Demand Release of Ailing Imprisoned Chinese Worker Rights Leaders

Posted to the IUF website 27-Jan-2005

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Unions internationally are calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, two imprisoned leaders of the mass worker protests which took place in the northeastern Chinese city of Liaoyang in 2002 (click here for background). Both have become so critically ill in prison and labour camp that there is a serious risk they may not survive their sentences.

In 2002, thousands of laid-off former employees of the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory began a series of public demonstrations to protest unresolved grievances dating back to 1995, when management of the plant (which once had 12,000 employees) began issuing phoney profit reports to justify bonuses. At the same time, the company ceased paying employee pension and medical benefits. In 2000, workers at the plant began a series of public protests against unpaid wages, while management systematically looted and embezzled the plant's resources. The plant was officially declared bankrupt the following year. In March 2002, Ferroalloy worker leaders were detained as police were deployed around the factory during the bankruptcy "negotiations". Ferroalloy workers, joined by workers from other manufacturing plants, took to the streets when the local Communist party leader declared on television that there were no unemployed in Liaoyang. While the arrested workers were initially charged with "illegal assembly", Yao and Xiao were charged and sentenced on the much more serious charge of "subversion".

Despite three years of protest and petitions from local Ferroalloy workers, appeals to the authorities from national and international trade union organizations and calls for their immediate release from the ILO Governing Body in 2003 and 2004, Yao and Xiao remain imprisoned and their health continues to deteriorate.

Yao, 53, suffers from seriously high blood pressure, and since October 2003 has collapsed several times in prison due to brief and intermittent heart seizures. He has lost much of the use of his right leg after an earlier injury remained untreated. He has lost hearing in his right ear due to an injury sustained when police first detained him in March 2002. Despite severe sub-zero temperatures, his cell is not provided with heating, he has not been given enough warm winter clothing and is being denied the right to exercise outdoors, read newspapers, take showers, or talk with any of the other prisoners.

Xiao (58) suffers from a number of serious kidney, heart, stomach and eye ailments and has difficulty sleeping, breathing and eating. Prison authorities are denying him medicine and medical care.

The condition of both men is deteriorating rapidly. We are therefore again calling for urgent appeals to the Chinese authorities for their immediate and unconditional release, or failing that their conditional release on medical grounds, which is provided for in Chinese legislation. The ICFTU has written the Chinese Minister of Justice (click here for details). You can add your voice to this urgent international action.

Act Now!

To send an e-mail message to the Chinese government calling for the release of these two worker rights advocates click here. Copies will automatically be sent to the IUF secretariat, the ICFTU and China Labour Bulletin.