Aussie writer Yang Hengjun languishes, shackled in Chinese prison

The Federal Government is calling on China to release Australian writer Yang Hengjun from harsh conditions after nine months in detention.

The Federal Government has called on China to release an Australian writer and blogger after disturbing details emerged of his confinement, nine months after he was first detained in southern China.

Dr Yang Hengjun, who has been detained in China since January, is now being held in a detention centre, where he is shackled by his arms and legs and is routinely tied to a chair while being interrogated, according to a report published yesterday inThe Australian. Dr Yang previously spent seven months in house arrest, similar to solitary confinement, where he was interrogated daily.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne today said the details of Dr Yang’s imprisonment were “very, very concerning” to the Government. Senator Payne has called on the Chinese Government to ease the harsh conditions imposed on the writer.

A friend of the pro-democracy writer told The Australian Dr Yang underwent weekly interrogations, where he was repeatedly asked the same question.

He was previously held in a type of house arrest after being detained after disembarking a plane from New York arriving at Guangzhou airport. After being held in confinement for seven months, Dr Yang was moved to the state security detention centre in Beijing in July.

He was accused by Chinese authorities of being a spy, a charge which Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called “absolutely untrue”.

Investigations into the case could stretch until March 2020, leaving Dr Yang to languish in prison even longer.

Dr Yang is a former Chinese diplomat, a pro-democracy blogger, academic and novelist, who was working as a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City when he was arrested. He gained his PhD from the University of Technology, Sydney and became an Australian citizen in 2002. He had been travelling from New York to China when he was detained.

Chinese-Australian author Yang Hengjun has been detained in China since January.

Dr Yang is reportedly suffering from poor health after seven months in solitary confinement.

“Police keep asking him the same questions as when he was put in a ‘designated place’ eight months ago before he was transferred to the detention centre, which means they have no new evidence, testimony or witnesses against him,” the friend said.

Dr Yang was initially detained under a system known as “residential surveillance at a designated location”, according to The Guardian. This kind of detention allows suspects to be held in secret for up to six months.

The interrogations, initially occurring every day, were reduced to once a week after Dr Yang was moved from house arrest to a detention centre.

He now shares a cell with two other inmates and is allowed out of his cell for 45 minutes twice a day to walk around and access sunlight.

But according to the report, more than seven months in solitude, enduring daily interrogations, has left the writer in bad health. He is reportedly suffering from blood pressure issues and kidney problems as well as memory loss.

So far, he has been denied access to a lawyer and is only visited by Australian consular officials from Beijing once a month.

A consular official relayed a pleading message for help from Dr Yang, delivered during a visit.

“Please help me go home as soon as possible,” the writer said.

Dr Yang attends a lecture in Beijing in 2010. Picture: Imaginechina via AP Images

Ms Payne today said the government was calling on China to ease the conditions Dr Yang had been kept under and allow him access to a lawyer.

“His circumstances of detention are very, very concerning to us,” Senator Payne told ABC radio.

“We have asked for him to be given access to his lawyers, and I repeated that request in recent days to my counterpart, state councillor Wang Yi.

“We have asked for him to be given access to family visits and to be released from what appears to be a version of solitary confinement, which gives him very little access to the outside world.

“It’s the case that we understand his movements have been very tightly constricted, so they are all concerning circumstances for us.”

Consular officials visited Dr Yang in Beijing last month.

“We will continue to press for all of those issues to be addressed and ask that he be treated in international human rights law and expectations,” Senator Payne said.

— with AAP

Originally published as Aussie writer Yang Hengjun languishes, shackled in Chinese prison