Kamm: A Legacy of Helping China’s Prisoners
In 2013, a woman in China named Li Yan, attacked by her serially abusive husband with the butt of a rifle, grabbed the rifle from his hands and killed him with it. She turned herself into the police and was sentenced to death. The case attracted national media attention in China, with hundreds of lawyers and much of the public believing that her sentence was unjust. The case was appealed all the way to the Chinese Supreme Court, and last June, her sentence was overturned.
One of the judges that heard Li Yan’s final appeal had spent time a few months before at a symposium at a Hong Kong women’s prison with John Kamm. For 25 years, Kamm, both on his own and through his nonprofit Dui Hua (Dialogue) Foundation, has been working tirelessly to improve human rights and conditions for China’s millions of prisoners.
“I don’t want to claim that participating in our symposium was the only deciding factor,” said Kamm. “But we hope it had an impact on this landmark decision.”
Kamm spoke at the Castle on Thursday, March 5, in an event sponsored by the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies entitled, “25 Years of Activism in China.” The event was cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Asia.
Joe Fewsmith, a leading China scholar and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Pardee School, introduced Kamm’s work to the large audience.
“John was a successful businessman, and when in the middle of his life, he wanted a change, he didn’t go out and buy a convertible. He changed his career,” Fewsmith said. “He’s devoted the last 25 years of his life to ensuring the world pays attention to the way Chinese prisoners are treated.”
Kamm began his advocacy in 1990, shortly after being galvanized by the massacre in Tien’anmen Square. He founded Dui Hua in 1999.
“Presently, we maintain a database of over 30,000 Chinese political prisoners, and our work is predicated on the observation that prisoners who are asked about receive better treatment,” Kamm said. “We rely on trust built over many years, common ground with officials, open source research, and cooperation from NGOs and academics to build our databases and communicate them effectively.”
Currently, Dui Hua is the only foreign prisoner advocacy group whose findings are being accepted by the Chinese government. And unique legal challenges, such as defunct criminal charges like counterrevolution for which some prisoners are still serving time, make the plight of those incarcerated in China especially burdensome.
However, there are bright spots. Kamm said that, despite an overall downturn in the number of acquittals in China, he has been heartened by the tenfold decrease in executions since Dui Hua began its work. But there are new challenges; one of Kamm’s current goals is to convince China to adopt the UN’s ‘Bangkok Rules’ for the treatment of women prisoners.
“We want to promote clemency, increase openness at trials and access to parole, and create a robust juvenile court system as well,” Kamm said. “There is a lot of work still to do.”
For Kamm’s tireless effort in the face of such a dire human need, however, Fewsmith had apt words of praise.
“[Kamm] has done more for prisoners in China than any other single individual anywhere in the world,” Fewsmith said. “If you can live a life half so well, then you have done well.”