China dissident defiant after release from 12-year sentence

Nov 29, 2010, 8:19 GMT

Beijing - A Chinese dissident said he was forcibly taken from prison after completing a 12-year sentence Monday because he protested the authorities' confiscation of his journals and letters.

'I was not released, I was kidnapped and forced out of prison,' Qin Yongmin, a co-founder of the banned China Democracy Party, told the German Press Agency dpa by telephone.

Qin, 57, was jailed for 12 years in the central city of Wuhan after he was convicted in 1998 of 'endangering state security' for his part in organizing the opposition party and editing the Human Rights Observer newsletter.

He said the writings collected during his sentence contained 'more than 20 million characters' and weighed 'hundreds of kilogrammes'.

'Ten or 20 armed police came and forced me into a police car,' Qin said of his release early Monday.

'At the local police station the police raised many conditions (attached to the release), including not talking to foreign media,' he said.

'For China's democracy and human rights activists, China is just a big prison. I was released from prison into another big prison,' Qin said.

Qin, who had previously spent a total of 10 years in prison for his democracy activism, said he was 'persecuted very severely' during his latest 12-year sentence.

He said he suffered from high blood pressure and was 'almost blind' after his eyesight deteriorated in prison.

But he planned to resume publication of his newsletter and issued a statement saying: 'The China Democracy Party belongs to the future'.

Rights groups said police in Wuhan kept several prominent activists under house arrest Monday to prevent them from visiting the prison to greet Qin on his release.

Many other Chinese dissidents have remained under house arrest since October 8, when jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hu Shigen, a Beijing-based dissident who was released in 2008 after 16 years in prison, told dpa he spoke to Qin Monday and found him 'very optimistic'.

Qin was first sentenced to eight years in prison for 'counterrevolutionary propaganda and subversion' in 1981 after he participated in China's Democracy Wall movement.

He later spent two years in a 're-education through labour' camp from 1993 to 1995 after publishing a Peace Charter.

Two other founders of the China Democracy Party, Wang Youcai and Xu Wenli, were sentenced to 11 years and 13 years in prison, respectively.

Wang and Xu were both released on medical parole and allowed to leave China for exile in the United States.

Author: Bill Smith

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