Series Music

02:30

Program Music

02:47

LIZ JACKSON: It was a shame for China that on this day Beijing’s pollution was quite so bad. It’s the day the so called Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium was opened for the first time to the international media.

03:01

At a cost of over $500-million dollars it’s China’s stunning symbol of how far the country has developed in the past 30 years. It says we are no longer an economically backward Communist state. This is the new China, a China to be proud of.

03:17

Over 300,000 Beijingers put up their hands to volunteer for the Games and put out the message.

03:43

VOLUNTEER 1: To the rest of the world I want to say, come here in Beijing and you will see our enthusiasm and our friendliness and to see how the China today is developing.

03:50

VOLUNTEER 2: Welcome to Beijing and you will see the best Olympic Games in history.

04:10

LIZ JACKSON: But there’s another China that the Government’s security forces and their Olympic organisers would prefer to keep hidden.

04:22

When China bid for the Olympics, they promised the International Olympic Committee that winning the Games would promote human rights in China, but human rights activists tell a different story.

04:32

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: I shouted, and struggled, but they forced me into the car and put a sack on my head.

04:45

LI ZHANJUN, MEDIA DIRECTOR, BEIJING OLYMPIC GAMES: Seventy years ago our human rights at that time very, very poor but nobody criticise that. Right now we’re going better, a lot of criticise. I could not understand why.

04:59

LIZ JACKSON: Tonight on "Four Corners" we travel to China to uncover what’s happening on the ground, from those with the courage to tell us.

05:12

They know the risk they’re taking speaking with foreign journalists. They or their families have been kidnapped, beaten, banned, jailed and put under house arrest for doing no more than speaking up about human rights, or defending those who have.

05:21

And they know full well that in this Olympic year, China is prepared to crush voices of dissent.

05:41

"VOICES OF DISSENT"

LIZ JACKSON: It’s the morning of the 3rd April, 2008 outside Beijing’s No 1 Intermediate People’s Court. The international media and foreign diplomats, including diplomats from Australia, are waiting.

05:55

They will try but fail to get inside the court where today the judge will announce the verdict on China’s highest profile human rights activist, 34-year-old Hu Jia.

06:11

Hu Jia has been charged with incitement to subvert state power. The prosecution brief is made up of articles Hu Jia posted on overseas web sites and interviews with foreign journalists.

06:25

Hu Jia’s lawyer Li Fang Ping argues that Hu Jia said and wrote nothing subversive and that China’s Constitution states its citizens have the right to freedom of expression.

06:43

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): As his lawyers, we're confident Hu Jia is innocent, he expresses opinions peacefully and we are hoping he will be freed.

06:56

LIZ JACKSON: But Li Fang Ping knows the chances are that his client will be jailed.

07:08

(to Li Fang Ping): Has anyone ever won a case by saying, that's just freedom of expression, that's not subverting state power?

07:15

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): We’ve never heard of a single person being acquitted of the charge of subverting state power - not in my 10 years of legal practices, no.

07:22

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Fang Ping): Never one.

07:35

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): Never.

07:36

LIZ JACKSON: Included in the evidence against Hu Jia, was an open letter entitled, “The Real China and the Olympics”.

07:40

It is a forthright denunciation of China’s human rights record in the light of its Olympic commitment -- forced evictions, religious persecution, repression in Tibet, torture, censorship, the death penalty, and the persecution of those who dare to write on such uncomfortable subjects - stating: "35 Chinese journalists and 51 writers are still in prison. Over 90 per cent were arrested or tried after Beijing's successful bid.”

07:48

It was signed by Hu Jia and co-signed by lawyer, Teng Biao.

08:23

LIZ JACKSON (to Teng Biao): Did you and Hu Jia talk about the risk you were taking in publishing that article?

08:28

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: In fact I wrote it myself and I asked Hu Jia if he can sign it. And he agreed because he had the same feelings and idea with me. And I think we are clear that it is risky to write something like that, but we think we should do that. We have a responsibility to do that.

08:35

LIZ JACKSON: Teng Biao teaches law at a Beijing University. He also works in a private law firm, taking the fight for human rights to the courts.

09:14

This is his way of reducing stress at the weekends.

