Lu Tingge arrested: he asked for the rule of law and real power for NPC
The human rights lawyer posted an online petition calling for constitutional changes. Another lawyer, Yu Wensheng, was arrested for asking for the separation of Party and army powers. Yesterday, Premier Li Keqiang reiterated the absolute power of the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping.
Beijing (AsiaNews / RFA) - Human rights lawyer Lu Tingge has disappeared - and in all likelihood has been arrested – following his posting an online petition asking for constitutional changes, just before the start of the National People’s Assembly (NPC), which opened yesterday.
The petition, entitled "Suggestions for amendments to the Constitution" asks that the legislative power really pass to the NPC and not to its permanent committee, which uses the assembly to endorse what has already been decided by the Party. In this way a step is taken towards the "rule of law", which was one of the aims of President Xi Jinping at the beginning of his mandate.
Instead, yesterday during his report, Premier Li Keqiang reiterated that all power rests in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and the "heart" of the leadership, Xi Jinping. "We must unite more closely around the party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core; hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics; take Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guide," Li told NPC delegates.
Lu's petition was signed by a thousand people. One of the signatories, human rights lawyer Tan Yongpei comments: " "There is currently no role for Chinese citizens in the legislative process; everything is done by the Communist Party inner circle…To allow citizen participation would be to damage their own grip on power, so naturally they will regard this with hostility during the NPC annual session," he said.
Lu Tingge is also a defense lawyer for another human rights lawyer, Yu Wensheng, currently in prison for "inciting subversion of state power". Yu was arrested last February for having issued an open letter asking for amendments to the Constitution, including the direct election of the president and the separation between the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army. Since the days of Mao Zedong, the Party's power is based "on the barrel of the rifle". And yesterday, Li Keqiang reiterated the direct control of the army by the Party.
These two reforms - giving real power to the PA and putting the army under the government and not under the Party - have been proposed since the 1980s by Liberal Party members such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. They were also proposed by the writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo in his "Charter 08". Liu, sentenced to 11 years in prison, was left to die of liver cancer in July 2017.
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