The well-known Chinese internet composer Xu Lin was taken away by the national security personnel in Guangzhou on May 16th and his home was raided. Just before his arrest, Xu Lin released a statement, claiming to be threatened with arrest, and expressing his hope that his proposal “The United Nations Should Utilize Civil Organizations to Promote the Development of Civilizations of All Countries” can be submitted to the United Nations. He believes this is a method that can help him.
In a social media post on May 1st, Xu Lin declared: “My statement: If I am arrested by the Chinese Communist Party again, I firmly refuse to hire a lawyer, I will not accept any designated lawyer. In today’s China, for political prisoners like me, lawyers are essentially useless and only bring trouble to themselves. I have no information that needs to be conveyed by a lawyer. The only information you can believe about me is an official notice to my family saying I am dead, no matter how I died, it is the Communist Party hunting me down…”
Xu Lin’s proposal “The United Nations Should Utilize Civil Organizations to Promote the Development of Civilizations of All Countries” was written on April 28th.
The proposal states: “The fundamental mission of the United Nations is to promote the development of civilizations in all countries, this is indisputable. Only with the development of civilizations can there be lasting peace, and better solutions to issues in various fields such as poverty, environmental protection, health, and education.”
“The community of lawyers and NGOs are the most beneficial forces in promoting the development of national civilizations, making full use of them can play a significant role. However, in authoritarian countries, they are all suppressed by the government and cannot play a substantial role, thus requiring protection from the United Nations.”
He also suggests that the UN Charter should stipulate that “any member state shall not suppress NGOs and civil organizations recognized by the United Nations, otherwise the UN will take measures to sanction that country. It is specified that the countries suppressing NGOs and civil lawyers recognized by the United Nations shall not serve as permanent members of the UN Security Council and are not eligible for assistance from the United Nations.”
He further suggests that NGOs and civil lawyers organizations must also comply with the relevant regulations of the United Nations in terms of personnel, organizational charter, work procedures, and the establishment of internal governance mechanisms.
He hopes that civil lawyers organizations can play a role, such as: submitting valuable opinions and suggestions on the work of the United Nations; submitting information on human rights violations to the United Nations for public dissemination; submitting letters of protest to the United Nations against unjust judgments in the country, requesting the International Court to provide trial opinions; submitting opinion letters to the country’s government and the United Nations on unreasonable laws and judicial systems; evaluating the judicial civilization situation of the country by civil lawyers organizations, the United Nations will publish the evaluation of each country’s judicial civilization situation on its website; selecting outstanding lawyers and the worst judges and judgments, notifying them and publishing them on the United Nations website.
As for NGOs, he also hopes they can play a certain role, such as observing and reporting on human rights violations; participating in various charitable activities and humanitarian rescue operations; participating in relevant investigations of the United Nations or the government of the host country and engaging in propaganda related to civilization development, etc.
He emphasizes that the assistance from the United Nations is to promote the development of civilization in the country, rather than simply alleviating poverty and distress. If a country lacks the will and action for civilization development, then the assistance from the United Nations cannot truly help alleviate poverty and distress, and is likely to be corrupt and wasteful.
The proposal states that the assistance from the United Nations is not for the government but for the people, therefore it cannot be received and handled by the national government, it must be received and handled by NGOs recognized by the United Nations. To avoid government suppression as much as possible, the activities of NGOs are best reported to the United Nations in advance.
The proposal article was published on the webpage of Guangming News on the same day.
At around 10 a.m. on May 16th, Xu Lin was taken away by the national security of Nansha District Public Security Bureau in Guangzhou, and around 5 p.m. in the afternoon, the police forcibly entered and raided his home. Some netizens believe that on the eve of June 4th, the Chinese Communist Party is once again aggressively arresting people.
The reason for Xu Lin’s arrest may be related to online speech. According to his detention notice, Xu Lin was criminally detained on May 17th, 2024, at 11 a.m. for the suspicion of “provocation troublemaking.” He is currently in custody in the Nansha Detention Center in Guangzhou.
The reporters from Epoch Times called the national security personnel with the surname Jiang who arrested Xu Lin, but the phone was not reachable.
The reporters also called the East Yong Police Station in Nansha, Guangzhou to inquire about the reason for Xu Lin’s arrest. The officer on the line said, “We are not clear about the specific situation, you can contact the family or come directly to our station for inquiries.”
Xu Lin has been repeatedly summoned and warned by the police for creating songs criticizing social ills online. In 2017, he was unlawfully arrested for writing a song “Revealing the Truth,” in which he used footage of the notorious incident where Xu Chunhe was beaten to death by the police in Qing’an, Heilongjiang. Later, Xu Lin was taken away by the police from his hometown in Hunan. He was then arrested for “provocation troublemaking” and sentenced to 3 years in prison. He was released on September 25th, 2020, after serving his sentence.