Xinhua News, 2009-04-21
Several recent criminal defamation cases have generated nation-wide media attention and sharp critique from legal scholars. In one case, Wu Baoquan, an Inner Mongolia native living in Qingdao, wrote an internet post describing the abusive land expropriation policies local officials had forced on his acquaintance and fellow villagers in Eerduosi City, Inner Mongolia. Police officers from Eerduosi arrested Wu and sentenced him to 10 days of administrative detention. After his release, Wu posted more writings on the incident and was again detained by Eerduosi police and prosecuted on criminal charges of “defaming the government.” A grass-roots level court sentenced Wu to one year imprisonment; he appealed, and the city's intermediate court sent the case back for retrial, explaining the “facts are not clear.” In the retrial, Wu was again found guilty and his sentence increased to two years for “not showing contrition while released on bail” and working in tandem with petitioning villagers. On 17 April, the Eerduosi Intermediate Court upheld Wu's two year prison sentence.
In another case still pending, Deng Yonggu, an agricultural service center employee in Pengxi County, Sichuan Province, posted a blog accusing four local cadres of illegal actions, listing their cell phone numbers and calling them “scum.” Local police later arrested Deng on charges of defamation and brought him to trial in county court on 20 April 2009. Court arguments focused on why the case required state prosecutors to bring criminal charges instead of the “victims” simply suing in civil court, with prosecutors arguing that Deng's post qualified as criminal defamation under the criminal law's “seriously endangers social stability and national interests” proviso.
Two editorials by legal commentators question the motives and methods of local officials in the cases and call for legislative change. Writing in the Beijing News, Wang Gangqiao, suggests the National People's Congress remove the above proviso from the article on defamation or at least exercise their legislative right to interpret the law and restrict the abusive use of the proviso. Wei Wenbiao's article in the Guangming Daily stresses Chinese citizens' constitutional right to offer critique and advice to the government. He also pushes for increased judicial independence—partly to be achieved with direct central funding of and hiring power over local courts—to protect the legal system from becoming a retributive tool in the hands of “a few local governments and officials.”
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