Gu Dizhong, head of the propaganda department of the Beijing branch of the Jiu San Society, was convicted for his words
In 1944, he went to India and became the president and editor-in-chief of the overseas Chinese newspaper India Daily, before returning to China in 1946. After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, Gu chose to stay on the mainland, working as an editor and reviewer at the Beijing Higher Education Press and as the propaganda director of the Beijing branch of the Jiu San Society.
Before the 1957 anti-rightist movement, Gu made the following statement, which was published by the People’s Daily on June 26 of that year: “Since its adoption in 1954, the Constitution has been completely destroyed in some cases, and in some cases in name only.”
“Article 89 stipulates that personal freedom shall not be infringed upon and that no one shall be arrested except with the approval of the Procuratorate by decision of the court, but the actions during the purge proved that this article was all destroyed. The freedom of speech, of publication, of assembly, and of association, as provided for in Article 87, are in fact not guaranteed.”
“There is even less freedom of assembly and association, and many people’s groups are almost all officially underwritten. Can there be new democratic parties in? The Constitution doesn’t say no, but the fact is that no one dares to be bold.”
“Everyone treats the constitution as a piece of paper, and after it is passed, it’s just as well …… Now no one from Chairman Liu to the average citizen mentions protecting the constitution. If this continues, treating the Constitution as a piece of paper, imprisoning people indiscriminately, arresting people indiscriminately, opening (private) letters, etc., can do whatever they want, how can we imagine the future?”
“Party newspapers and non-party newspapers, and party newspaper reporters and non-party newspaper reporters were treated differently, and non-party newspaper reporters were treated with contempt when covering stories, and many agencies did not allow them to cover stories.”
“Before liberation there were many news agencies, now there are nominally two – China News Agency and Xinhua News Agency, in reality there is only one domestic news agency, Xinhua News Agency, which underwrites the news of the whole country and has a stomach too full to hold up.”
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Because of these remarks, Gu was branded as a “rightist” and demoted to a proofreader; he was “removed” in 1961, but was not “rehabilitated” until after the Cultural Revolution.
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