China Confirms Tiananmen Jailings

BEIJING (AP) - China has confirmed that two laborers who took part in pro-democracy demonstrations 11 years ago are in prison, a U.S. human rights leader reported today.

A letter from China's Ministry of Justice to John Kamm, the director of the U.S.-based Dui Hua Foundation, explained Chen Gang and Zhang Jingsheng's prison terms and said when both are due to be released, Kamm said.

Chen and Zhang are among hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese still in jail for demonstrations centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

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Human rights groups have known about the jailing of Chen and Zhang through word from friends, other dissidents and news reports. Their accounts said Chen had called for justice after the arrest of his brother, a student organizer, while Zhang had called on workers to resist the government's crackdown.

But the Ministry of Justice letter was the first direct comment from the government on the cases. According to Kamm, the ministry's letter said Chen and Zhang were arrested in separate incidents in southern Hunan province in 1989 and that both men are healthy.

He said the letter provided the following details:

Zhang, now 47, had already served a four-year term for ``counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement'' in the early 1980s and committed the same crime again in 1989 in Changsha city. He was given a 13-year sentence which has been reduced once. He is due to be released next month.

Chen, now 28, was arrested on charges of hooliganism in Xiangtan city and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence has been reduced three times. He will complete his prison term in November 2007.

In 1995, Kamm submitted a list of 100 political prisoners to Chinese justice officials. With word on Chen and Zhang, Kamm has now learned the fate of 68 of them.

China has yet to resume a human rights dialogue with the United States broken off after U.S. warplanes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia a year ago. Kamm's discussions were seemingly a casualty of that rupture, but in March he again began to receive information on prisoners.

Kamm also said China's Justice Ministry has invited him to come to Beijing later this month for talks.

Elsewhere, Chinese authorities reportedly released a marine biologist who was serving an 18-year prison sentence for denouncing the military assault on Tiananmen demonstrators. The Hong Kong-based Information Center on Human Rights and Democracy said officials gave no reason for releasing Chen Lantao on Saturday.

• China Said To Release Dissident (April 30)