Activists and ordinary people arrested to ensure security at National People's Congress
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Activists for democracy, human rights lawyers, bearers of petitions against the injustices are under house arrest, under strict surveillance, or hindered in their movements in Beijing and throughout China. This "cleaning-up" has become a tradition in this period, with the celebration of two major meetings in the capital: the National People's Congress, China's parliament, and the Political Consultative Conference, which takes place almost in parallel.
This year, according to official figures, security is at its peak: there are at least 750 thousand people in the security apparatus, the army of security guards to ensure that there are no demonstrations, presentations of petitions, letters, or embarrassing situations for the "people's" delegation.
The agency CHRD (China Human Rights Defenders) today lists the personalities living in Beijing who suffer suppression of their rights by the authorities:
- 1) Since February 28, Zhang Zuhua, a professor of constitutional law, is controlled by the police and subjected to restriction of movement.
- 2) Since February 29, the police has set up surveillance outside the homes of some dissidents such as Zha Jianguo, Hu Shigen, Gao Hongming, He Depu, Xu Yonghai. This past Sunday, March 4th, the eve of the NPC, Hu Shigenè been forbidden to leave his home: he was to have travelled to a Bible meeting.
- 3) Before the NPC, some human rights lawyers such as Teng Biao, Jiang Tianyong and Xu Zhiyong were threatened by police and restricted in their movements.
- 4) The writer Woeser and her husband Wang Lixiong, also a writer, are under close surveillance since early February. They must ask permission ahead of any journey and are required to be accompanied by guards whenever they leave home.
In the rest of China:
- 5) On March 2, two security guards were placed outside the front door of the young activist Chong Yang in Guangzhou. Last year, Yang attended the International Day for Human Rights and the protests of the village of Wukan (Guangdong) against the corruption of local authorities and the Party.
- 6) Five persons came from Hubei to Beijing on March 3 to try to deliver a petition. The authorities took them and brought back to Shiyan, enclosing them in a "black jail", where they will remain until the end of the NPC.
- 7) On 4 March the police detained 10 activists from Hunan and Jiangxi working on corruption and detained them at the Jinxing police station.
- 8) On March 5, more than 100 people from Shanghai, who were trying to lodge a petition, were arrested and confined in the black prison in Jiujingzhuang. Another 12 were brought back to Shanghai and placed under house arrest.
- 9) On March 5, Chang Xingfa, bearer of petitions from Shanghai, arrived in Beijing and managed to gain entrance to the Great Hall of the People, the NPC venue. But armed police arrested him and so far he is being kept in the police station in Tiananmen Square.
CHRD has issued a statement (see here) in which it condemns the widespread repression of activists and ordinary people with their petitions and calls for the guarantee of communication channels with the NPC, the dissemination of information about the representatives of the Assembly, to guarantee that they are actually elected by the people and not co-opted by the Party leadership in rigged elections.
CHRD demands the cancellation of the Laogai (re-education camps with forced labour) and the system of compulsory residence (hukou) for migrants who move to the city, and have no right to medical care or schooling for their children.
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