By Teng Biao, published: June 22, 2014
June 4th has passed, but the arrests continue, and every day brings bad news from China. While scholar Xu Youyu, artist Chen Guang and others have been released “on probation,” many are still being held and others have been formally arrested, including Jia Lingmin (贾灵敏) and two others in Zhengzhou, Henan, and lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强) in Beijing. On June 20 in Guangzhou, lawyer Tang Jingling (唐荆陵) and activists Wang Qingying (王清营) and Yuan Xinting (袁新亭) were formally arrested on subversion charges. Earlier this week, three New Citizens Movement participants Liu Ping (刘萍), Wei Zhongping (魏忠平) and Li Sihua (李思华) were harshly sentenced for fictitious “crimes.”
Some people explain these arrests as an increase in stability maintenance before the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4th. Others explain the arrests as the misuse of police power by the political and legal systems and a loss of control over the police forces. Still others explain them as the result of factional infighting among the Central leadership. I’m afraid all these explanations are wrong.
This wave of large scale repression of civil society did not start with the arrest of the “Five for Commemorating June 4th on May 3rd,” but rather, it started last year with the arrest of the “Beijing Xidan Four.” On March 31, 2013, Yuan Zhong (袁冬), Zhang Baocheng (张宝成), and two others gave a speech at Beijing Xidan in which they called on government officials to make public their property holdings. They were arrested on the spot. This was the official prelude to the authorities’ repression of the New Citizens Movement and the civil society. Within a year, throughout China no fewer than two hundred human rights activists were arrested and incarcerated. These included: Xu Zhiyong (许志永), Wang Gongquan (王功权), Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), Li Huaping (李化平), Chen Baocheng (陈宝成), Zhang Lin (张林), Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜), Liu Ping (刘萍), Yuan Fengchu (袁奉初), Ilham Tothi (伊力哈木), and others. Among these human rights activists, the authorities tortured to death the noted activist Cao Shunli (曹顺利). Suppression has increased markedly not only against human rights activists but also against dissidents, underground churches, Falun Gong adherents, petitioners, activist netizens, and liberal scholars. Meanwhile we have been witnessing a marked tightening of information dissemination and ideological control.