Critics suffer in China's "lawless" crackdown

By Bill Smith Apr 5, 2011, 8:37 GMT

Beijing - 'I don't need it. I can just do it,' a uniformed police officer told Teng Biao last month when the dissident lawyer questioned the legal basis of the officer's demand to check his identity card.

'I believe you are being obstructive. If you don't cooperate with our work, the consequences will be on your own head,' the officer told Teng, according to video footage of their heated discussion provided to the German Press Agency dpa.

Teng, a law professor and leading rights activist, had travelled to the home of another activist in Beijing on February 18. He told the police they had no legal right to require every visitor to register.

Nothing has been heard of Teng since he disappeared the day after that visit, on the eve of the first weekly anti-government 'strolls' in Beijing and other cities.

Police had already detained Teng, one of the 303 signatories of the Charter '08 for democratic reform, several times in recent years.

In a detailed account of his detention last year, Teng quoted one police officer as saying to colleagues: 'Let's beat him to death and dig a hole to bury him in.'

Many other prominent dissidents disappeared in mid-February, while police have temporarily detained, harassed or placed under house arrest scores of other activists in the last two months.

Police have held Gu Chuan, a dissident writer and blogger, for 45 days without any legal procedure at a station in northern Beijing, his wife told supporters on Monday.

The Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Defenders said authorities had placed more than 200 activists under some form of house arrest since mid-February.

At least 26 activists were formally arrested on criminal charges while more than 30 had disappeared, the group said.

International criticism of the crackdown has intensified with the detention of artist and activist Ai Weiwei at Beijing's main airport Sunday, since when he has remained out of contact.

The German, US, French, Australian and British governments are among those who have called for Ai's release.

The European Union delegation in China issued a statement on Tuesday saying it was 'concerned by the increasing use of arbitrary detention against human rights defenders, lawyers and activists.'

Amnesty International Monday said the detention of Ai was part of a 'chilling' crackdown following last month's anonymous online calls for 'jasmine rallies' in China, a reference to the anti-government protests in Arab countries.

Some activists were later released but they were kept under police surveillance and warned not to take part in protests or other activities.

Democracy activist Qi Zhiyong, who had left Beijing for several weeks under police pressure, told dpa he was confined to his Beijing home on Tuesday and prevented from meeting friends and journalists.

Yao Lifa, a Charter '08 signatory from the central province of Hubei, said he was held under illegal house arrest each Sunday to prevent him attending the weekly protests.

Rights groups said Beijing police had also taken about 200 legal rights petitioners to an unofficial holding centre known as a 'black jail' following a raid last month.

A petitioner from the central province of Henan told dpa that police detained her and her elderly parents as they tried to stage a protest in central Beijing on Tuesday.

She said she saw the police take away 'many people' Monday from the hostels near Beijing's South Railway Station where many petitioners lodge.

Liu Anjun, an activist who helps petitioners, told supporters he was released Sunday after 45 days in police custody.

In an echo of Teng's argument with the police, Liu said two plain clothes officers had stopped him as he was on his way home on February 18.

When Liu queried the officers' right to stop him and asked to see their documentation, they pushed him to the ground, kicked him and dragged him away, he told US-based Radio Free Asia.

Liu said he did not know where the police took him, only that he was 'locked up' in a mountain village outside Beijing.

'The police took my cell phone away, and even snatched my monthly social welfare payment from my wallet,' he told the broadcaster.

US-based Human Rights in China on Tuesday said the detention of Ai was 'the most recent example of the Chinese government's total disregard for the rule of law and its own respectability in the international community.'

The group urged the ruling Communist Party to 'stop the crackdown on all those in China exercising fundamental rights protected by international and Chinese domestic law.'

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