09:26

Unlike Hu Jia, he has not been charged with any offence since the open letter was published but two months ago, as Teng Biao arrived home from work, four men were waiting for him in the car park.

09:31

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: I shouted and struggled but they forced me into the car and put a sack on my head, and then they drove me to some place, I don’t know. And then they asked me many, many questions about my articles and my interviews and after 41 hours I was sent back.

09:45

They, I asked them who they are but they didn’t show me any certificate, any document. They said they are from Beijing Police Bureau, but I don’t know where, I don’t know who they are.

10:28

LIZ JACKSON (to Teng Biao): Did they ask you about the article with Hu Jia?

10:52

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: Yes, They mentioned that article and other articles and interviews. They said they can arrest me at any time.

10:57

LIZ JACKSON (to Teng Biao): Did they warn you not to speak to journalists again?

11:08

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: They warned me not to write any articles about Hu Jia case and the Olympics and they also want me to be very careful when I want to write something or want to say something to a journalist.

11:12

SAMI SILLANPAA, "HELSINGIN SANOMAT" NEWSPAPER (showing photograph to Liz Jackson): Now this is in a coffee shop when we first met and I started doing a story...

11:38

LIZ JACKSON: Hu Jia had been regularly talking to foreign journalists for years. He gained a profile as an AIDS activist and over time took up broader human rights concerns.

11:43

Sami Sillanpaa is a Finnish correspondent based in Beijing. He met Hu Jia back in 2006 and spoke with him often.

12:01

SAMI SILLANPAA, "HELSINGIN SANOMAT" NEWSPAPER: Hu Jia was kind of a one man newsagency. He was gathering information from other activists all around China and then spreading that information to lawyers and human rights groups and foreign journalists and he was always available for comment for foreign media.

12:11

LIZ JACKSON: But in July 2006 the state security police moved to make Hu Jia a lot less available. They put him under house arrest.

12:32

Hu Jia responded by filming and narrating this unique documentary about the men who watched over him 24 hours a day, for 200 days.

12:43

MAN (subtitled): Use your own dustpan, don't use mine.

12:55

LIZ JACKSON: He then put all the footage on the net.

12:57

HU JIA (subtitled): It is the same every day which increases the workload for our unit's cleaners.

13:00

LIZ JACKSON: There was no charge against Hu Jia, but for over seven months he was physically prevented from leaving his flat.

13:05

Here the security police harass his wife as she heads out to work.

13:13

Visitors and journalists were stopped.

13:20

Hu Jia tells us that on this day his guards put up a police line to prevent a visit from the British Embassy.

13:26

HU JIA (subtitled): 3.30pm. They took down the police line and left.

13:34

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Fang Ping): Hu Jia was of course under house arrest for a very long period of time; was his house arrest legal?

13:40

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): Completely illegal.

13:46

SAMI SILLANPAA, "HELSINGIN SANOMAT" NEWSPAPER: A lot of other people were silenced but he kept on doing his things. At the same time you could see the security agency closing on him, keeping a closer eye on him, putting him under house arrest, following him everywhere. At some point he was kidnapped, he was, you know, missing for a couple of weeks, so you could see that they wanted to keep him in control, but they were waiting for the right way and right time to totally silence him.

13:48

LIZ JACKSON: Hu Jia continued in and out of house arrest for much of 2007.

14:22

In December he and his wife were awarded the Special China Prize from the Paris based organisation, “Reporters without Borders”.

14:28

Hu Jia took questions on the night about the Olympics by webcam from his Beijing apartment.

14:38

HU JIA (subtitled): The Chinese authorities have a secret document relating to security at the Olympics. It names 43 people who won’t be allowed at the Olympic Games. Among them are foreign journalists who focused on China’s human rights issues.

14:43

LIZ JACKSON: Three weeks later Hu Jia was arrested and taken to this detention centre. It was six weeks after his first child, a daughter, was born.

15:03

In January this year he was charged with subversion and refused bail.

15:17

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: In my opinion I think the Government want to silence him and want to silence all activists like Hu Jia before Olympic Games.

15:22

LIZ JACKSON: Hu Jia’s court hearing six weeks ago was brief. After just 30 minutes his lawyer Li Fang Ping emerged and was mobbed for the outcome. It was as expected.

