Chongqing gang trials
Encyclopedia
Chongqing
Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the...
that began in October 2009 and is ongoing as of July 2010. Carried out under the auspices of municipal Communist Party chief Bo Xilai
Bo Xilai
Bo Xilai is the Communist Party of China Chongqing Committee Secretary, first-in-charge of the Western interior municipality and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China...
, 1,544 suspects were arrested in the months leading up to the trials, including nineteen suspected crime bosses, hundreds of triad members, and a number of allegedly corrupt police, government and Communist party officials, including six district police chiefs and the city’s former deputy police commissioner, Wen Qiang
Wen Qiang
Wen Qiang was a Chinese police official who was arrested and executed during the Chongqing gang trials....
. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
described it as "China’s trial of the 21st century". The crackdown is believed to be the largest of its kind in the history of the People's Republic of China
History of the People's Republic of China
The history of the People's Republic of China details the history of mainland China since October 1, 1949, when, after a near complete victory by the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China from atop Tiananmen...
.
Background
Chongqing had been a center for gang activities prior to the advent of CommunismChinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
in China. When the Communist Party came to power in 1949, it cracked down on organized crime, almost eliminating them. After liberalization under Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
, gangs have made a comeback in the city, this time with associates within the Communist Party.
Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
member Bo Xilai
Bo Xilai
Bo Xilai is the Communist Party of China Chongqing Committee Secretary, first-in-charge of the Western interior municipality and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China...
, head of the Communist Party in Chongqing since November 2007, made "cleaning up the city" a priority, bringing in trusted outside aides to lead the crackdown on gangs and corruption.
Impact and response
Over 9,000 suspects were investigated, including 50 public officials. Fourteen of these have been high-ranking officials, including members of the Chongqing Higher People's Court. Several members of the police force have also been detained, including Wen QiangWen Qiang
Wen Qiang was a Chinese police official who was arrested and executed during the Chongqing gang trials....
, the former director of the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Justice and the bureau's party chief, as well as former deputy police commissioner. By 6 November 2009, over 800 people had warrants issued for their arrest and 327 were prosecuted.
The first 31 defendants were brought to trial on 12 October 2009, nine in Chongqing's First Intermediate People's Court
Intermediate people's court
An intermediate people's court is the second lowest local people's court in the People's Republic of China. According to the Organic Law of the People's Courts of the People's Republic of China, the intermediate people's courts handle relevant important local cases in the first instance and hear...
and another 22 at the Third Intermediate People's Court. Charges included murder, assault, and operating illegal coal mines. On 21 October, three of the defendants in the first round of trials (Yang Tianqing, Liu Chenghu, and Liu Zhongyong) were sentenced to death, and another three were given suspended death sentences
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
. The other 25 defendants were sentenced to jail terms ranging from one year to life.
The highest-profile defendant has been deputy police commissioner Wen Qiang’s sister-in-law, Xie Caiping , reputedly the ringleader of the syndicate and dubbed the "Godmother of Chongqing". Xie, 46, reputedly kept 16 young men as lovers. She and 22 accomplices were brought to trial on 14 October. During the trial, a judge rebuked her for profanity in her testimony. This, combined with the rumours of her lovers, have increased the public's interest in her case. On 3 November she was sentenced to 18 years in prison for running a crime syndicate that operated illegal gambling dens, illegally locked people up, harboured drug users, ran protection rackets, and bribed police. Though she won a five-year decrease in her original sentence by confessing to her crimes, she intends to appeal the court ruling.
On 19 October the 23-year-old twin brothers Zhang Bo and Zhang Tao were arraigned in the Chongqing Municipal Intermediate People's Court with 21 accomplices. On 6 November, each of the brothers was sentenced to serve 17 years in prison, with members of the syndicate receiving jail sentences of between 6 months and 13 and a half years.
In March 2010, Chongqing's police bureau saw an upheaval in jobs. On 8 March, the reform was publicized in a plenary conference and circulated on the police's internal website. Many, if not all, of the leadership positions have been opened to competition. Three new deputy directors were named in September 2009 and January and March 2010. Additionally, there are plans to hire over 7700 new policemen in 2010.
