China Sentences Citizens’ Movement Icon Xu Zhiyong to Four Years in Prison · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A number of people expressed their support for Xu Zhiyong outside a Beijing court early 26 January 2014. Photo from Zhu Chengzhi's Twitter.
Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese citizens’ rights activist and an icon for the New Citizens’ Movement, was sentenced to four years in prison by a Beijing court on 26 January 2014 for disrupting public order related to two small demonstrations for equal education rights in 2012 and 2013.
His arrest and imprisonment is part of a crackdown by new Chinese Communist Party leadership under President Xi Jinping against political liberals who have been trying to advocate for constitutional reform to protect individual citizens’ rights. More political liberals will be put on trial in coming weeks.
To defend himself against the political prosecution, Xu wrote a long court statement on 22 January to explain his political beliefs and practices, in particular related to the New Citizens’ Movement which has been a main target of suppression since early 2013.
Xu explained the spirit of New Citizens’ Movement in the opening of his statement:
新公民運動倡導每個中國人堂堂正正做公民，把公民身份當真。我們是公民，是國家的主人，不是臣民，順民，草民，暴民；把公民的權利當真，那些寫在《世界人權宣言》和中國憲法裡的選舉權、言論自由、信仰自由等神聖的權利不能永遠是一張白條；把公民的責任當真，中國是我們每個人的中國，良心正義的底線在我們每個人的腳下，電要我們每個人去堅守；新公民運動倡導自由，公義，愛的新公民精神。
The New Citizens’ Movement urges every Chinese to become an upright citizen, to believe in and enact their citizen identity. We are citizens and the masters of the country, we are not the empire's subjects, nor their obedient servants, nor the rights-deprived grassroots, nor rioters. We have to enact our citizen rights. Those sacred rights including election rights, freedom of speech and religion written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Chinese Constitution cannot remain an IOU. We have to enact our citizen responsibility. China belongs to every Chinese person. The baseline of conscience and justice is where we stand and we have to stand firm to protect [our values]. The New Citizens’ Movement advocates the citizen spirit of freedom, justice and love.
Peaceful gatherings or disruption of public order?
The two incidents that were referred to by authorities as disruptions of public order took place on 5 July 2012 and 28 February 2013, when Xu and other activists gathered to pressure education authorities for equal schooling opportunities for migrant workers’ children.
In China, because migrant workers do not have household registration in cities, their children couldn't enter local schools and many of them were deprived of education opportunities. The New Citizens’ Movement's campaign for equal education began in 2009 with demonstration aimed at education authorities in Beijing, and the following year, authorities granted permission to Beijing schools to admit migrant students.
The second stage of the campaign was to press the Ministry of Education to change its policy and allow migrant students to take university entrance examination according to their schools’ locations. The ministry agreed to introduce a set of new policies by mid-2012, and a small protest was organized on 5 July 2012 to follow up on the promise, which was fulfilled by the end of 2012.
But Beijing was not covered in the new policy guidelines. To press Beijing authorities to adopt the new policy, another small protest was staged outside the office of the Beijing Education Committee on 28 February 2013.
Xu explained why the two demonstrations did not disturb public order:
7.5 和 2.28請願，我們去的是教育部門，是公民到國家機關表達訴求，我們去的不是法律意義上的公共場所。刑法對公共場所界定得很清楚，是除國家機關、社會單位、公共道路之外的公共空間…
We were petitioning outside the education authority on 5 July 2012 and 28 February 2013 as citizens. The organizations are government-related authorities, not public spaces in a legal sense. According to the penal code, the buildings of government authority, collective units, highways and roads are not considered public space…
Many Chinese human rights observers believe that the two occasions are pretext for China to suppress the New Citizens’ movement, which has been vocal in putting forward citizen agendas for social and political reforms, such as pushing for officials to disclose their properties and advocating constitutionalism, a political stand that brought Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo an 11-years prison sentence in 2008. Similar to Liu Xiaobo, Xu's New Citizens’ Movement also stressed the peaceful transformation of the political system in China:
你們不用恐懼新公民運動，我們是新時代的公民，理念上，徹底告別了敵人、江山、推翻、打倒的專制意識，堅守自由，公義，愛的信仰，行為上徹底告別陰謀，暴力等野蠻模式，以和平改良方式推動社會進步，在陽光下健康成長。公民群體的使命不是作為反對黨存在，雖然建立憲政民主，是未來中國實現政治文明的必然趨勢。我們的使命，是和中國所有進步人士一道，共同推動中國實現政治文明轉型。
Don't be afraid of the New Citizens’ Movement. We are citizens of the new era. We say farewell to enemies and authoritative ideas such as the “emperor's landscape”, “overthrow”, “take over”. We believe in freedom, justice and love. We give up brutal actions such as “conspiracy”, “violence” and uphold peaceful and transformative acts to push for social progress under the Sun. The mission of citizens’ groups are unlike opposition parties. We believe constitutional democracy is the ultimate means to the future of a civilized polity and our mission is to promote the political transformation of China with other progressive sectors.
The four-year sentence has caught many by surprise. Liu Xiaoyuan, a Chinese human rights lawyer, expressed his frustration about the harsh reality for political moderates in China on popular microblogging website Sina Weibo:
有消息称，许志永被判四年刑期。这完全出乎我的预料。虽然我知道会被判，但没想到会被重判。仔细想一下，在一个不讲法治的国家，这样的判罪量刑，其实不足为怪了！
— 刘晓原律师 (@liu_xiaoyuan) January 26, 2014
Sources say Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four years in prison. This is much more than I predicted. I know that imprisonment was inevitable, but this is a heavy sentence. On second thought, in a country where there is no rule of law, such a heavy sentence is not that surprising.
“没有敌人”的刘晓波，被以政治类罪名判刑11年；“非暴力不合作”的许志永，被以妨害社会秩序管理类罪名判刑4年，说明了什么？
— 刘晓原律师 (@liu_xiaoyuan) January 26, 2014
Liu Xiaobo, who does not have any enemies, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for political charges. Xu Zhiyong, who advocates for non-violent acts of civil disobedience was sentenced to four years in prison for disrupting public order. What does this tell us?
Teng Biao, another prominent human rights lawyer, believed the people's struggle will never cease:
对许志永博士判刑4年，是对法治的践踏和对公民的挑衅。必须给国保公检法和背后的黑手记上一笔! 监狱从来不会压灭人民反抗的意志，而是更加点燃人们战斗的激情。
— 滕彪 (@tengbiao) January 26, 2014
The four-year sentence of Dr. Xu Zhiyong treads on law and citizens. The public security organs, the procuratorial organs, the court and the authorities behind the scene had to be responsible for this. Prison will not destroy the people's will to resist, but will light up the people's passion to fight.
【良心犯，一个都太多】许志永博士的重要性会慢慢显示出来。未来几年，当局压制民间会越来越严厉，民间反抗也会越来越活跃。冲突增加难以避免。入狱的良心犯、政治犯、维权者会越来越多。但我们可以输很多次，他们只能输一次。
— 滕彪 (@tengbiao) January 26, 2014
[One political prisoner is too many] The important role of Dr. Xu Zhiyong will manifest itself slowly. In the near future, authorities’ suppression of civil society will be more heavy-handed, but there will be more grassroots resistance. There will be more and more conflicts and more political activists, citizen rights activists and people with a conscience put in jail. We can lose our battles many times, but it takes only one battle to beat them.