CHINA:China is classifying more and more activities as state secrets to allow police to charge dissidents and activists with stealing or leaking state secrets, Human Rights in China said in a wide-ranging report published yesterday warning of serious implications for freedom of expression in China.
"The fact of censorship and information control through the law and the police and the censor is nothing new. The real added contribution this report will make is that we tunnel down and look at the state secret system and see what is its impact on policy and the practice of the rule of law and governance," said Sharon Hom, HRIC executive director.
Ms Hom was speaking from New York before the launch of the 279-page document, State Secrets: China's Legal Labyrinth, which details how state secrets work in China and compiles laws, regulations and official documents and regulations, many in English translation for the first time, to show how many charges now qualify under China's state secrets system.
The report shows how China's state secrets system is used as both a shield, classifying a broad range of information and keeping it from the public view, and a sword, using it as a means to crack down on individuals critical of the government.
It also gives a number of case studies of people who have been jailed under the pretext of stealing state secrets. Some are well known, such as the case of Zhao Yan, the researcher who was detained in September 2004. Mr Zhao was held in connection with a New York Times article which predicted the resignation of Jiang Zemin from his last major post as head of the military.
He was held in detention for more than 19 months without trial and then formally charged with leaking state secrets to the newspaper. Last August, Mr Zhao was unexpectedly cleared of the state secrets and sentenced to three years in prison on an unrelated charge of fraud.
Then there are lesser known cases, such as Tan Kai, a computer repair technician from Zhejiang, who was formally indicted in April 2006 on charges of "illegally obtaining state secrets", ostensibly for information he had obtained while doing routine file back-ups for his clients, in particular for work he did in 2005 for an employee of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee.
Mr Tan is also an environmental activist who had founded a group called Green Watch, which was declared illegal in November 2005. Mr Tan was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment last August by the Hangzhou Municipal People's Intermediate Court on the state secrets charge.
"In these cases, the state secrets charge opened the door," said Ms Hom.
"The scope and comprehensiveness and retroactivity of this system is not really known. Environment issues, natural disasters, population statistics, health hazards - all of these can be swept in and retrospectively classified as state secrets."
The report concludes with a number of recommendations for action, particularly as China prepares to receive the attention of the world ahead of the Beijing Olympics next year.
"China says it wants to be a respected international player. There is a need to move from a culture of secrecy to a culture of tolerance, which means they have to allow dissenting voices," said Ms Hom.