15:39

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): He is sentenced to three and half years' imprisonment, with one year deprivation of political rights.

15:56

LIZ JACKSON: Hu Jia will be spending the Olympic Games in jail.

16:06

Accounts of the verdict by the official Chinese media contain no suggestion that Hu Jia had incited any violence but he had, they said, "...spread malicious rumours, and committed libel in an attempt to subvert the state's political power and socialist system", and further, "...repeatedly instigated other people to do the same."

16:12

Just five online articles and two of his interviews were cited as the basis of his guilt. In them he describes the Communist Party as "totalitarian" and "despotic". He accuses police of behaving like gangsters and talks about an atmosphere of fear.

16:38

He says that the Olympic slogan “One World One Dream” is, for his generation, a dream of democracy, rule of law and human rights.

16:57

Hu Jia confessed to the court he’d gone too far.

17:09

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): Normally if you confess you get a lighter sentence, but it doesn’t always work.

17:14

LIZ JACKSON: Hu Jia’s mother had been inside the court when the three-and-a-half year sentence was handed down.

17:24

HU JIA’s MOTHER (subtitled): I talked to the judge just now. I said I hope Hu Jia is the last person to be jailed, just for what he said. He has paid heavily for it. He loves his country dearly. I told him no matter what happens your mum loves you, your wife loves you, your daughter loves you. I said I hope you can hold on, hold on.

17:30

LIZ JACKSON: Hu Jia’s wife Zeng Jinyan fears for his health in jail. Hu has a serious liver condition. He needed hospital treatment after he was kidnapped by the state in 2006.

18:01

ZENG JINYAN (subtitled): His health is really bad. They may not beat him like before, but if they tire him out with questioning and don’t let him sleep, it could kill him. For people with liver damage, this could be fatal.

18:14

LIZ JACKSON: The Foreign Ministry declined an interview so for a Government perspective on Hu Jia’s case we approached the Deng Xiaoping Thought Research Centre, within the Academy of Marxism.

18:34

LIZ JACKSON (to Xia Chun Tao): You're saying that you've been here for 20 years?

18:48

XIA CHUN TAO, DENG XIAOPING THOUGHT RESEARCH CENTRE (subtitled): Yes...

18:50

LIZ JACKSON (to Xia Chun Tao): You've seen a lot of change in China then in 20 years?

18:53

XIA CHUN TAO, DENG XIAOPING THOUGHT RESEARCH CENTRE (subtitled): Yes...

18:56

LIZ JACKSON: It’s one of China’s core ideological think tanks and Xia Chun Tao is its deputy director.

18:57

(To Xia Chun Tao): Can you help us understand why China would put Hu Jia in jail for three-and-a-half years for publishing opinions and giving interviews that are critical of the party and the Government?

19:04

XIA CHUN TAO, DENG XIAOPING THOUGHT RESEARCH CENTRE (subtitled): Chinese society is governed by laws. In every country, including your country, freedom of the press and freedom of speech is conditional, and the condition is they cannot conflict with the law.

18:17

LIZ JACKSON (to Xia Chun Tao): But why do you need to have a law that puts people in jail for saying things that you don’t agree with?

19:38

XIA CHUN TAO, DENG XIAOPING THOUGHT RESEARCH CENTRE (subtitled): If you fabricate a story, or focus on one point and overlook the main point, or ignore it deliberately, or exaggerate, then this will have negative social impacts and you should be punished. Take me as an example. If I broke the law and were jailed, I would accept it. People should be responsible for what they have done.

19:45

LIZ JACKSON: It’s two weeks since the trial and Li Fang Ping is having a lunchtime meeting with his colleagues. They're discussing Hu Jia’s case.

20:29

His lawyers were refused access to Hu Jia in jail in the time allowed to lodge an appeal.

20:39

LI FANG PING: The defence lawyer has no idea whether his client wishes to appeal. How ridiculous!

20:47

LIZ JACKSON: This small luncheon group represents almost 20 per cent of the lawyers in Beijing prepared to take on sensitive human rights cases. The vast majority steer well clear because they know of the political pressure and the physical danger involved.

