【Economist】Open Constitution closed

st_sole

China, the law and NGOs
Open Constitution closed

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14098751

Jul 23rd 2009 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition

The state cracks down on civil society
ONE of the more hopeful flickering signs of democracy in China in the past few years has been the growth of public-interest lawyers willing to challenge in court examples of abuse and corruption by the state or local governments. Now, the empire is striking back.

On July 17th government officials descended on one of the best-known legal research groups and took away almost everything it owned—files, desks, computers, even the water cooler. To make matters worse, the tax authorities slapped on the group a colossal bill, ordering it to pay 1.42m yuan ($207,900).

The organisation, the Open Constitution Initiative (OCI), is so well known among Chinese NGOs and so prominent in civil-rights cases that the government seems wary of confronting it directly. Instead, taking a leaf out of the Russian book, officials are making its life impossible. In China very few NGOs are allowed to register as such. The only way they can operate legally is as businesses. The OCI’s name in Chinese translates as the Public Alliance Information Consultancy Company (it is often referred to by its abbreviation, Gongmeng). It has to pay business taxes. Hence the tax bill, which the group says it has paid. The authorities have also declared a research group within the organisation illegal because, they say, it is unregistered.

The group’s leader, Xu Zhiyong, is bracing himself for possible arrest. On July 21st the owners of his office and residence called him to say they wanted him out. Guo Yushan, the leader of another, less well-known NGO, a free-market research group called the Transition Institute, says he too has recently been accused of tax irregularities. A prominent HIV/AIDS NGO, the Aizhixing Institute, was subjected to a tax investigation last year. Last week the government disbarred 53 lawyers, including one associated with OCI.

Mr Xu seems to have made some powerful enemies. Since it was set up in 2003, OCI, with half a dozen staff and numerous volunteers, has specialised in giving legal advice to victims of official injustice. After thousands of children were sickened by melamine-contaminated milk last year, OCI helped their parents press for compensation, upstaging a government-backed compensation scheme which offered lower amounts. In May OCI probably irritated the government further by issuing a report on the causes of last year’s unrest in Tibet. The government blamed the trouble entirely on an alleged plot by Tibetans in exile led by the Dalai Lama. The OCI study said that while the Dalai Lama was a factor, there were “internal causes”, such as the economic marginalisation of Tibetans and interference in Tibetan Buddhism by government officials.

This year is proving to be a difficult one for dissenters in China because of the government’s anxiety about politically sensitive anniversaries (last year, preparations for the Olympic Games made the government twitchy). Security will be stepped up in the coming weeks, in advance of the 60th anniversary of the founding of communist China on October 1st. China’s independent lawyers have long risked beatings and intimidation by local officials. Life for them seems to be getting even harder.