Yang Jianli Will Seek Medical Parole

Kennedy School of Government alum and detained pro-democracy activist Yang Jianli shared his decision to seek medical parole from the Chinese government during his first-ever interview with relatives on Tuesday.

Yang, 41, had been in good health before his arrest in April 2002, according to his wife Christina X. Fu, who is a Harvard Medical School researcher. On July 31, he suffered a stroke, she said.

“Our family will do everything we can to bring him home,” Fu said.

Yang, who was banned from China after he participated in the 1989 Tianamen Square demonstrations, was arrested in April 2002 on charges of espionage and illegal entry to China. Last May, he received a five-year prison sentence but chose not to appeal the Chinese court’s decision.

During his visit this week with family members, Yang told them he was not receiving adequate medical care, his Washington-based lawyer Jared Genser said.

Genser wrote a letter yesterday to the office of the Secretary of State, explaining Yang’s condition and requesting his release.

Genser said he thought this request would be passed on to the Chinese government immediately. “Whether the Chinese will actually listen to the U.S. is an entirely different question,” he said.

Genser noted that there was a historical precedent for Yang’s release from prison.

“They have used medical parole in the past to resolve high profile dissident

cases,” he said. “The Chinese don’t want to have blood on their hands.”

In order to be granted a medical release, Yang’s prison doctors must conduct a physical examination, then recommend a decision to the Ministry of Justice. Because Yang waited for two years before his trial, he has effectively served half his sentence, making him also eligible for non-medical parole.

Genser said he hoped the Chinese government would see that in releasing Yang from prison, they would also “remove an ongoing and unnecessary irritant in U.S.-Chinese relations.”

“Unfortunately I have given up trying to predict what the Chinese government will do,” Genser said. “They make up their own judgments about his good behavior. It’s an internal process that’s not subjected to external scrutiny.”

Fu was notified of the stroke in November, but did not inform anyone of it until Tuesday’s visit confirmed her husband’s condition was not life-threatening.

“We didn’t want his mother or his sister to know,” she said, “My husband is everything to them.  I didn’t want them to collapse.”

Fu and Yang have two school-age children, Aaron and Anita, neither of whom know about their father’s condition.

Although Yang was hospitalized immediately following the stroke, he told relatives Tuesday that the left side of his body is still numb.

“I didn’t realize until I spoke to a doctor in California last night that his condition is really very serious,” Fu said.  “She told me that Jianli needs to be immediately taken care of.”

Genser said he thought that beatings and a severe reduction of calories may have caused the stroke.

“There is no doubt in my mind that how he was treated in prison affected his condition,” Genser said.

Meanwhile, Fu said she will take steps to secure her husband’s release, writing a letter to the Chinese Ambassador and appealing to the U.S. government.

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “If he can come home, I will take good care of him.”