许志永

来源：USA Today 作者：Calum MacLeod (July 30, 2013) 翻译：志愿者

今日美國：中國壓制反腐活動家

概要
許志永以“聚眾擾亂社會秩序”罪名遭逮捕
中國共產黨領導人習近平發起全國范圍內的反腐
1000多名中國公民聲援許志永

共產黨說要結束腐敗，但它懲罰那些曝光或呼籲政府官員公開財產的人。

北京方面計劃在長沙建造208層的摩天大廈是共產黨三十年來取的快速經濟發展的又一例證。

但這個月反腐活動家遭到逮捕說明：無論中國經濟發展如何迅猛，即使當民間社會和維權活動家公開支持政府官方活動，其統治者仍緊緊地壓制著他們的聲音。

即使一些地方政府正在試圖開放財產公示的試點，7月16日許志永因倡議“政府官員財產公示”被以“聚眾擾亂社會秩序”的罪名逮捕，
週二，中共政府正式宣布頒佈新的消費禁令限制大權在手的政府官員。在打擊揮霍公款或私人行賄用以滿足奢華婚禮和美容整形的活動中，中國宣布在今年的反腐運動中已處分2,290官員。

中國共產黨領導人習近平發起全國性的反腐運動，但他從不提至少有16人已經因為向公眾宣傳反腐措施被逮捕或居留。許和其他人對官員公開財產的要求換來的是自己身處囹圄。

許在被拘留前已經被非法軟禁在家進3個月。當許的律師劉衛國在拘留所試圖會見許，自己卻被拘留6個小時。

劉說：“它們這麼做是為了威脅許和像他這樣的公民，許被拘留真正的原因是他與腐敗作鬥爭要求公開政府官員的財產。”

北京聲稱自己實行的是“中國特色社會主義司法體系”，最適合當前仍處發展階段的國家的瞬息萬變的需求。批評者認為，該體系允許安全官員無視法律，壓制不同意見，而黨控制的法院只能做出當局认可的判決。

許去年起創辦新公民運動，以鼓勵人們在中國推動法治建設及改善人權狀況。知名法學家及維權人士滕彪認為，其他15名被拘留者正是回應了許的號召，才使北京當局感到了威脅。

滕彪和許一樣因為維權活動被取消了律師執照、被開除學校職位，他認為：“當局試圖控制每一運動。政府恐懼人們組成團體，特別是成立街頭抗議的組織。”“儘管政府整治腐敗多年，但一黨執政的前提下，這個問題是無解的。”

“許博士和其他公民希望通過公民社會的反腐敗，但如果公民社會變得強大和有影響力必將挑戰當局權威，最高領導人不會容忍它的存在。”

人權觀察亞洲分部的研究員王玛雅稱許被捕“顯示了官方在反腐敗問題上的言行不一，存在巨大差距。

新公民運動成員選擇在街上抗議，宣傳反腐敗的口號與民眾交流，這讓政府時刻警惕著它的成長，即使現在組織很弱小。

如果沒有真正的言論自由和集會自由那麼法治就是幻想，如果沒有這些自由，那麼反腐敗和政府問責制的宣傳就根本不可能制約當局。
1000多名中國公民，包括一些名人，都簽署了聲援許志永的公開抗議書。

然而由於中國對於敏感詞彙的高度過濾，聲援活動收效甚微，遠不及著名經濟學家胡鞍鋼在黨報《人民日報》上刊登的文章聲稱中國共產黨所領導的“人民社會”優於西方公民社會。

有關許志永的新聞被迅速過濾。大多數中國人表示從來沒有聽說過他，也沒有聽說過中國諾貝爾和平獎得主、因持不同政見而被判入獄的作家劉曉波。

滕彪表示：“許志永被捕顯示“在當前的法律體系中是不可能獲得法律民主的，它顯示了公民社會的局限，就事論事的方式不可能改變整個社會體系。”

然而，他仍積極地保持樂觀：“因為政府無法阻止公民社會力量會越來越強。 越來越多的人都站起來主張自己的權利，一切都是有希望的。”

儘管最近正進行著新一輪的迫害，許志永仍然寫道：“越來越多的公民被喚醒…這是中華民族為自由、公義和博愛重生的時代，這條新路，漫長而艱難，然而只有它能通往光明的未來。”

以下为英文原文：
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Xu Zhiyong was arrested on a charge of “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order”
• China’s Party leader Xi Jinping is headlining the nationwide crackdown on graft
• More than 1,000 Chinese citizens have rallied to Xu’s cause

Communist Party says it wants to end corruption, but it punishes those who expose it or seek transparency in government officials.

