In
China
, satirical poem leads
to jail time
Even as nation opens more to world, censorship persists
[Poetrydoctor's note: You
should understand the doublespeak in this headline, which refers to the nation
as "open." America remains unconcerned for any real human rights in
China. Ours is an agenda that seeks immediate business profits (not even
long-range business benefit). Thus, this story is presented for "human
interest, " when, in fact, it speaks to the heart of the issue! There are no
real human rights in China, nor can there be under the present regime.
"Capitalism" does not mean "democracy." America's government
simply doesn't care--but do its poets?]
By
Edward Cody
Updated:
10:37 p.m. ET
Jan 7, 2007
PENGSHUI,
China
- All his life, Qin Zhongfei has been an ardent reader, a lover
of literature and an amateur poet. But the drama he lived in this little
mountain town, Qin said, has taught him that putting his thoughts into verse can
be dangerous in
China
.
"I used to write poetry all the time, but I haven't written
any lately, " he said with a wan smile, repeatedly wringing his hands and
wiping his high forehead during a recent interview. "This was a huge
disaster."
Qin,
31, spent a month in jail on criminal charges because of a poem he wrote
satirizing local officials accused of corruption. He was released only after
several out-of-town newspaper articles related his fate and the central
government in
Beijing
stepped in to halt the prosecution.
What
happened to Qin, a mild bureaucrat in the county education department, was by
any measure an abuse of power by local authorities here in the remote and wooded
hills of central
China
. But more broadly, it was a vivid reminder of the Communist
Party's enduring determination to control information and opinion among
China
's 1.3 billion people.
Since the party took power in 1949 under Mao Zedong, it has
maintained tight censorship over radio, television, newspapers, movies, fine
arts and books, carefully selecting what Chinese are allowed to know and enjoy.
Human expression, it has decreed, must follow the party's lead.
But as
China
has opened to the world -- and as the use of cellphones and the
Internet has become more common -- the censors' mission has become more
difficult.
Still, controls persist. To carry out official policy, censors ban
coverage of certain stories -- Qin's was censored from television -- and force
the party organ, People's Daily, to fax over the front page every night for
approval. Roomfuls of technicians have been enlisted to monitor millions of
computers and cut off Web sites the party judges to be dangerous to its monopoly
on power or unhealthy for the morals of young Chinese.
President Hu Jintao's ascension to power more than three years ago
generated hopes that information controls would loosen as part of the economic
opening he has championed. But they have tightened instead. Several prominent
editors have been fired over the past two years -- the most recent one last
month -- for straining at censors' guidelines. According to the Committee to
Protect Journalists, 30 Chinese journalists are in prison for what they wrote.
A
10-minute lark
Weighty matters such as freedom of expression were far from Qin's mind on a
stifling hot Aug. 15 when he arose from an after-lunch nap on the faux leather
gray couch in his office. The cellphone lying on his desk had just signaled the
arrival of a message, he said, so he stepped over to take a look.
It was a friend making fun of the local leadership, which was
embroiled in several corruption scandals. The Communist Party secretary, Ma Ping,
had already come under investigation and been transferred out. The county
administrator and the new party secretary were being scrutinized by a team of
party inspectors sent from
Chongqing
,
the provincial capital about 200 miles to the west.
The inspectors, it seemed, had their work cut out for them. The
half-finished
Rainbow
Bridge
arced over the Wu River but never reached the other side. A lot
of money was appropriated for the new
Baiyun
Middle School
,
but somehow construction never started. The Tiger's Mouth hotel,
with a view over the dramatic Wu River gorge, was an incomplete shell with no
sign it would ever be completed.
So to while away the afternoon, Qin took his friend's comments and
turned them into a satirical poem, full of puns and comical allusions. "The
horse has run far away, " it began, making a pun on Ma's departure as
secretary and the fact that his family name can mean "horse." Zhou Wei,
the county administrator, was singled out for his name's similarity to the
Chinese word for Viagra. Lan Qinghua, the new secretary, also got roasted with a
pun that turned his name into "incompetent and gutless."
"Look
at
Pengshui
County
today, " the poem went on. "It's full of foul air and
conflicts between officials and the public cannot be halted."
Qin's friends acknowledged that the verse was not great
literature. The young bureaucrat had always displayed literary ambitions that
may have been greater than his talent, they joked.
Qin himself described the composition as more of a lark than
serious poetry. "It only took 10 minutes, " he said. "I didn't
think it would be such a big deal."