20:53

During Hu Jia’s case Li Fang Ping was under constant police surveillance for 23 days.

21:12

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): Twenty-three days of being followed and watched without reason, without explanation.

21:21

LIZ JACKSON: Li Fang Ping knows from the past how the pressure can get ugly. In 2005 he was attacked by a group of unidentified men while acting for a blind colleague, Chen Guangcheng, in another politically sensitive case.

21:32

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): They pushed me into the gutter. When we walked on, and there were fewer people around, about five or six of them stomped on me and kept slapping my face. They said: "Why don’t you call the police? Go ahead!"

21:49

LIZ JACKSON: Li Fang Ping believes it was done to warn him off. It didn’t work.

22:15

This photo was taken after he was bashed a second time. This time the men used iron bars.

22:21

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Fang Ping): Who do you believe is behind those groups of those unidentified men?

22:30

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): It could be police, government officials, or their thugs.

22:34

LIZ JACKSON: At the end of the lunch, lawyer Li Heping has his own story to tell. It's from September last year, when Li had some clients associated with the banned spiritual group, the Falun Gong.

22:43

As he was leaving his office at around 5.30, right in the open as he walked to the car park, he was grabbed and bundled into a waiting car.

22:58

LI HEPING, LAWYER (subtitled): They put a hood over my head and put me in an unregistered car. Two of them tied my hands. They drove a long way, for about an hour. I felt I was driven up a hill and then into a hotel basement. I was beaten there.

23:10

LIZ JACKSON: Over the next five hours, until late into the night, he was beaten and humiliated.

23:41

LI HEPING, LAWYER (subtitled): They made me take off my clothes. When I tried to refuse, they beat me badly. They slapped my face and used water bottles to punch my head. And worse, they beat me with electric prods. It was terrible. They told me to sell my house, sell my car, to close down the law firm and get out of Beijing.

23:48

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Heping): Who do you believe the people were who kidnapped you?

24:19

LI HEPING, LAWYER (subtitled): Many people in China know who they are. I think I know as well. But as a lawyer, I won’t say who they are, before I get the evidence.

24:23

LIZ JACKSON: It’s not just physical threats that are used to warn off the lawyers. Teng Biao works part time for a private law firm. Many of his cases involve human rights. But he also teaches law at a Beijing University and has done so since 2003. But Teng Biao has been warned by the university he’s placing his job at risk.

24:54

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: If I was involved in too many human right cases they will fire me.

25:19

LIZ JACKSON (to Teng Biao): They will fire you?

25:29

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: Yeah, they said they have to fire me.

25:30

LIZ JACKSON (to Teng Biao): Why would they have to fire you?

25:35

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: The university also faced a lot of pressure from higher Government officials, so they will not, I think if the Beijing Police Bureau want to fire me, then the university will have to do so.

25:40

LIZ JACKSON: After seeing the lawyers, we’re on our way to Hu Jia’s apartment. We’re hoping to interview his wife, Zeng Jinyan, although the lawyers have told us that plain clothes policemen stand guard at the gate of her block.

26:09

Under the new Olympic media rules, foreign journalists can in theory interview whoever they like, as long as that person agrees.

26:27

As we’re told Zeng’s phone is tapped, we only check that she’s happy to see us when we’re three minutes away.

26:37

LIZ JACKSON (on phone to Zeng Jinyan): It’s Liz Jackson from ABC TV Australia. We are just near your place. Is it possible for us to come and see you?

26:45

We’re welcome? Thank you very much indeed. We would love to speak with you if it’s possible, but I understand, are there a lot of police around at the moment? Do you know? They are in the yard? Now? So we won’t recognise them as police cars, they’re just plain cars, but they are the police cars, are they? Yeah?

26:54

Have you been able to see Hu Jia yet? No? Okay, you can't, and no time given. Okay, well look, we’re just down the road and we’ll see how we go, otherwise I'll speak to you later and all the best.

27:17

LIZ JACKSON: We arrive.

27:40

(to policeman): Liz Jackson. I'm just going to visit Zeng Jinyan...

27:44

LIZ JACKSON: It’s pretty much as expected - guards appear as we head for Zeng Jinyan’s apartment.

27:50

(to policeman): I'm from ABC...

