STATE SECRETS: CHINA'S LEGAL LABYRINTH - HRIC

2 HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA STATE SECRETS: CHINA’S LEGAL LABYRINTH
In 2003, when Hong Kong officials tried to confirm reports concerning Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a Guangdong health official told them that
there was a legal requirement at that time that infectious diseases had to be classified
as state secrets. The control of critical information and lack of transparency
continued to plague the response to the SARS epidemic, which spread and, to date,
has infected thousands and killed nearly 800 worldwide.
On November 13, 2005, an explosion at a petrochemical plant in Jilin released
more than 100 tons of toxic chemicals, including benzene, into the environment,
which subsequently poisoned the Songhua River. Ambiguity in the regulations
concerning reporting on industrial/pollution accidents and questions concerning
the classification of this information added to the confusion in reporting the
incident. Only ten days after the explosion and one day after the water was shut off
in Harbin did the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA) admit
serious pollution of the river. Eventually water was cut off to nine million residents
in Harbin, and the polluted water flowed across the Russian border.
Tan Kai (谭凯), a computer repair technician from Zhejiang, was formally
indicted on April 29, 2006 on charges of “illegally obtaining state secrets,” ostensibly
for information he had obtained while doing routine file back-ups for his
clients, in particular for work he did in 2005 for an employee of the Zhejiang
Provincial Party Committee. However, Tan is also an environmental activist and
on November 15, 2005 the Zhejiang provincial government declared Green
Watch—the organization Tan helped found—an illegal organization, calling into
question the real reason he was prosecuted. Tan was sentenced to 18 months’
imprisonment on August 11, 2006 by the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Intermediate
Court on the state secrets charge.
Lu Jianhua (陆建华), a prominent sociologist with the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, was reportedly sentenced to 20 years for “leaking state secrets” in a case
linked to that of Hong-Kong based reporter Ching Cheong (程翔), who was sentenced
in August 2006 to five years for “spying.” Lu was well known for the essays
he wrote and his appearances on TV talk shows and often assisted Ching with articles
on the political and social situation in China that were published in the Singapore
newspaper The Straits Times. Some Chinese officials claimed that three of
these articles, published in 2004, contained state secrets.