The trial of Wen Qiang concluded on April 14, 2010, with the Fifth Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing announcing that Wen would be given the death penalty for his crimes, which include accepting bribes, rape, and failure to account for his assets. Previously, the Court had recovered over 30 million yuan
Renminbi
The Renminbi is the official currency of the People's Republic of China . Renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau. It is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of the PRC...
($4.38 million) of Wen's assets, some of which was found hidden in a vault. Other assets recovered included a mansion in the Xiannu Mountain district of Chongqing. The announcement of Wen's death sentence was met with cheers and exuberance outside the courtroom by victims and other Chongqing citizens. Wen's wife, Zhou Xiaoya, confessed to accepting bribes of some 4.5 million yuan, and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Several of Wen's cohorts were also sentenced. Wen Qiang, along with his wife and three others, appealed the decision. Wen lost the appeal in May, when the court announced the clear evidence against him, and he was executed in July 2010.
Use of torture
Some Chinese media sources, including Southern Weekend, CaixinCaijing
Caijing is an independent, Beijing-based magazine devoted to information on companies in China. The publication's title means "Finance and Economics Magazine." Caijing's driving mission is to have an "independent standpoint, exclusive coverage and unique perspective."- History :Caijing was...
and Sanlian Life Week, have raised concerns that in a rush to secure convictions, authorities are trampling on the ultimately more valuable freedoms of due legal process.
During and following investigations, increasingly credible evidence emerged that the authorities had used persistent severe torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
to extract confessions upon which convictions were based. (See also Uses of torture in recent times#China)
In December 2009, one defence lawyer, Li Zhuang, was arrested and accused of "coaching his client (Gong Gangmo) to make false claims of torture". He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and barred for life from practising law. Hong Kong legislator
Legislative Council of Hong Kong
The Legislative Council is the unicameral legislature of Hong Kong.-History:The Legislative Council of Hong Kong was set up in 1843 as a colonial legislature under British rule...
Albert Ho
Albert Ho
Albert Ho Chun-yan . He is currently secretary general of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China and chairman of the Democratic Party. He is a solicitor and a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong....
of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group
China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group
China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group is a non-profit organization whose stated objective is to advocate for the protection of human rights lawyers and legal rights defenders in China...
believes Li is being victimised by the authorities.
On 27 July 2010, another lawyer, Zhu Mingyong, released videotapes of his client Fan Qihang describing in detail how he was tortured almost every day for six months. Fan, 39 years old and accused of running a crime syndicate, had already been convicted and sentenced to death following his arrest in June 2009.
Fan was regularly beaten, deprived of sleep and placed in or forced to hold agonizing positions. For 10 days continuously, he was forced to stand bent double, with his hands shackled to his feet. Another time, for five days he was hung by his toes with his arms shackled behind him. Twice he tried to kill himself by hitting his head against the wall, and he then tried to bite off his own tongue. Guards ripped off his partially severed tongue but did not allow him medical treatment for a further two days.
Lawyer Zhu said, "I know there's risk to what I'm doing, but if I withhold such evidence for my own protection, I'll regret it the rest of my life." He hopes to use the video evidence to persuade the Supreme People's Court
Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China
The Supreme People's Court is the highest court in the mainland area of the People's Republic of China...
, which (as at mid-2010) is reviewing the case as required, to reverse the death sentence on his client.
Legacy
The removal of large numbers of gangsters created a noticeable improvement in public safety but experts and locals think the results are unlikely to be permanent, as new crime bosses are expected to emerge.See also
- Corruption in ChinaCorruption in ChinaThe People's Republic of China suffers from widespread corruption. For 2010, China was ranked 78 of 179 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking slightly above fellow BRIC nations India and Russia, but below Brazil and most developed countries...
- Organized crime in China
- Triads
- List of crime bosses convicted in the 21st century