27:57

LIZ JACKSON: They’re low key but firm, we can’t go in and they’re calling for extra police.

28:00

They give what is a patently a sham explanation - there’s been another case here, it’s nothing to with Hu Jia, but it means the whole apartment block is a crime scene so it’s all out of bounds.

28:10

A few minutes later uniformed police arrive and take our passport details, and when we look back, a crime scene tape has just gone up.

28:27

Hu Jia’s wife has not committed any crime, but that doesn’t mean she’s free.

28:41

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR HU JIA (subtitled): At first, the police even lived in her home. Later, it was better, but she could not go out. Now she is allowed out sometimes but the police still follow and monitor her 24 hours a day.

28:46

LIZ JACKSON: In the countdown to the Olympics, Hu Jia was an awkward human rights problem that the Government has now dealt with. Tibet is not so easy.

29:17

When (Australian) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was in China he raised the issue of Tibet. It was one more test, a small one for the Chinese Government, as to how they would handle his freedom of speech.

29:39

The Prime Minister told these students at Peking University that while he didn't support an Olympic boycott, there are some significant human rights problems in Tibet.

29:54

KEVIN RUDD (subtitled): It is necessary to recognise there are significant human rights problems in Tibet.

30:05

LIZ JACKSON: His speech was reported on the front page of the China Daily the following day, minus any reference to human rights problems in Tibet.

30:14

(To Xia Chun Tao): Can you explain to me why those comments were censored from reporting in the major state newspapers?

30:27

XIA CHUN TAO, DENG XIAOPING THOUGHT RESEARCH CENTRE (subtitled): I think it’s because, between what he said and the truth, there’s a huge gap.

30:35

TSERING WOESER, TIBETAN AUTHOR (subtitled): The Chinese public was hoodwinked. As far as Kevin Rudd is concerned China’s behaviour was an insult to him.

30:43

LIZ JACKSON: Tsering Woeser is the world’s best known contemporary Tibetan writer. She now lives in Beijing with her husband Wang Lixiong, himself a celebrated writer.

31:01

She and Wang Lixiong were placed under house arrest in March this year when the Tibetan unrest began. The security police now allow them out but they know that they’ve been followed. This is Woeser’s first interview since the house arrest ended. These are difficult times.

31:12

TSERING WOESER, TIBETAN AUTHOR (subtitled): They’ve always monitored my phone and my email. None of these are safe. But this was the first time the police came to talk to me directly, after what happened in Tibet. The police said I was not allowed out. Now it seems that I can go out, but I have to use the word “seems”, because I’m still confused about the situation.

31:33

LIZ JACKSON: Wang Lixiong is concerned about the precedent set by Hu Jia’s case.

32:05

WANG LIXIONG, WRITER (subtitled): We know that Hu Jia was jailed for his five articles and two interviews with foreign media. On that basis, what we are doing now is also a crime. So, we feel very threatened by Hu Jia’s case.

32:10

LIZ JACKSON: Wang Lixiong does not want his wife to talk about current events. She’s paid a heavy price before, in less volatile times. In 2004 she was sacked from her job as a literary editor after the Government banned her best selling collection of articles entitled “Tibet Notes”. The Government’s anger was focused on just one sentence about the Dalai Lama.

32:33

TSERING WOESER, TIBETAN AUTHOR (subtitled): What caused the trouble was an article about an old Tibetan and his son who struggled to get to India to meet the Dalai Lama. When they finally met the Dalai Lama, they wept bitterly. There’s one sentence in my article, “For all devout Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is the person they miss the most.” This one sentence made them furious.

33:00

LIZ JACKSON: No Chinese publisher will touch her work now, so she posts her poems and articles on overseas web sites. The Chinese Government monitors and blocks them. She writes a daily blog about Tibetan issues, but three times the Government has closed her blogs down.

33:34

TSERING WOESER, TIBETAN AUTHOR (subtitled): Given what happened to me, you can imagine what it’s like for ordinary Tibetans. As I’ve written in my articles before, the most common state for Tibetans is a state of fear - daily life is full of fear. Now, if I speak on the phone with my friends, they’ll remind me: “do be careful, be careful”.

