www.newsandletters.org
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS, JUNE 2003
Liaoyang jail terms
The Liaoyang City Court in China's Liaoning Province
handed down draconian sentences on May 8 to labor activists Yao Fuxin and Xiao
Yunliang, seven years for Yao and four years for Xiao. The authorities had held
death sentences over their heads since their January trial on concocted added
charges of "endangering state security." Given the apparent deterioration of the workers' health
over the last 14 months of incarceration, Xiao's eyesight and Yao's heart and
mobility, even their prison terms sound like death sentences. But even the state
mouthpiece PEOPLE’S DAILY acknowledged their continued defiance within the
courtroom. The original charges of "illegal" assembly,
marching and demonstrating were outrageous enough. Yao and Xiao had been
arrested in March 2002 along with other activists called the "Liaoyang
4" or "Liaoyang 5" for their involvement in a massive protest of
up to 30,000 laid-off workers at the Liaoning Ferroalloy Factory. That demonstration was just one of a wave of protests by
workers at state-run and privatized factories throughout the Northeast of China.
They were demanding that the state and factory authorities make good on empty
promises of back wages, pensions and severance pay. Police used force to prevent 300 workers from entering
the courtroom to support the workers on trial. Even their relatives were barred
from attending the sentencing, except for one daughter of each defendant. Yao
did not even have his lawyer present. Authorities "quarantined" him on
the pretext of the SARS epidemic. It is utter arrogance on the part of China's rulers to
make use of SARS to further limit workers' rights. After all, it was state
policies of denial and suppression of information that allowed SARS to get out
of hand. State and Communist Party authorities have used the same methods with
SARS as they perfected with AIDS in China, attacking not the disease but anyone
who speaks out with the facts, as if the truth about either disease would
"endanger state security." Labor groups around the world will be protesting the
harsh sentences for Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang. But the greatest fear of
China's state-capitalist rulers continues to be workers' opposition within the
country The seeming overreaction to mass protests of Liaoyang workers in 2002,
like jailing and execution of workers forming autonomous trade unions in 1989,
indicates that China's workers and the growing army of the unemployed may yet
determine China's future. --Bob McGuire |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
