By Eva Cheng

Dozens of people in China have been arrested, some receiving long jail sentences, under laws which use a sweeping definition of "state secrets" as an excuse to stifle public scrutiny, according to the Amnesty International.

Journalist Xi Yang, of the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao, was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment in 1994 for an article on China's financial plans. Gao Yu is serving a six-year sentence for publishing documents, some of which were already published in Hong Kong newspapers, and a speech by China's president, Jiang Zemin. Bao Tong, a former Communist Party Central Committee member, is serving a seven-year jail term reportedly based on a private conversation about the pre-1989 political situation in China.

They all leaked "state secrets", so far as the Chinese prosecutors are concerned.

"Virtually anything can be classified as a state secret if the authorities so decide", said an AI spokesperson on May 15 as the organisation released a new report on China, "State Secrets: A Pretext for Repression".

"The law [on protection of state secrets] has been used to stifle legitimate political debate and restrict freedom of expression, by the intimidation and imprisonment of human rights defenders and journalists, and the suppression of trade union rights", Amnesty said.

Meanwhile, in Tibet on May 14, two truckloads of seriously injured people arrived at a hospital in Lhasa with a police escort. Seven days earlier, three monks from Ganden monastery, east of Lhasa, were shot and wounded by police, two of them reportedly dying.

Amnesty International believed both incidents were related to rising tension since Beijing tightened enforcement of a ban on the display of the picture of the Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai Lama.

According to an eyewitness, most of those injured on May 14 were nuns, mostly very young. AI said that by early 1995, at least 650 people, mostly monks and nuns, were under detention for peaceful expression of their support for Tibetan independence.

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