Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China

WEN Jiabao Guojia Zongli

The State Council General Office

2 Fuyoujie

Xichengqu

Beijingshi 100017

People's Republic of China

Your Excellency,

I am deeply concerned for the safety of Ye Guozhu who was detained and sentenced to four years in prison in December 2004 for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” after he applied for official permission to hold a public demonstration against alleged forced evictions in Beijing.

According to reliable reports received by the Nobel Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, Ye Guozhu has been tortured in prison, including by being beaten with electroshock batons in Chaobai prison towards the end of 2006 and being forced to wear hand-cuffs and fetters and sit on a hard chair for extended periods during “discipline” in Qingyuan prison in 2005. He reportedly suffers from pain in his back and ankles as a result of his treatment in prison and pre-trial detention, as well as from pre-existing medical problems, including high blood pressure, heart problems and cerebral thrombosis.

The prison authorities are reportedly providing him only with basic medicine for high blood pressure and preventing members of his family from supplying him with medicine.

Amnesty International considers Ye Guozhu to be a prisoner of conscience imprisoned in violation of his human rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. I urge you to secure his immediate and unconditional release. We also

urge you to take concrete measures to ensure that he and other human rights defenders in China can carry out their peaceful and legitimate activities without fear of arbitrary detention, torture and other ill treatment or other human rights violations.

The ongoing imprisonment of Ye Guozhu and other peaceful activists in China runs counter to commitments made by numerous Chinese officials that human rights would improve in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing. Such abuses also contravene fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter relating to the preservation of human dignity and respect for universal, fundamental, ethical principles.

I urge your administration to address such abuses with a view to ensuring a positive human rights legacy for the Olympic Games.

Sincerely,