HONG KONG – China could release a number of long-serving political prisoners before the end of the year, a leading human rights lobbyist said after holding meetings with senior Beijing officials.
San Francisco-based lobbyist, John Kamm, said he was encouraged by meetings with Chinese Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Justice and Supreme Court officials in Beijing this week which had suggested the pace for the release of prisoners could pickup toward the end of 2003.
“We haven’t maintained the pace of prisoner releases that we saw in 2002 and there has been a noticeable slowdown since the release of (dissident) Fang Jue on 24 January,” Kamm told AFP.
He attributed the slowdown to the SARS outbreak which devastated China earlier this year, a large turnover in personnel at the Foreign Ministry and the new Chinese leadership “who were still trying to get to grips with how to handle political prisoners”.
“However, the Chinese officials provided detailed information on a number of prisoners and this suggests that we could see a number of sentence reductions and releases by the end of the year,” he said.
Kamm said this could include Phuntsog Nyidron, 38, who is serving a 17-year prison sentence after being arrested in 1989 for involvement in a Tibetan pro-independence demonstration.
Kamm stressed he was not predicting that Phuntsog would be released but noted that she had “one and half years left to run on her sentence and already received a one year reduction on her sentence last year for good behaviour.
“This would suggest that she could be a candidate for early release.”
Phuntsog, one of Tibet’s longest serving female political prisoners, was one of 14 nuns who made a tape recording in 1993, while serving prison terms in Tibet’s Drapchi prison, expressing devotion to Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Of the 14, only Phuntsog and Namdrol Lhamo remain in jail. Namdrol is due to complete her 10-year sentence on Sunday, according to Kamm.
The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after a foiled uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, met with US President George W. Bush during his recent trip to the United States despite a request from China for Washington not to welcome him.
China views Tibet as a part of its territory and opposes any official contact between the Dalai Lama and any foreign government.
Kamm also said the talks with officials had confirmed their observation that there had been a “noticeable drop in the number of executions in Beijing municipality and significantly fewer death sentences passed in recent months.”
“Officials attributed to this an influx of new prosecutors and judges who were not meting out death sentences as readily as their predecessors,” he said.
China liberally uses the death penalty but keeps the number of executions a closely guarded state secret.
Kamm also added that he was encouraged that discussions between the Chinese government and the United Nations Human Rights Commission to send its special rappateur on tortue to the China remained open.
China has about 700 prisons, 70 percent of which are in remote regions that are difficult to access.
According to international human rights groups, prisoners are often poorly treated and even tortured in Chinese prisons.
