Veteran Chinese Dissident Faces Ongoing Police Harassment Despite Prison Release

Chen Yunfei subjected to multiple rounds of questioning and repeated surveillance, with his mother, source of income, and livelihood targeted.

By Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin

Three months after his prison release, veteran dissident Chen Yunfei is in the cross-hairs of police over his social media posts and has faced multiple rounds of questioning and harassment amid ongoing surveillance, Radio Free Asia has learned.

The Chengdu-based human rights activist and Chinese performance artist was released on March 24 after serving a four-year prison sentence in the southwestern province of Sichuan. But his friends say his freedom has been largely illusory, as police have repeatedly summoned him for interrogations and severely restricted his movements and ability to resume work.

Chen has faced repeated persecution for his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, including demands that the government investigate the crackdown and compensate victims. In 2021, he was sentenced to four years in jail on of child molestation which he denied and said were intended to smear his reputation.

Most recently, on the eve of the 36th anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square protests crackdown, the National Security Bureau and local police subjected Chen to a five-hour interrogation, where he was forced to sit on the ‘tiger bench,’ Chen’s friend and colleague Guan told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.

‘Tiger bench’ is a form of torture used to restrain and immobilize detainees during questioning. Chen, like many others RFA interviewed for this story, asked to be identified only by a single name for fear of reprisals.

“The police accused him of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,’” said Guan, referring to a criminal charge frequently used by Chinese authorities to carry out arbitrary detentions against rights activists and dissidents.

The charges were based on Chen’s social media activity, including reposts of tweets by Ming Chu-cheng, an honorary professor of politics at National Taiwan University, and prominent dissidents Pastor Wang Yi, the pastor of a banned Protestant church in Chengdu, and citizen journalist Cai Chu, said Guan.

Despite the lack of a subpoena, the police summoned Chen for questioning, confiscating his mobile phone and Wi-Fi equipment for three days, before returning them on June 3 night after repeated protests, Guan said.

Chen’s livelihood has also been impacted, his friends said. Upon release from prison, Chen found that his nursery business, which he had operated for many years, was emptied of all assets, causing him to lose his source of income, said Yang, another friend of the activist.

The courts have also listed him as a “dishonest debtor,” preventing him from accessing his bank accounts or resuming work, Yang said.

“He now has difficulty even renting a house and can only survive on donations from friends and through loans,” said Fang Liang, another friend of Chen’s.

‘Secondary punishment’

During Chen’s most recent imprisonment, his 91-year-old mother was also forcibly and violently removed from her Chengdu rental home by community workers, during which she suffered a head injury that required over a month of hospitalization, Guan said.

During the forced eviction, many of the family’s assets of value disappeared, including $30,000 of pension money that his mother had set aside for her granddaughter’s education abroad, $5,800 in cash, and about 40,000 yuan (or US$5,560) in Chinese currency, Guan said.

When Chen attempted to file a police report after discovering his empty home upon release, authorities refused to issue a receipt or open an investigation, said Yang.

“They don’t allow you to have any evidence to sue them,” said Yang. “The government said it’s not their responsibility, and the police said to contact the community — they just pushed the matter back and forth.”

Despite the ongoing harassment, Chen’s friends say he is preparing to file a civil lawsuit to recover his mother’s lost property and challenge the police’s abuse of power.

Shandong-based legal scholar Lu described Chen’s ongoing troubles as a consequence of a typical “secondary punishment” model that is designed to maintain control over dissidents through non-judicial means.

“Administrative review is inactive, the police deliberately do not issue receipts, and elderly mothers are forced to become homeless,” Lue said “This is not law enforcement, but political coercion.”

Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.