Chinese political activists targeted by violent attacks

2006/1/3
By Edward Cody CHENGDU , China , The Washington Post

Two assailants wearing black leather jackets repeatedly slammed him with lead pipes, Zhao Xin recalled, while a third swiped at his groin with a switchblade. Soon they were joined by four more toughs, also armed with pipes, and all seven pounded away. By the time they stopped, Zhao said, they had opened four head wounds, broken two ribs, ripped his calf muscles and shattered his right knee.

Zhao, a veteran political activist based in Beijing, was paying the price for advising Chinese farmers on how to fight back against local officials seizing their fields for economic development, according to his assessment and those of other activists. Increasingly, they said, China's provincial, city and county governments are turning to small-time hoodlums to carry out violent repression without directly involving uniformed policemen or agents of the Public Security Ministry.

But the attack on Zhao, which occurred in a remote corner of Sichuan province on Nov. 17, also opened a window on Communist Party officialdom as the country follows an uncertain road toward economic and political change. On Dec. 12, as Zhao lay in his bed at Bayi Orthopedics Hospital here in the provincial capital, four senior party and government officials showed up unannounced to offer their apologies -- along with flowers, fruit and a promise to pay his medical bills.

The gesture, soon followed by others, came as a total surprise, Zhao said in an interview in the hospital room, and was the result of orders from high levels of the party bureaucracy. The visit cheered him up, Zhao said with a laugh, but he did not take it to mean that President Hu Jintao's government had experienced a change of heart about his political activism.

"On the one hand, they keep sending officials and giving me flowers," he said. "But on the other, they keep trying to block my work. They send viruses into my computer, for instance, and interrupt my mobile phone conversations."

Zhao, 37, had come to Sichuan province to see friends and join his mother and father in a visit to Jiuzhaigou National Park, renowned for its mountain scenery. On the way back from the park, the three of them were overnighting with the rest of their tour group at Maoxian, a small town 75 miles northwest of Chengdu, when Zhao and others from the group went to a karaoke bar after dinner.

According to a local party official contacted in Maoxian by telephone, Zhao and three others arranged to have prostitutes sent in but then fought over the price, leading the bar manager to call in local hoods. The bar has been closed and Zhao's assailants have been arrested, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to this version, repeated in the official press of surrounding Aba prefecture, the violence was thus criminal thuggery that had nothing to do with Zhao's political activities, and official apologies were offered because the local economy relies on tourists visiting Jiuzhaigou.

Zhao said the official report was an attempt to "cover up the truth." In fact, he explained, the argument erupted because the four men decided to leave almost immediately after arriving, finding the establishment too cold. Moreover, he said, he suspected the three men he was with were undercover policemen who had been tailing him throughout his trip. As he was being beaten, in two sessions over 20 minutes, they stood by without being bothered, he said.

"When it was over and I was lying there, they came and helped me stand up," Zhao recalled. "They said, 'We're sorry, Mr. Zhao.'"

Later that night, they described themselves as "soldiers on a mission," he said. The next day, as the tour bus continued on to Chengdu, the three kept to themselves. But a black sedan followed closely behind the bus, Zhao said, frightening the other tourists so badly that, at a rest stop, their guide walked over and asked those inside to stop trailing Zhao, who was severely injured.

"The brutal beating of Zhao Xin is a clear example of the escalating use of thug violence to intimidate grass-roots activists," said Sharon Hom, executive director of the advocacy group Human Rights in China. "Like the Taishi crackdown in Guangdong province," she added, referring to the beating of peasant activist Lu Banglie in the village of Taishi in October, "this violence often occurs with the tacit approval of government officials."

"I think the mafiaization of local governments is getting more and more serious, especially at the municipal and lower levels," said Chen Yongmiao, a constitutional scholar in Beijing. "We should play close attention to this new phenomenon."

Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have repeatedly called for observance of the rule of law, but they have yet to come out forcefully and publicly against official use of hired thugs. Until they openly rebuke and prosecute provincial, city and county officials who resort to the practice, anti-government activists said, the phenomenon is unlikely to go away.

"The people who have power and influence at the local level tolerate mafias that blatantly violate the law and persecute the peasants who defend their rights and the public figures who support them, while Hu and Wen turn a blind eye to the regional rogue elements who violate the law," commentator Liang Jing wrote in a Radio Free Asia article.

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