China launches ‘unusually harsh’ crackdown
Hundreds of petitioners, democracy activists and human rights workers have been abducted, imprisoned, or confined to their homes over the past six weeks, according to rights monitors. “This seems to be the worst in years,” says Phelim Kine, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It is much, much more comprehensive than earlier sweeps.”
As delegates to the ruling Communist Party listen to their leaders’ speeches at their 17th Congress, at least one voice will not be heard: Yu Tongan, a peasant farmer in southern China.
He would never have got into the most important meeting on the Chinese political calendar. But in the tradition of petitioners, he had hoped to buttonhole one of the delegates to seek redress for his son, who suffered brain damage after a government-mandated vaccination. Instead, he is trapped in his village by two plainclothes policemen. “I wanted to find someone who would talk to ordinary people,” Mr Yu said by telephone from his home. “But the police told me I am not allowed to leave or I will be arrested.” The goal of keeping Yu, and others like him, away from the capital “is to sterilise Beijing of potential protests” during the Congress, says Mr Kine.
Earlier this year, a Chinese human rights group published what it said was the text of an internal speech by Yu Hongyuan, deputy head of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, advocating “harshly penalising one person in order to frighten more into submission”.
That is what Li Heping, a young lawyer who has made a name for himself defending dissidents, said he believes happened to him on September 29. After leaving his office he was forced into a car by four men in civilian clothes, who drove him to an unknown destination. In what appeared to be a basement, he said he was beaten unconscious and then released with a warning to leave the capital and give up his law practice. Other “enemies” caught up in the crackdown include one of Li’s clients, Gao Zhisheng, another lawyer who wrote an open letter to the US Senate in favour of greater freedoms in China. He has not been seen since September 22.
A well known election activist, Yao Lifa, has been missing from his home since last Sunday, according to his son. Family members told reporters Ye Guozhu, who has protested the eviction of tenants to make way for Olympics projects.
Anonymous victims include scores of petitioners whose shelters have been destroyed and who have been taken into custody.
Human Rights Watch is worried, Kine said, that “this might be a dry run for the Olympics.
“Given the relative success they had in sweeping people off the streets this time, there is no reason why they won’t do it again ahead of the Olympics.”
