20100608 US wants geologist freed ‘immediately’

US wants geologist freed ‘immediately’

HUMAN RIGHTS: Xue Feng, whose arrest and trial has highlighted the dangers of doing business in China, reportedly showed officials evidence he was tortured by interrogators

AFP , WASHINGTON
Thursday, Jul 08, 2010, Page 7

The US is stepping up pressure on China to free a US geologist given an eight-year sentence on state secrets charges, dismissing Beijing’s insistence that the case was an internal affair.

Xue Feng (薛峰), a Chinese-born US citizen working for a private firm, has been detained since November 2007 over the sale of a database on China’s oil industry. He was handed an eight-year term this week despite US appeals.

“We remain extremely concerned about his rights to due process under Chinese law,” US State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Tuesday.

“We call on China to grant Dr Xue humanitarian release and immediately deport him back to the United States,” he said.

US President Barack Obama has sought to cooperate with a rising China on a range of international issues and has been roundly accused by activists of downplaying human rights concerns.

But Xue is a US citizen and, according to diplomats, Obama has personally raised his case with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). US consular officials have visited Xue close to 30 times since his detention.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) defended the handling of the case, saying: “This case was handled by China’s judiciary, which judged it strictly in accordance with the law.”

“This is an internal affair of China; China’s judicial sovereignty brooks no foreign interference,” he said.

Asked about China’s reaction, Toner said: “The protection of US citizens overseas is our highest priority.”

The US has “consistently, and will continue to, raise his case at the highest levels,” he said.

At the time of his arrest, Xue was working for the US energy and engineering consulting firm IHS.

Both Xue and IHS have stated that they believed that the database was a commercially available product. After Xue purchased the database, it was subsequently classified as a state secret, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a rights group.

The rights group said that Xue, in his meetings with US consular officials, showed scars on his arms which he said were cigarette burns inflicted by his interrogators.

Ed Mattix, a spokesman for IHS, said that the Colorado-based company was “sad” to hear of the sentence against Xue.

“IHS is extremely disappointed at the news and is very sympathetic to the situation,” he said.

He declined further comment, saying the case may be appealed.

Xue’s arrest and drawn-out trial has cast a spotlight on the pitfalls of doing business in China, especially for those born in China who have been educated abroad and taken on a foreign nationality.

Australian national Stern Hu (胡士泰), an executive with the mining giant Rio Tinto, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March on bribery and trade secrets charges, in a case that raised hackles in Canberra.

US officials have also appealed for the safety of a number of Chinese citizens who have been jailed or gone missing after activism.

In an editorial on Tuesday, the Washington Post urged the US to do more to support Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), a human rights lawyer.

Gao, who has taken up some of China’s most sensitive cases such as underground Christians and the Falun Gong spiritual movement, has gone missing twice since last year. His family has escaped to the US.

The newspaper recalled US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks at the start of her term that human rights would not interfere with US cooperation with China.

“President Obama has just invited Chinese President Hu Jintao for a state visit. He must allow human rights — and Mr Gao — to interfere,” the editorial said.