It is a sobering email to find yourself sending in the days immediately after Christmas:

Dear Ambassador Fu Ying,

I write to express my deep concern for Akmal Shaikh, who faces execution in China on December 29.

Akmal’s family has pleaded for his life to be spared, and my heart is with them at this terrible time. Akmal’s death, particularly during this holiday season, would destroy his children, his brother and his elderly mother, and tear the family apart.

I know that the Chinese people care deeply about family and I would like to join Akmal’s children in begging for mercy for their father.

This unusual case is not about politics, but about humanity and compassion — values that we share with the Chinese people. My plea to the Chinese authorities is based on the greatest respect for Chinese culture and for these shared values.

yours sincerely,

Ben Williams

If you’ve not done so yet, I would urge you to send it as soon as you can: to the Chinese Ambassador on secretary@chinese-embassy.org.uk and to the Prime Minister via the Number 10 website.

The case of Akmal Shaikh makes for tragic reading and one that, having had cause to have contact with mental health services in the UK, is very believable in terms of the circumstances of his arrest and subsequent explanation of events. Chinese criminal law recognises that mental incapacity reduces criminal responsibility, though the stark way it is written up in the Chinese criminal law suggests that there is a tremendous onus on the defendant to demonstrate diminution of responsibility due to mental ill health at the time the crime was committed.

Whilst the lack of facilities for the treatment of mental illness is a constant source of criticism in the British justice system, particularly in terms of prison care (see this BBC report for more info), a huge library of case law has been developed to help with the interpretation of circumstances (e.g. Wiki Mental Health, a continuously updated online database for professionals who need to understand mental health and the law). China has a powerfully symbolic opportunity to reveal a similarly sophisticated understanding of the complex issues of mental health. At the same time it would demonstrate that it is prepared to engage the language-deficient West in terms of European liberal democratic criminal law that can be readily understood.

For me, as citizen of country that is looking to foster enhanced trade relations with China’s provinces, and who has found himself having a small but real part in the conversation about such relationships, such a gesture would be a resonant signal that the identification of a shared global future is not some self-justifying, post-colonial Western construct – but a definite objective rooted in the practical, hard-nosed give-and-take of international politics and appreciated by a modern China willing to embrace the world.

***

Basildon District Council recently took part in a trade delegation organised by Essex County Council. Two councillors and two officers took part in the visit, which was to the Changzhou area of China’s Jiangsu province. It was reported by the Basildon Echo in this report. It was reported to the last Cabinet meeting (see item 7 on the Agenda) and received support as an initiative from both the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups (see Minute 812). Conservative Councillor Stephen Horgan, Deputy Leader of Basildon Council, was a member of that delegation and his blog report can be read here.

On November 7th, prior to the visit, I wrote to Conservative Councillor Tony Ball, Council Leader, raising amongst other things the imprisonment by the Jiangsu authorities of Guo Quan, the pro-democracy campaigner (see this Financial Times report). Guo Quan was the author of an open letter to the Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo calling for democratic government and multi-party elections [NB the later references to Falun Gong are disputed, apparently not appearing in the original Chinese version].  In my email, acknowledging the positive step this trade mission represented for Basildon, I made the following statement:

“As locally-elected politicians, we are the public face of a district that has been politically and economically shaped at a fundamental level by healthy competition between political parties. I hope you share my view that it is important to account for our robust democratic values in any dealings in Jiangsu Province and not see them set aside or devalued because they are in some way inconvenient.”

I don’t know if that statement was pompous, naïve or entirely appropriate.

I am yet to receive a response.