daily Press Briefing Richard Boucher, Spokesman Washington, DC June 6, 2003 QUESTION: I meant to ask you about Chinese dissident Yang Jianli. Do you have anything on him, and whether or not the State Department is prepared to compel the Chinese Government to release him? MR. BOUCHER: There was a UN report of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that found that the non - these are their words -- "the nonobservance of Mr. Yang Jianli's right to a fair trial is of such gravity as to give his deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character." The Working Group then finds that this arrest and detention contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are particularly disturbed now by China's public rejection of an accepted international process and the findings of the independent and impartial panel of jurists, so we are urging China to comply fully with international obligations that is has assumed, and we urge that Dr. Yang be released and allowed to return to his wife and children in Boston. Thank you. -------------------------- |