Qin Yongmin

Qin Yongmin (Chinese: 秦永敏) (born 11 August 1953) is a civil political commentator, human rights activist, dissidents, one of the co-founders of the Democratic Party of China, and one of contemporary well-known senior political prisoners in P.R.China.^[1]

Because of insisting on his notion that China should exercise liberty of speech, publication, association, and exercise all basic human rights, including organizing political party, he had been summoned, residential surveillanced, administrative detented, re-education through labor, criminal detented, arrested and sentenced to jail. In the last 43 years (from 1970 to 2012) he had been arrested, detained 39 times, sentenced into jail for 22 years, to become one of the longest political prisoners in jail during the last four decades. He refused to go abroad before PRC really archives constitutional democracy, and he adhered to sit through the end of the prison.^[2]

Qin Yongmin was a worker of Wuhan Steel Corporation. At the end of the 1970s, he edited and published "The Bell" – a journal in Wuhan to promote democracy. In 1980, he participated in establishing "The preparatory group of Democracy Party of China". Qin Yongmin was arrested in 1981 and sentenced to eight years in prison for so called counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement sin. He was released from prison in 1989. Qin Yongmin participated in the launch of "Peace Charter" movement in Beijing on 14 January 1993. He was the drafter of "Peace Charter" – the first programme for democracy movement in China since 1949.^[3] They demanded redressing Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and releasing political prisoners. He was then charged the crime of "disturbing social order" and sentenced re-education through labor for two years.^[4]

In 1997 Qin Yongmin published an open letter to Jiang Zemin, demanded the Communist Party of China to practice political reform in China, and materialize constitutional democracy. He founded "The Communication of PRC Human Rights Watch" in Wuhan in 1998, and issued hundreds of reports on the reality of PRC human rights. In the same year, Qin Yongmin publicly initiated and established Hubei Province Committee of The Democracy Party of China. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison, for subversion of state power.^[5] In 1999, when he was still in jail, Qin Yongmin was elected as one of the four co-chairmen of Democracy Party of China. Also in 1999, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights nominated DPC members Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin and Wang Youcai for the Nobel Peace Prize.^[6]

Qin Yongmin was released from prison in November 2010.^[4] After going out of jail, Qin Yongmin went on his activity to promote democracy and human rights in PRC, and have been illegally taken into custody lots of times.^[7]

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