33:54

LIZ JACKSON: The Beijing Olympic Games Committee tells us there’s no need for Tibetans to take their protest to the streets.

34:27

LI ZHANJUN, MEDIA DIRECTOR, BEIJING OLYMPICS: They have their freedom to express their ideas. They don’t need, they do not need to go straight that way. There’s a lot of ways. They could write letters to their municipal government. They also have a lot of ways to express their ideas.

34:35

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Zhanjun): Do you agree that there has been a crackdown on the protests, the Tibetan protests? Has there been a Chinese Government crackdown, or is that the western media?

34:57

LI ZHANJUN, MEDIA DIRECTOR, BEIJING OLYMPICS: I do not like to, to see you use "crackdown", this word.

35:06

LIZ JACKSON: This vision was shot by an Australian tourist two months ago, of Chinese armoured vehicles arriving in the capital of Tibet.

35:16

No foreign media can now get a permit. The Chinese Government says it’s for their own safety.

35:27

LIZ JACKSON (to Wang Lixiong): What are your fears now about what may be going on while the world’s media is not in Tibet?

35:35

WANG LIXIONG, WRITER (subtitled): We only get hearsay information about what is happening in Tibet. We hear there is a crackdown and that there are people on the run. The next step will be arrests and trials and that some may face the death penalty. But it’s only hearsay, not direct or proven information.

35:41

LIZ JACKSON: The Tibetan issue gains little sympathy amongst the vast majority of Chinese people, but Teng Biao and 20 other Beijing lawyers recently signed an open letter offering legal assistance to Tibetans detained in connection with the protest.

36:11

They called for “arrested Tibetans to be dealt with in strict accordance with the Constitution” and for “an end to the extortion of confessions by torture”.

36:30

The response from The Beijing Justice Bureau was swift. Teng Biao was told if he took on Tibetan cases, his law firm would withdraw his license to practise law.

36:41

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: In China, the activities of lawyers are controlled by the law firm, and the law firm are controlled by the bar association and the justice bureau, so we are not independent. We have to obey the orders of the Government.

36:53

LIZ JACKSON: Before we leave China we travel to the industrial city of Jia Musi in the far north east of the country. It’s nearly 2,000 kilometres from Beijing, up near the Russian border.

37:23

It’s the home town of Yang Chunlin. Yang Chunlin is a former factory worker who gathered over 7,000 signatures from this far flung region for an online petition that was headed, “We want human rights, not the Olympics”.

37:39

Ten-thousand signatures were finally delivered to the International Olympic Committee in December last year, but by then Yang Chunlin had been detained and charged with incitement to subvert state power. Two months ago he was sentenced to five years in jail.

37:58

We’ve come here to talk with his sister.

38:19

LIZ JACKSON (to Yang Chunping): Why do you think he got the maximum sentence, five years?

38:24

YANG CHUNPING (subtitled): What he did attracted wide international attention of a very negative kind. We asked the Public Security Bureau about this and they said what he did was worse than murder, he tarnished the national reputation.

38:29

LIZ JACKSON: No-one from his family was allowed to see Yang Chunlin for the eight months he was held in jail waiting for his trial - not his sister, his wife -- who’s helping prepare lunch -- his mother, or his son.

38:55

For the first seven months his lawyers were barred as well.

39:10

LI FANG PING, LAWYER FOR YANG CHUNLIN (subtitled): They claimed that the case involved state secrets. Later however, we learnt from the court that state secrets were not involved. As a result, during the police investigation, Yang Chunlin did not have a lawyer to defend him.

39:14

LIZ JACKSON: Much of the area around the town used to be worked by peasant farmers. Yang Chunlin was well known as a long time rural activist who supported the claims of farmers throughout the province that they’d been corruptly forced off their land. Many made up the thousands who signed the “Human rights before Olympics” petition.

39:36

Yang Chunlin also wrote strongly worded articles denouncing the Government and calling for human rights for all, including folk like these. Two of these articles became the critical evidence in his trial.

40:01

YANG CHUNPING (subtitled): He thinks China is too backward. He wanted to speed up the process of democratisation so China can catch up with the West. He wrote this in his articles, that China has lagged behind the West for about 500 years. If China wants improvement, we should learn from “good” countries, rather than countries like North Korea.

