By Jerome A. Cohen
The case of human rights lawyer WANG Quanzhang (my Washington Post op-ed) is one more tale of PRC cruelty toward a leading lawyer and his family but deserves special further scrutiny from several points of view.
When finally allowed to see him after more than 1,400 days into his detention, his wife Li Wenzu discovered the reason why the regime delayed so long and resorted to so many ridiculous ploys to deny her and any defense lawyers access to him. Like some other well-known professional colleagues, Wang has been reduced to a vegetable through a combination of tortures, physical and mental, as this brief account makes clear.
Yet there are still unsolved mysteries about the case that render it unusual among the many similar examples of the crushing of the right to defense in violation of China’s Constitution and legislation and the PRC’s international human rights commitments. Why, contrary to standard practice even in “sensitive” cases, has no court judgment confirming and supposedly explaining his long-delayed conviction and sentence been issued to his wife and the public? Is it yet known when his anticipated prison release will occur? Has he, like others, been forcibly subjected to unnecessary and unwanted “medical” treatment that weakened his extraordinary resolve to resist his lengthy incommunicado interrogation?
What will be the terms of his release? Will it be another illustration of what I have often called the “non-release release” (NRR) because the victim is in effect illegally transferred from one mode of loss of personal freedom to another involving less financial and reputational cost to the regime? So many valiant human rights lawyers have been neutered in one way or other after ostensible “release” from their years of futile resistance to unspeakable forms of detention.
I hope many journalists will pursue these inquiries.