Dear PEN colleagues,

On the eve of the PEN Centre Suisse Romand annual meeting, please accept this letter of thanks from Jia Jianying, the wife of our Honorary Prisoner, He Depu, which was translated with the expert help of Nancy Li whom some of you met at my home in May 2006.

Please note that the prisoner's wife says that outside advocacy worries the authorities and has a beneficial effect on the treatment of such families. Her eloquent description of this meeting, so hard won, should help us on days when we're told that advocacy for individual prisoners is a waste of time, confrontational or counterproductive.

I am the wife of He Depu.

On 20 February I received authorization from Beijing City's number two prison to visit my husband and have dinner with him. We were alone in a small room and were not accompanied by other prisoners or family members. Two prison directors sat next to us. The put a recording machine (which could have been a video machine) on the table, which they kept adjusting.

We were warned in the beginning that we could not talk about anything that related to the case or to other prisoners.  We were not allowed to talk about things that happened outside concerning my husband.  We could only talk about family matters.

Although the policemen next to us kept reminding us of all the things that we could not talk about, we were still very happy and excited.  We talked as we ate (I had ordered the dinner from a restaurant).  When I saw my husband, I could not help crying.  This was the first time in over six years when we, husband and wife, could sit together.  We held each other.  We were together for nearly two hours.  We were very happy.

Only then did I have the opportunity to ask him in detail about his health.  He was wearing padded cotton clothes and cotton trousers.  He was very weak. His face was sallow and pale.  His blood pressure was 180-140 as he insisted on taking medicine every day. He said he caught the flu every month.  His sinus infection has never healed.  (During the visit) he kept rubbing his nose with a handkerchief.  Every day the prison doctor gave him three aspirins and one Ramipril, which was supposed to control his blood pressure.

Every week he was was allowed to be in the yard twice, for one hour each time.  Because the food was very bad and the diet lacked oil and meat, and he was always inactive in prison, and he felt cold easily.  For this reason, from October to May he had to wear padded cotton clothes and trousers.  The policeman next to him said, "Of course the food he usually eats cannot compare with this dinner of yours today."

When he started talking about the situation of his friends Cha Jianguo, Gao Xiongming and Yang Zili, he was stopped by the policeman next to him.
He told me that this time we were allowed to have a meal together because in a previous year his prison was ranked as superior, and therefore the prison encouraged that all prisoners be able to have a meal with their family.  However, the authorization never came for him.  After trying very hard [to get this authorization] for several months, the authorization was finally granted.

Of course, this has so much to do with your outside advocacy.  The prison and the Chinese government are very worried and afraid of your outside advocacy.  You have done an absolutely wonderful job on the outside.  We are very grateful.  (Many political prisoners do not have people to be their advocate; their situation inside is appalling.)  I want to thank you again.

I hope your husband is well.  I hope your children are happy, and I hope your whole family is happy.

Jia Jianying

www.dinahleekung.com
Dinah Lee Küng
La Ferme Sous-les-Roches
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