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30LIU Xianbin:D.o.b.: 1968 Profession: Dissident writer and activist. Date of arrest:28 June 2010 Sentence: 10 years in prison Expires: 27 June 2020Details of arrest: Arrested on 28 June 2010 after police interrogatedhim and searched his home. Fourteen police officers from the SuiningCity Public Security Bureau confiscated hard drives, USB devices, hisbank card, and six notices from his editors regarding remuneration forseveral articles he published on overseas web sites. Details of trial:Charged on 5 July 2010 with ‘inciting subversion of state power’ in aseries articles calling for political reform published in overseas Chineselanguagewebsites from August 2009 to June 2010. Sentenced on 25March 2011 by the Suining Intermediate People’s Court at a trial whichreportedly did not comply with international standards of fairness. Placeof detention: Chuanzhong Prison, Nanchong City, Sichuan Province.Treatment in prison: It is reported that he has been forced to labourfor 13 hours daily. Previous political imprisonment/problems: Liupreviously served nine years of a thirteen-year jail sentence from 1999 to2008 for his part in organising the Sichuan branch of the outlawed ChinaDemocratic party. After his release, he was one of the first signatoriesof Charter 08. Other information: Recipient of the 2011 Hellman/Hammett award. Honorary member of: Independent Chinese PENCentre (ICPC).LIU YonggenD.o.b.: 7 August 1963 Profession: Internet writer and county official ofCommunist Party of China Date of arrest: 10 September 2009 Sentence:3 years’ imprisonment Expires: 9 September 2012 Details of arrest:Reportedly arrested by the Xinyang City Public Security Bureau (PSB),Henan Province, on the 10 September 2009 and formally arrested on 28September 2009. Charged on ‘suspicion of inciting subversion of statepower’ for a number of critical articles published on overseas Chinesewebsites such as Epoch Times. Details of trial: Tried on 18 January2010 by the Xinyang City Intermediate People’s Court, the verdict wasannounced on 27 April 2010. Place of detention: Henan No.1 Prison,Kaifeng City, Henan Province. Honorary member of: IndependentChinese PEN Centre (ICPC).Hailaite NIYAZI (aka Hairat or Gheyret Niyaz)D.o.b.: 1960 Profession: Freelance journalist and former editor of thewebsite Uighur Online (www.uighurbiz.net). Date of arrest: 1 October2009 Sentence: 15 years in prison Expires: 30 September 2024 Detailsof arrest: According to PEN’s information, Hailaite Niyazi was takenfrom his home in Tianshan District, Tacheng Prefecture, Xinjiang UyghurAutonomous Region (XUAR), on 1 October 2009. It is believed that hisarrest stems from critical interviews given to foreign media followingthe unrest which broke out in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang UyghurAutonomous Region, on 5 July 2009. Details of trial: The prosecutionreportedly used as evidence essays written by Niyazi highlightingmounting ethnic tension in the region prior to the riots, and interviewshe gave to Hong Kong media after the violence. Niyazi was convictedby the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court on charges of ‘endangeringnational security’ on 23 July 2010. He is appealing the sentence. Place ofdetention: Changji Prison, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, XUAR,PR China. Professional details: Hailaite Niyazi is a former reporterand columnist for Xinjiang Economic Daily and Xinjiang Legal News.Until June 2009 he edited and managed uighurbiz.net, the website ownedby the academic, writer and Uyghur PEN member Iham Tohti, himselfarrested in July 2009 and held for six weeks for allegedly ‘promotingseparatism’. Honorary member of: Independent Chinese PEN. [Update#1 to RAN 56/09]Dilishat PAERHAT (aka Dilixiati Paerhati):Profession: Editor of the Uighur-language website Diyarim.comDate of arrest: 7 August 2009 Sentence: 5 years in prison Expires:6 August 2014 Details of arrest: Reportedly taken from his home inUrumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR),by unidentified men on 7 August 2009. Paerhati had been previouslyarrested on 24 July 2009 and interrogated for eight days about the 5 July2009 unrest in Urumqi before being released without charge. Accordingto relatives, the website Paerhati edits is a social networking site, whichincludes information on local amenities, and has a message board. Someof the organisers of the Urumqi protests reportedly used this messageboard to publicise their demonstration. Paerhati’s relatives said that whenhe saw these messages, he deleted them and reported the incident to thepolice. Details of trial: Reportedly tried by the Intermediate People’sCourt of Urumqi and sentenced to five years in prison for ‘endangeringstate security’ on 21 July 2010. Two other men who ran Uighur-languagewebsites were tried and convicted in separate trials on the same day,also for ‘endangering national security’. Nureli, who administered thewebsite Salkin, was sentenced to five years in prison and Nijat Azat whoran the website Shabnam received an eight-year prison sentence. Littlemore is known about these two cases. Treatment in prison: Held at anunknown location without access to family visits since his arrest. Fearedto be at risk of ill-treatment in prison.QI ChonghuaiD.o.b.: 7 February 1965. Profession: Journalist. Date of arrest: 25June 2007 Sentence: Four years in prison, with an additional eightyears added on 9 June 2011. Expires: 24 June 2019. Details of arrest:Reportedly arrested from his home in Jinan, the capital province ofShandong, eastern China, on 25 June 2007 following the publication ofan article alleging corruption in the Tengzhou Communist Party, whichwas published in June 2007 on the Xinhuanet website. Qi was chargedwith blackmail and extortion on 2 August 2007 for allegedly acceptingbribes from local officials whilst researching the article. Qi was heldincommunicado for the first two months of his detention, and claimsto have been repeatedly assaulted and threatened by security guardsthroughout his eleven-month pre-trial detention. The case was turnedback to the police in mid-February 2008 for lack of evidence. Detailsof trial: The trial on 13 May 2008 at the People’s Court of TengzhouCity, Shandong Province, reportedly did not comply with internationalstandards of fairness. The appeal was rejected without any hearing bythe Intermediate People’s Court of Zaozhuang City on 24 July 2008. On9 June 2011 Qi was sentenced to a further eight years in prison, two weeksbefore the end of his four-year sentence for extortion and blackmail. It waswidely believed that he has been additionally sentenced for letters smuggledout of prison in 2009 alleging ill-treatment in prison. Place of detention:Tengzhou Prison, Tenzhou City, Shandong Province. Treatment inprison: Qi has reportedly been subject to repeated severe beatingsand ill-treatment by prison guards and fellow in-mates throughout hisdetention, including one attack in May 2009 which he claims left himunconscious for three days. This particularly harsh treatment at the handsof prison guards appears to be a response to Qi’s attempts to report onthe appalling prison conditions at Tengzhou. Letters smuggled out ofprison document that he has been forced to work over ten hours a dayin a coal mine, without adequate food, water or rest, and his health has