May, 2006

Albert Ho Chun-yan

Why I Take Part in the Global Hunger Strike Movement

(The author, vice chairperson of the Democratic Party, is a legislator and lawyer.)

It is more than two months since the leading human rights lawyer in China, Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), started a hunger strike on Feb. 4 this year. The action is aimed at protesting against the Chinese Community Party (CCP) for allowing its officials and secret police to act in a gangster-like manner to oppress, attack, molest and intimidate China’s citizens who stand up to defend their rights. It is also aimed at supporting their lawyers who take up their cases to pursue a just and lawful resolution. It has subsequently developed into a global relay hunger strike in which each participant may choose one day a week for a 24-hour fast. As a lawyer and legislator in Hong Kong, I began to take part in the hunger strike on Feb. 8; and since then, on every Wednesday in the Legislative Council Building in which the legislature meets in full session, I openly stage the protest while at the same time perform my public duty as a Legislative Council (Legco) member.

There are many other people, both inside and outside of China, who volunteered to join the action on March 8, which was designated as a global hunger strike day when as many as 7,000 people all over the world staged a 24-hour hunger strike. Thousands of hunger strikers were from 27 different provinces in China while others were from cities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, etc. In Hong Kong, 74 citizens, including six legislators, participated in the campaign. All of these actions mark the emergence of a global movement echoing the call of Gao and other human rights defence lawyers in China to the Chinese government to stop all violence and persecution against civilians who have done nothing except to stand up to fight for justice and their rights in a peaceful and rational manner. Presently, the hunger strikers are still sustaining their action until there is a clear indication that the difficulties faced by human right defenders and their lawyers have significantly improved.

In the last two months, I have been repeatedly asked by many interested observers why I have become so involved in the movement by taking part as one of the relay hunger strikers. My simple answer is that since the Chinese government has pledged as state policy to rule in accordance with the law it is utterly outrageous and intolerable to see public officials and secret agents act in a barbaric and gangster-like manner in blatant violation of the law while the government chooses to ignore it. When seeing their homelands being seized in the name of public interest, but their entitlement to reasonable compensation is deprived, peasants have no alternative except to stand up, organise themselves and fight to defend their own interests. However, civilians have no way to seek redress as the usual avenue of petitioning the central government in Beijing is obstructed while the local Public Security Bureau (PSB), always siding with the established interests, only works to silence the aggrieved civilians rather than helping them.

There are about a dozen human rights defence lawyers, including Gao, willing to accept these difficult and politically sensitive cases. Regrettably, the consequence is that even lawyers have become the subject of attacks and persecution. For instance, Zheng Enchong (鄭恩寵), the lawyer who acted for the plaintiffs in a land resumption case in Shanghai, ended up being a defendant himself in a criminal trial for allegedly leaking state secrets and eventually being jailed for three years. Similarly, Guo Feixong (高飛雄) courageously sought a judiciary review for the Taishi village (太石村) peasants in Guangdong Province who had only exercised their right to dismiss their corrupt village representative through the ballot box but instead found their lawful decision subsequently suppressed by higher political authorities. Guo, however, was forcibly detained for three months and was only released when he persistently refused to eat and drink (and had survived on forced feeding). After his release, he was brutally attacked by gangsters while public security officials just stood by refusing to intervene. Gao himself was one of the few attorneys willing to investigate the complaints of Falun Gong, the “Untouchables” inside China, that their members were being subjected to torture and persecution. After Gao had completed his investigative reports confirming his clients’ complaints, he wrote three open letters to President Hu Jintao, calling for an official investigation into the matter and an immediate stop to all such inhuman and illegal actions against Falun Gong members. The consequence has been his suspension from legal practice for one year by the Ministry of Justice. Since his initiation of the hunger strike, he and his family members have been placed under 24-hour surveillance and have frequently been harassed and intimidated by secret agents.

All the above instances speak loudly about the predicament faced by human rights defence lawyers in China. Today even lawyers, who are recognised by law the professional privilege to speak out for those whom they represent, cannot speak. How then can we expect the deprived, underprivileged or oppressed minority groups to be able to speak out? If lawyers cannot freely and fearlessly perform their professional duty to practise law, how can we expect the government to uphold the law and respect the very limited rights of citizens under the law (albeit such law is made by an authoritarian government without democratic elections or supervision)?

As Gao said in his hunger strike dairy, “A society that lacks legal instruments to protect basic social justice is a most terrible one. The police represent a nation’s legal strength, but they have no alternative but to shrug their shoulders in the face of ongoing robberies today [this refers to repeated attempts by secret policemen to seize Gao’s cellular phone in broad daylight]. For those who live in civilised societies outside China, it may be impossible to imagine how insignificant human dignity is in a society where personal power is above national laws.”

While there are reasons for one to be pessimistic about human rights in China in the foreseeable future, we, as the activists in this hunger strike movement, do believe that our action has a significant impact on the future development of our nation. The movement being conducted and sustained in a rational, civil and restrained manner will have the long-term effect of fostering and enhancing human rights awareness among Chinese citizens, including those occupying high positions in the power structure of the country. The hunger strike movement signifies the will power of a nation to sustain a dignified resistance to illegal and inhuman persecution of minority groups as an alternative to undignified conformity to bare barbaric power. This will pave the way for the power elites to realise and recognise that the country cannot be peaceful and stable if the basic freedom and rights of its citizens are not respected. As such, the movement is surely a necessary step towards the building of a State founded on constitutionalism, the rule of law and democracy.