Chinese justice
July 11, 2012
At the beginning of next week, the annual German-Chinese Rule of Law Dialogue will take place in Munich. In addition to the usual topics, the Germans this year will be especially concerned with the German businessman who has been arbitrarily detained for months in a Chinese prision.
Nils Jennrich has been locked up in "prison number one" on the eastern outskirts of the capital Beijing for more than 100 days. His small, stuffy cell houses one dozen prisoners. Employees of the German embassy are allowed to see him occasionally. They bring him clothes, a little money and, more recently, books. His fiancée, Jenny Dam from Sweden, is not allowed to see him.
"What family and friends are able to do is to send the German embassy private letters to Nils, which they print out before they go and visit him, and also they can show the letters by the glass window and show them to him so he can read them.," Dam said. "But he cannot keep the letters."
There has not yet been a court ruling on Jennrich's detention. He has not been indicted, and there are no detailed accusations against him.
Tax evasion
Jennrich and an imprisoned Chinese colleague of his are allegedly guilty of aiding the smuggling of artwork and thereby cheating Chinese customs out of around 1.3 million euros (US$1.6 million). Authorities say he claimed a much lower price for a piece of art when bringing it in to the country. But they won't say which piece it was.
Torsten Hendricks, director of the art-freight company for which Jennrich works, said the accusations were absurd. He said it was not the company, but the customers who were responsible for claiming the value of the goods.
"The value is not declared by the company because that is simply not possible in the art industry," he said. "We have no way of determining the value of the works."
Why the authorities have targeted Hendrick's small art-freight company, Integrated Fine Arts Solutions (IFAS), is unclear.
People who know the Chinese art market suspect a correlation between Jennrich's detainment and an ongoing campaign against rich Chinese who evade taxes through trading art.
Speculators say the arrest could simply be a warning. In Chinese there is a saying for it: "killing the chicken to scare the monkey."
Arbitrary rule of law
The case illustrates the dangers for German businesspeople in China. Business representatives complain of arbitrariness and the lack of the rule of law; people are not innocent until proven guilty and lawyers have no access to their clients' files.
Jennrich's family claims he is being treated like a hardened criminal. No bond was set despite requests. Apparently; the German poses a danger to the public.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Weimin has defended the actions of the Chinese authorities. "The case is being processed by the Chinese judicial system," he said.
Embassy staff was able to visit Jennrich a week ago. The next review of his detention is scheduled for August 4. Accordig to Chinese law, Jennrich can be arbitrarily detained for up to seven months.
Jennrich's fiancee is worried. "It's been very tough," she said. "It's a nightmare when you don't know how it's going to end."
In the upcoming German-Chinese Rule of Law Dialogue, German Justice Minster Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and her Chinese counterpart Song Dahan are bound to address Nils Jennrich's case.
Should they make no progress, it is bound to overshadow Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing at the end of August.
Author: Ruth Kirchner / sb
Editor: John Blau