Dissenters arrested and beaten in China
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Print
Email
Human rights activists, free speech advocates, campaigning lawyers and political writers have been arrested and tortured as Chinese police crack down on dissent ahead of this month's Communist Party congress, campaigners said yesterday.
"All of these things are happening because of National Day and the forthcoming congress," said Hu Jia, a human rights and Aids activist who has been under house arrest since July last year.
Li Heping, a prominent lawyer, was reportedly abducted at the weekend by plain-clothed security officers who put a hood over his head and drove him in an unmarked car to a basement. He he was stripped and beaten for hours as his captors taunted him and told him to leave Beijing.
Mr Li was released later but, when he got home, he found his laptop had been reprogrammed and his identification card and other belongings were missing, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group claimed.
Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer, was taken from his home on 22 September, by state security agents, after writing to the US Congress to voice concern about rights abuses ahead of the Olympics. He has not been seen since. The writer Lu Gengsong was charged after a month in jail with inciting subversion, and another Beijing activist was threatened with being sectioned.
Western observers hope to use the Olympics to focus attention on rights abuses in China.
The Beijing government says human rights are a domestic matter – but claims they have improved dramatically.
