- 14 Dec 2004 01:35
#529884
Chinese police detained two prominent dissident writers Monday night in an apparent campaign by the government to reassert authority over liberal intellectuals who have been increasingly outspoken in their criticism of the governing Communist Party, friends and family members said.
The detentions come just months after President Hu Jintao assumed command of the Chinese military, completing a delicate leadership transition in the party. Analysts said the action could represent a public warning that he intends to take a hard line against any political relaxation that might weaken the party's monopoly on power.
The detained dissidents -- Yu Jie, 31, an essayist who once called on the party to remove Mao Zedong's embalmed body from public display, and Liu Xiaobo, 49, a well-known writer who has already been jailed three times for his criticism of the party -- represent the more daring end of a spectrum of prominent intellectuals who favor greater political openness in the country and have been under official pressure in recent weeks.
Chinese police sometimes hold dissidents several days for questioning and then release them without filing charges. But the simultaneous timing of the detentions suggests the leadership has ordered a crackdown. Friends said at least two other dissidents, Zhang Zuhua and Liao Yiwu, could not be contacted Monday night and may also have been arrested.
The party's propaganda authorities, presumably with Hu's approval, recently ordered state media to limit reporting about independent-minded scholars and activists who have been willing to criticize the government, journalists said. The directive, the latest in a series tightening controls on state media, also barred the use of the increasingly popular phrase "public intellectuals" to describe these individuals.
"The notion calls up the idea of independence -- but intellectuals are not independent, they belong to the working class, are part of the people and are a group under the leadership of the Communist Party," the People's Daily, the party's flagship newspaper, said in an editorial last month. "All this talk about intellectuals speaking up for the downtrodden is ridiculous . . . "
In a further sign of a political tightening ordered by Hu, the party has fired or otherwise punished several journalists and scholars in recent weeks, and state newspapers have published editorials using hard-line ideological language, including warnings against "bourgeois liberalization" and the efforts of foreigners to stir up political instability.
Yu and Liu have repeatedly called on the party to adopt democratic reforms, respect freedom of speech and apologize for the violent 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. But the government had more or less tolerated their criticism in recent years, although both were barred from appearing in state media and could publish only on the Internet and overseas.
Friends and relatives expressed surprise at the sudden detentions, and said neither Yu nor Liu had published anything particularly provocative recently.
Reached by phone, Yu's wife, Liu Min, said police told her that her husband was "suspected of endangering state security." The officers did not provide details, she said, but one said she should have "stopped him from writing essays on the Internet."
She also said police were preventing her from leaving her home and had ordered her not to tell "outsiders" about her husband's arrest. "They severely threatened me, but I'm not scared. I have to save my husband," she said.
In 2001, Liu and Yu helped establish a branch in China of the International PEN, the worldwide association of writers that is affiliated with the United Nations and speaks out for writers persecuted for their views. Liu is the group's president, and Yu serves on its board.
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- By Potemkin
- By KurtFF8
- By wat0n