But
then Qin did something that would turn it into a big deal. He transmitted the
poem to the cellphones of a half-dozen friends. They in turn transmitted it to
their friends, in a widening circle. Eventually it ended up in the cellphone of
Zhang Fu'An, chairman of
Pengshui
County
's local People's Congress. Outraged, he took it to the county
administrator, who was equally upset and asked the Public Security Bureau to
identify the author.
The security sleuths interrogated Qin's friends and backtracked
cellphone messages for two weeks, eventually tracing the offensive poem to Qin.
At about
5 p.m.
Aug. 31, two policemen stepped into Qin's office on the sixth
floor of the
county
Education
Committee building and confronted the poet.
Qin, his black hair carefully combed down and his wire-rim glasses
in place as always, at first denied he was the author, according to Li Xingchen,
a
Chongqing
journalist who investigated the case. The two police officers
left to check with their superiors, Li said, but returned within 10 minutes.
"We know it's you, " they said, and Qin confessed.
‘Modern-day word crhyme'
The policemen hauled Qin to the station to be interrogated. By the next day,
he was detained on suspicion of criminal libel, which carries a penalty of up to
three years in prison. His wife, Chen Qiong, was advised to get him an attorney.
The office of the procurator filed formal charges Sept. 11, and Qin's office,
cellphone and computer were searched for incriminating evidence.
The case, meanwhile, had struck a journalistic nerve with Li. He
wrote an article for a blog denouncing Qin's treatment as "a modern-day
word crhyme, " harking back to a much-ridiculed Qing dynasty practice of
jailing writers who tripped over the intricate Mandarin language of the time.
The historical reference caught people's fancy across the country.
Internet comment flourished. A
Hong Kong
newspaper, not subject to the mainland's censorship rules, published the first
article. Then mainland newspapers took up the dare; several carried their own
accounts. Eventually, even a Web site run by the official People's Daily allowed
someone to post an article.
"The thing got bigger and bigger, " recalled Li, a writer
for a
Chongqing
real estate magazine who has resolved for 2007 to write a book on
his ideas for improving
China
.
In
Chongqing
,
the provincial capital that administers Pengshui, authorities
were becoming increasingly embarrassed. The Chongqing Propaganda Department
ordered an investigation and, true to its mission, banned broadcast stations and
newspapers in the
Chongqing
area from reporting on the fuss.
But the leaders of Pengshui were not to be deterred. The
Propaganda Department refused to explain its determination to prosecute Qin,
although Meng Dehua, a deputy party secretary, had earlier told reporters the
poem could demoralize county workers if its author went unpunished. So the
Public Security Bureau went to the People's Court here in the county seat Sept.
27 and asked for a quick conviction. The judge responded that there was no case.
So the Public Security Bureau appealed to the
No. 4 Intermediate Court
in
Chongqing
. It got the same response: No case.
Twice frustrated, police offered to release Qin on bail but
without dropping the charges. On his attorney's advice, Qin at first refused,
demanding to be tried or exonerated. But eventually, he agreed to be released
under the guarantee of a local middle school principal and distant relative. On
Sept. 30, he walked out of jail and into the spotlight's glare.
By then, several Chinese newspapers and magazines with a national
readership had weighed in with lengthy reports after visiting Pengshui. Even a
magazine sponsored by the official New China News Agency had a story.
"You have become a famous international criminal, " a
co-worker joked to Qin.
Shaken
by time in jail
Distressed by the furor, local police notified Qin that he should
again get an attorney, implying that the case was still alive and that he could
be arrested again if the reporters kept coming.
For his part, Qin, shaken by his time in jail, was trying without
much success to resume his life as a quiet bureaucrat and father of a 5-year-old
boy.
By the middle of October, according to a source in Chongqing, the
central government sent an order to the Chongqing Communist Party secretariat
saying the Pengshui problem should be fixed, and right away. Backing up the
order, the party's Central Discipline Inspection Commission sent a team to
Pengshui to look into the matter.
Feeling the heat, authorities informed Qin on Oct. 23 that the
charges had been dropped and told him he could apply for compensation for the
time he spent behind bars. The compensation, about $280, was handed over even
before Qin had time to apply for it.
"It's impossible for someone who has experienced such a big
thing, something that affected my life and work so much -- after that, it's
impossible not to have feelings about this, " Qin said, wearing a brown
striped suit along with a blue plaid shirt and matching tie to receive a foreign
journalist.
"But I just don't want to go into it, " he added.
"The thing is, I think, really, I wish you would go to the Propaganda
Department and ask them. I hope you understand my problem."
©
2006 The Washington Post Company
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16516535/from/ET/
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