BEIJING — A planned 208-story Sky City skyscraper in Changsha is the latest grand example of the success the Communist Party has had in vaulting China in just three decades from widespread poverty into a global economic power.

But the arrest this month of an anti-corruption activist illustrates that however much China has developed economically, its rulers tightly restrict civil society and activist voices, even when they speak out in support of official government campaigns.

Xu Zhiyong was arrested July 16 on a charge of “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order.” His crime, says his lawyer, is trying too hard to make Communist Party officials divulge their assets, an initiative that some local governments have piloted in their areas.

On Tuesday, the Peoples Republic of China, as it is known officially, announced new bans on spending by party officials whose near-unquestioned authority can decide the fate of developments, industries and ordinary citizens. In cracking down on lavish weddings and liquid lunches paid for with public money or private bribes, China announced that it has disciplined 2,290 officials this year in a campaign against corruption.

China’s Party leader Xi Jinping is headlining the nationwide crackdown on graft, but unmentioned are at least 16 people known to have been arrested or detained in recent months for their public advocacy of anti-corruption measures. Xu’s and others’ calls for party cadres to disclose their assets have only brought them grief.

Xu had been held under informal and illegal house arrest for the past three months. When Xu’s lawyer Liu Weiguo attempted to meet Xu, at a detention facility, Liu himself was detained for six hours.

“His detention is done to threaten Xu and citizens like him,” says Liu. “The real reason is he fought corruption and wants public disclosure of cadres’ assets.”

Beijing boasts it operates a “socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics” that best suits the current needs of this fast changing but still developing nation. Critics argue the system allows security officials to ignore the law to stifle dissent, while the party-controlled courts only reach judgments the authorities can accept.

Xu founded the New Citizens’ Movement last year to encourage people to advocate for better rule of law and human rights in China. The other 15-plus detainees had responded to his call, and that’s what scares Beijing, says Teng Biao, a legal scholar and fellow human rights activist.

“The authorities try to control every movement. The government is worried about any kind of organization, and especially people who protest in the streets,” he says.

Despite multiple government crackdowns on corruption over many years, “under a one-party system, there’s no way to solve the problem,” says Teng, whose activism has led to his being banned, like Xu, from practicing as a lawyer in China, and from teaching at colleges.

“Dr. Xu and other citizens wanted to fight against corruption via civil society, but if civil society becomes powerful and influential, that will become a challenge for the authorities, and the top leaders will not tolerate it,” he says.

Xu’s arrest “shows the wide gap between official rhetoric on corruption and the actual practice on the ground,” says Maya Wang, a Hong Kong-based researcher at Human Rights Watch, a rights group headquartered in New York.

The willingness of New Citizens’ Movement members to protest in the streets, and the resonance of their anti-corruption message with ordinary people, “makes the government very concerned the movement will grow out of hand, although it’s very small now,” she says.

“Freedoms of expression and assembly are not protected in China and there is no real rule of law,” says Wang. “In its absence, I don’t foresee that these campaigns of anti-corruption and government accountability are likely to be tolerated.”

More than 1,000 Chinese citizens, including some well-known names, have rallied to Xu’s cause by signing a public protest letter defending him and the New Citizens’ Movement.

But that effort gains little exposure in China’s highly censored system, unlike an opinion piece this month in the Party flagship People’s Daily newspaper, where economist Hu Angang argued that the “people’s society” run by the Communist Party is superior to the West’s civil society.

News of Xu’s travails is quickly scrubbed from China’s Internet. Most Chinese have never heard of him, nor China’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo, a writer jailed for his dissent.

Xu’s arrest shows “there’s no hope to achieve legal democracy within this kind of system, it shows the limits of the work of civil society, and it’s not possible for us to change the whole system with case-by-case work,” says scholar Teng.

Yet he remains defiantly optimistic, “because the government is unable to prevent civil society from becoming stronger and stronger. More and more people are standing up for their rights, there is hope.”

Despite the latest, ongoing round of persecution, “more and more docile subjects are awakening into citizens. … This is the time when the Chinese nation will be reborn for freedom, justice and love,” Xu wrote recently. “It is a new road, long and difficult, but it’s the only road leading to a bright future.”