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Informationen zum Autor Jiang Qisheng was born in 1948. After ten years of hard agricultural labor during the Cultural Revolution, he obtained a master's degree in aerodynamics, which led to a university teaching post and work toward a PhD. However, for his involvement in the Tiananmen student prodemocracy movement, he was jailed for 18 months. Denied employment on release, he became a freelance writer. In 1999 he was given a longer sentence, which is the subject of this book. With Nobel prizewinner Liu Xiaobo, Jiang was one of the drafters of Charter 08 and remains an outspoken writer on civil liberties and human rights in China. Klappentext In 1999, leading dissident Jiang Qisheng was given a four-year sentence for inviting the Chinese people to light candles to honor the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Drawn with indignant intensity from Jiang's time in prison, his memoirs record chilling observations of the modern "civilized" Beijing jails in which he was held. While awaiting a farcical trial, he shares a cell crowded with common criminals, among them a murderer who had dismembered his victim with an electric saw. Along with intriguing vignettes of his fellow prisoners, Jiang describes the brutal conditions they all faced: inmates led to execution with necks corded to silence them, savage fights between prisoners, and rare moments of unexpected kindness. He describes the frequent beatings by guards, the use of the electric prod, and a dehumanizing regime aimed at humiliation and the destruction of individual personality. After he is sentenced, conditions are even worse. Prisoners, used as slave labor, become bitterly exhausted and emaciated, while facing new depths of mental degradation. Throughout, however, Jiang retains his dignity, his detached and perceptive intelligence, and his concern for his fellow sufferers, guards included. Written in a light and ironic style, Jiang's stories of prisoners, many of whom come from the most primitive and impoverished layer of Chinese society, are related with vividness, insight, humor, and compassion. Dismayed by their fatalistic docility, the author asks, "Where lies China's hope? Can democracy ever take root in China?" The answers, surely, lie in the voices of those, like Jiang, who dare to speak out. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword by Andrew J. NathanIntroduction by Perry LinkPart I: The Detention CenterChapter 1: A Trip to the SouthChapter 2: Dark Clouds AppearChapter 3: A Sleepless NightChapter 4: In Section SevenChapter 5: Maintaining One's DignityChapter 6: Verbal Tussles During Preliminary ExaminationChapter 7: Peaceful Coexistence with Fellow PrisonersChapter 8: Avoiding Self-PityChapter 9: Death and Life by the WallChapter 10: Looking on the Bright SideChapter 11: The White Hole of Human RightsChapter 12: A Brief Look at Evidence of CorruptionChapter 13: Longing for BooksChapter 14: Chess and CardsChapter 15: Litigation RecordsChapter 16: The TrialChapter 17: Falungong Adherent Sun WeiChapter 18: Gao Shuo of the Electric SawChapter 19: Treated as Guilty Even without EvidenceChapter 20: Precious MessagesChapter 21: Occasional LonelinessChapter 22: Victims of Injustice and Crackdowns on CriminalsChapter 23: The Clank of Chains at DawnChapter 24: A Sketch of the Detention CenterChapter 25: The Campaign for DemocracyChapter 26: Reading the NewspapersChapter 27: The Taiwan QuestionChapter 28: "Give Birth Early and Often"Chapter 29: Teachers' Low Self-EsteemChapter 30: The Joy of BooksChapter 31: Blood on the Sleeping PlatformChapter 32: A Small Society in a Narrow RoomChapter 33: Three Encounters with FalungongChapter 34: When Would My Case Be Settled?Chapter 35: From Detention Center to Transfer CenterEpilogue to Part IPart II: In the Transfer CenterPrologueChapter 36: Encountering ProhibitionsChapter 37: Unwritten RulesChapter 38: A True April Fool's Day StoryChapter 39: A Frightening Int...
