Chinese metalworkers sentenced

CHINA: The China Labour Bulletin reports that on May 9, 2003, a court in Liaoyang, northeastern China, handed down harsh prison sentences to Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, the two independent metalworker activists who were arrested in March 2002 and kept in detention since then for their part in a peaceful workers' demonstration. Yao, 52, has been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, and Xiao, 57, to four years. At their trial, which took place on January 15, 2003, both men were charged with "illegal assembly" and "subversion of state power" for leading a mass protest against alleged corruption at the Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory, which led to the plant's bankruptcy, and against missing and unpaid wages and other benefits, including pensions. In late March 2002, the IMF joined the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in filing a formal complaint with the International Labour Organisation's Committee on Freedom of Association against the government of the People's Republic of China for violations of the principles of freedom of association. Since then, the IMF has written protests to the president of China and to the government-sponsored All China Federation of Trade Unions. In March 2003, the Governing Body of the ILO, of which China is a member, called upon the Chinese authorities to release all Liaoyang workers still in detention and to drop any outstanding charges against them.