Prisoners Reportedly Beat Chinese Dissident to Get Reduced Sentences

Fellow prisoners severely beat dissident Wei Jingsheng after being promised reduced sentences if they attacked him, human rights advocates charged Thursday.

They said the beating seriously worsened Wei’s already poor health. The 46-year-old Wei, China’s most famous dissident, is serving a 14-year sentence at a prison in northern Hebei province near Beijing for advocating democratic reforms.

The most recent beating, and most severe, occurred when Wei resisted an order by the inmate guarding him to put down a screwdriver, Wei told his brother and sister when they visited him June 19.

Five other prisoners, also in charge of watching Wei, joined in the beating, pushing Wei to the floor and kicking and pummeling him.

A day later, the prisoner who started it received a reduced sentence as a reward, Wei’s family told New York-based Human Rights in China.

Because of injuries to his neck, Wei now is unable to hold his head up without using his hands, his family said. His heart and stomach ailments have worsened, as has his high blood pressure.

State Department spokesman John Dinger said the United States is “gravely concerned” and seeking more information. Speaking in Washington, Dinger repeated U.S. calls to release Wei and other imprisoned activists.

Human Rights in China said Wei has been refused outside medical treatment by prison officials who say such care has not been approved by their superiors.

Wei, an electrician, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after taking part in Beijing’s 1979 “Democracy Wall” movement, when he and friends wrote and distributed a magazine and pasted pro-democracy slogans on a city wall. He took on the Chinese power center directly by writing acerbic letters to then-”paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping.

He was released briefly in 1993, rearrested and given his current sentence of 14 years.