40:17

LIZ JACKSON: Yang Chunlin was sentenced to his five-year jail term in March this year. He’s seen here in earlier times with his son.

41:01

This photo, taken on a mobile phone, shows him being escorted from the court room. He was hooded. He wanted to speak to his family before they took him away .

41:11

YANG CHUNPING (subtitled): He wanted to say something to us, so he hung on to the doorframe tightly. He turned his head and said, "Tell Yang Zhuo to study hard." Yang Zhuo is his son. Then the police subdued him with an electric prod. We couldn’t see where he was prodded, we only saw the sizzle, the sparks everywhere. Later the lawyer confirmed that it was on his face and hands.

41:23

LIU GUILIAN, YANG CHUNLIN'S MOTHER (subtitled): If my son is there for five years he will suffer till he dies. They will beat him without hesitation, just as they are doing now.

41:48

LIZ JACKSON (to Yang Chunping): Has anyone spoken to you about speaking to media?

42:04

YANG CHUNPING (subtitled): Yes, the public security officers warned me after my brother was jailed. They came to see me saying that I am in danger of being arrested if I speak to the foreign media.

42:07

LIU GUILIAN, YANG CHUNLIN'S MOTHER (subtitled): I just hope you can rescue my son. He is a good man. He has done nothing wrong.

42:25

LIZ JACKSON: Back in Beijing the Olympic committee sees no problem with the way China handles its internal critics.

42:33

LI ZHANJUN, MEDIA DIRECTOR, BEIJING OLYMPICS: In China we have 1.3-billion population. There are a few people to say some negative words against their Government, it’s natural.

42:41

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Zhanjun): And should they be free to say those things?

42:53

LI ZHANJUN, MEDIA DIRECTOR, BEIJING OLYMPICS: Yes! Why not?

42:55

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Zhanjun): And do you think they are?

42:56

LI ZHANJUN, MEDIA DIRECTOR, BEIJING OLYMPICS: If you don’t, if they do not make terrorism, terrorist, yes why?

42:59

LIZ JACKSON: As the Olympic Games draw closer, the organising committee is staging a “good luck” marathon as preparation for the real thing to come.

43:08

It starts, in the rain, in Tiananmen Square. The bloody repression here in June 1989 is still not acknowledged. Officially it's as if it never occurred.

43:19

Those who witnessed what happened here then are however in no doubt that many things have changed for the better, but also, that some things have not.

43:36

WANG LIXIONG, WRITER (subtitled): There have been a lot of improvements in China's human rights. But this doesn’t mean that the Maoist way of handling things has gone. It’s just that they have become more pragmatic and shrewd when calculating when these measures should be used. When the benefits clearly outweigh the costs, they will definitely go back to all the old measures.

43:48

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: We have no judicial independence, we have no free press, we have no free election, and we have very serious political corruption.

44:25

WANG LIXIONG, WRITER (subtitled): No government under the present system will ever welcome freedom of the press. It won’t be allowed. So we should ask, "When will the system change?"

44:38

LIZ JACKSON: The question of when, and indeed whether China’s one party political system will change is central to the debate about the future of China, the future for these children. At this Beijing primary school they’re holding a mini-Olympics sports day of their own.

45:00

As the Chinese people race towards greater prosperity, will their new found economic freedom inevitably bring political freedom in its wake?

45:24

It will depend in part on how ruthless those in power are prepared to be, to hold on to what they have.

45:35

While the voices of dissent in China now are few and the price they pay is heavy, the fact they are there and speaking out is at least a reason to share some of their surprising optimism about the China they are striving to deliver to the next generation.

45:45

LIZ JACKSON (to Li Fang Ping): Are you optimistic about the future?

46:09

LI FANG PING (subtitled): Yes, very optimistic. China has to embrace the rule of law. Many people hope so, and more and more people are prepared to act to defend their rights.

46:12

TENG BIAO, LAWYER: I believe the next generation will see a free China.

46:28

LIZ JACKSON: In less than a hundred days the world’s focus will be on the Beijing Olympics. Will this pressure improve China’s record on human rights?

46:40

LI FANG PING (subtitled): We hope so, we hope so.

46:51

Credits: 

46:57