His lawyer learned of the ruling three days later; his mother, the same afternoon. “Though I had mentally prepared for it, the moment I heard the decision I felt unable to bear it for a moment. I simply collapsed,” she said. “My son’s second hearing wasn’t an open court. It was equal to a secret sentencing. A judge just went to the detention center and pronounced judgment right there, just like that.”
Guo Quan’s lawyer, Cheng Hai, says the judgment should not be upheld. He says Guo made no remarks critical of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the Chinese government, or the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leaders. “Nor was there any subversion of state power. All he did was put forth his own opinions regarding political reform without overthrowing the CCP’s rule. According to the law, as a Chinese citizen, he enjoys freedom of speech and association, and it is also legal for him to form the CNDP,” he said.
Guo published articles online touching on topics like democracy, “rights defenders,” and social injustice. On Nov. 14, 2007, he published an open letter to Chinese communist leaders Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo, calling for a “democratic government based on multi-party elections that serves the interests of everyone in society.” He also founded the CNDP.
Guo’s first hearing took place on Aug. 7, and the decision was made on Oct. 16—Human Rights in China pointed out this far exceeded the stipulated one-and-a-half month legal time limit within which cases should be concluded. The court justified the delay on procedural grounds.
The charges stemmed from the CCP’s interpretation of Guo’s actions as subversive to its rule. His defense was not to dispute the evidence, but to argue that the published materials were not subversive, and that the constitution covers freedom of speech anyway. The prosecution asserted that the interests of the Party-State take priority.
Under China’s legal system this conflict is irreconcilable, according to Duihua, a U.S.-based NGO focused on China. As long as the CCP makes no distinction between its interests and integrity and those of the nation as a whole, such cases will persist, they wrote in a blog post.
Nevertheless, Guo Quan’s legal counsel appealed the first sentence. According to the procedures of Chinese criminal law, the second hearing should usually be held within one month of the first. Guo Quan’s second hearing was accepted by the Jiangsu high court within this deadline, on Nov. 2.
Second court hearings should be open because they are an examination of whether the first hearing and decisions made therein were done in accordance with the law, Cheng Hai explained to RFA. Only when the facts of the case are already very clear, and the opinions of the lawyers and people in question have been sought out, are closed courts held, he said. In this case, he said, the court should have been open because “the dispute is massive.”
The additional arguments and viewpoints that Cheng Hai mailed to the court between the first and second hearings were not considered either, he said.
After this second hearing, Guo’s family has decided to appeal to the Supreme People’s Court.
No visits for elderly mother
Guo’s seventy-year-old mother has not seen him since his first court hearing in August. After learning that the sentence was upheld, she contacted the police to arrange a meeting with her son. They said she would see him “soon.”
Another prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo, was given an 11-year sentence on the same day, Dec. 25, for campaigning for political freedoms. A Ming Pao report tacitly suggests that Guo Quan’s case was done “on the quiet” beside the prominent Liu Xiao case. (Chinese link)
Recently, several other Chinese rights activists have also been sentenced in closed door trials, such as Xie Changfa, a Chinese dissident who tried to organize a national meeting of the (now banned) China Democracy Party (CDP), who was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment and five years deprivation of political rights for the “subversion of state power.” Duan Chunfang, a Shanghai petitioner, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison for “obstructing official business.”
Guo Quan had worked in state-owned enterprises, at the Nanjing People’s Court, and as a secretary of the Nanjing Economic Restructuring Commission.
In 1996 he earned a master’s degree from Nanjing University’s Sociology Department. In 1999 he received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Nanjing University. From 1999-2001, he was a post-doctorate researcher at Nanjing Normal University. He stayed at the school to teach until his detention.
Read the original Chinese article
