Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) mournfully announces that its beloved member Mr. ZHANG Jianhong passed away at a hospital in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province in east China, yesterday on New Year Eve. Mr. Zhang, also a Honorary Member of Melbourne PEN and PEN America centers, was a freelance writer better known by his penname Li Hong and a former prisoner of conscience who had been released on medical parole on 5 June 2010 after having served 3 years and 9 months imprisonment of his original 6-year sentence on the offence of “inciting subversion of state power” for his writings. He had been treated under intensive care in a hospital for a severe disease of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis since his release last June.

Mr. Zhang Jianhong, a prominent poet, playwright, editor and author in Ningbo, was born on 6 March 1958 in Yin County, Zhejiang Province. He started publishing his poems and essays when he was an university student in 1980. In 1985, he joined the Writers Association of Zhejiang Province and became an editor of Wenxue Gang (Literature Harbour) magazine. In 1988, he was appointed the deputy secretary-general of the Writers Association of Ningbo City and the director of its committee for poems, essays and reportages. In 1989, he was imprisoned for the 3-year Re-education through Labour by the Public Security Bureau of Ningbo City on a charge of “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” for his support of the student-led pro-democratic movements throughout China. As a result, he was expelled from the Writers Association and dismissed from all of his posts. In 1991 he was released with a reduction of one year and half of his sentence. Since then he had become a freelance. His is a prolific author and has published numerous books, including poems, plays, novels and essays. His several TV series have been broadcast on CCTV and also published in DVD.

Mr. Zhang Jianhong was the editor-in-chief of Zhejiang Shaonian Zhuojia Bao (Zhejiang Children Writers News) for a few months before he resigned to found a humanity and literature website Aiqinghai Net (Aegean Sea) as its editor-in-chief in August 2005. The website became very popular among the intellectuals soon but was closed by Zhejiang News and Communication authorities 7 months later on 9th of March 2006. Since then he had written and published his articles at various overseas Chinese websites, including Boxun, Minzhu Luntan, Dajiyuan, Yi Bao, Guancha, Minzhu Zhongguo, etc until he was arrested in September 2006. On 19 March 2007, Mr. Zhang was sentenced to 6 Years imprisonment and 1 year deprivation of political rights for “inciting subversion of State power”, based only on his online writing and publishing of dissent articles (62 pieces). 

In the same month as his appeal was rejected on 15 May 2007, Mr. Zhang Jianhong had been diagnosed to have suffered a rare neurological disorder due to his health declining with muscle atrophy caused by nerve damage during his early detention in early 2007. Since October 2007, he had been held in Zhejiang Provincial Prison General Hospital, Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province. Although being paralyzed and unable to manage his daily life without a personal aid, his applications for medical parole under doctors’ advice had been continuously turned down for no proper reason until his disease was diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis so that he could not breath without a ventilator under intensive care in a hospital. PEN International, of which ICPC is a branch, and other international human rights organizations have been extremely concerned about the case of Mr. Zhang Jianhong, called several times on the Chinese authorities and the international communities for his release and raised grants for his treatments. Although he has been released on medical parole half a year ago, it had been already too later to save his life.

ICPC considers Mr. Zhang Jianhong as a most recent victim of contemporary literary inquisition in China and one of its worst cases over 30 years since China his started its policy of “reform and opening-up in late 1970s, and believes that the relevant authorities in China hold responsibilities for Zhang’s disease development, delayed medical parole for proper treatment and premature death. Therefore, ICPC angrily condemns and strongly protests against the Chinese authorities and calls for the investigation on this case. ICPC also calls on the Chinese authorities to take this case as a lesson to deal with all of applications of medical parole submitted by the prisoners, especially ICPC members Shi Tao and Yang Tianshui, and its honorary members Zheng Yichun, Xu Wei, Hu Jia, Huang Qi and Tan Zuoren, and others who have been suffering the severe diseases.

Mr. Zhang Jianhong was a long-standing activist practicing freedom to write in China where there has been lack of the freedoms of speech and of the press freedom. He made outstanding contributions to the creation of contemporary Chinese literature, to the defending of freedom of speech and the promotion of civil society in China. His passing is our irrecoverable loss, but his large number of works devoted to the spirit of freedom to write will become a valuable outcome of Chinese literature and heritage. Defending freedom of expression and promoting the free development of Chinese literature are ICPC’s aims. Therefore, to uphold the spirit of PEN is our best way to commemorate Mr. Zhang Jianhong.

ICPC expresses its deepest condolences to the passing of Mr. Zhang Jianhong, and to the mourning of his wife Ms. Dong Min and his family.

Will Mr. Zhang Jianhong rest in peace!