Cheng Yuan, the head of the mainland NGO Changsha Founeng, has been detained by authorities for more than 21 months since July 2019. Cheng Yuan’s wife, Shi Minglei, and her daughter arrived in the United States recently with the assistance of the U.S. State Department and individuals. Shi Minglei said that the verdict in the Changsha Funeng case may have been handed down in secret, and that she will use the international community to expose the persecution of her husband, Cheng Yuan, and others by the Chinese Communist authorities.
According to Radio Free Asia, on April 7, with the assistance of the American Christian human rights organization China Aid, Cheng Yuan’s wife, Shi Minglei, and their 5-year-old daughter arrived in the United States without incident. After arriving in the U.S., Shi tweeted, “Pass after pass, lonely, fearful and difficult. The moment I left China, I was sad and excited and cried a lot.”
When asked about the experience of leaving China this time, Shi Minglei said it was a borrowed third country, and other specific details were inconvenient to disclose.
Shi Minglei said in an interview that although there is reliable information that the verdict of the “Changsha Fu Neng subversion case” has been announced, the family has not received any official notification of the verdict. In addition, the family and their lawyers did not receive any official notification of the case during the investigation, and their efforts to rescue Cheng Yuan and others were obstructed by the authorities.
Shi Minglei said, “Every step of the process was illegal, whether it was the persecution of our family members after the arrest of Cheng Yuan, or when the case reached the court stage. The fact that the authorities do not dare to make it public so far only proves that they are persecuting and handling the case in violation of the law. This is also a landmark incident of the Chinese Communist authorities’ crackdown on local NGOs in China.”
Shi Minglei also mentioned that on the day of Cheng Yuan’s arrest, the police took him away in front of his three-year-old daughter, and that Shi was interrogated for more than 20 hours in hoods and handcuffs, causing a serious psychological shadow on his daughter as a result of the authorities’ brutal enforcement.
Shi Minglei said that after her husband’s arrest, the authorities put her and her family under prolonged residential surveillance on suspicion of “subversion of state power,” froze their bank accounts and seized their documents. At the same time, her friends and employers were repeatedly harassed and threatened by the Chinese police.
“It was not easy for us to come to the United States, and I am very grateful that my daughter is free. We will never again be used as hostages, as a means to blackmail Cheng Yuan.”
Shi Minglei firmly believes that Cheng Yuan and his three men are committed to eliminating the discrimination suffered by the most vulnerable in Chinese society and that forced convictions on political charges by the Chinese Communist authorities are a further crackdown on civil society voices. Shi said he would ask for assistance from the United Nations and other international organizations to speak out for human rights through the international community and to bring the persecution of Cheng Yuan to the public.
Founded in March 2016, Cheng Yuan and other leaders of the public interest group Changsha Founeng have long been concerned with the rights of people with disabilities and have actively monitored the Chinese Communist government’s disclosure of information. As a legal professional, Cheng Yuan has promoted numerous lawsuits on hepatitis B, HIV discrimination and family planning policies.
On July 22, 2019, Cheng Yuan, Liu Yongze, and Wu Ge Jianxiong, three members of Changsha Fu Neng, were arrested by the Changsha State Security Bureau on suspicion of subversion of state power.
“Yang Zhanqing, the co-founder of Changsha Founeng and a U.S.-based public interest activist, told Free Asia that, in the context of China’s severe crackdown on civil society, the fact that the Changsha Founeng subversion case was not heard in public and families were not notified of the outcome of the trial is a typical example of the Chinese Communist Party’s secret handling of cases. The case is a typical example of the CCP’s secrecy.
He said, “The government should publicize cases like this as a typical case, publicizing how these public-spirited people ‘subverted state power’ and how they were punished. If the verdict is not made public, I think the content of the verdict may be too patchwork for the authorities to get their hands on, there should be little evidence in it, and there is no legal basis for it, and it is a complete retaliation.”
According to the Human Rights in China website, Cheng Yuan, Wu Ge Jianxiong and Liu Yongze are still being held at the Hunan Provincial State Security Department Detention Center, and the authorities have refused to allow lawyers hired by their families to meet with them.
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