Police in China have sent two activists to labor camps and charged a veteran dissident with subversion over calls for public rallies echoing those in the Arab world, a rights group said yesterday.
Hua Chunhui (華春輝) and Wei Qiang (魏強) have been sentenced without trial to “re-education through labor,” marking the first formal punishments meted out in a major government crackdown on dissent, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.
Sentences to Chinese labor camps rarely exceed three years.
Authorities have rounded up activists since calls in February for “Jasmine” rallies in China similar to those in the Arab world, which have swept leaders out of power in Tunisia and Egypt, and sparked a bloody conflict in Libya.
Zhu Yufu (朱虞夫), 59, was formally charged with inciting subversion of state power in China’s Zhejiang Province on Tuesday, the Hong Kong-based rights group said in a statement.
Zhu is the fifth person to be formally arrested since the crackdown began, while nearly 40 other activists have been criminally detained and at least 18 — including artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) — have “disappeared” into police custody, it said.
Police in Hangzhou told Zhu’s ex-wife, Jiang Hangli (蔣杭莉) on Tuesday that prosecutors had approved his arrest for “inciting subversion of state power,” Jiang said by telephone.
“Before he was detained on March 5, he’d been followed everywhere he went, 24 hours a day for 20 days by the security people, so he never had any chance to participate in any political activities,” said Jiang, who still shares an apartment with Zhu.
The subversion charge is a broad accusation often used to punish denunciations of the Chinese Communist Party and calls for democratic reform.
“We don’t know the specific reasons, but our guess is that it may be related to a poem he wrote that suggested people go out to stroll on the square and on the streets,” said Zhu Zhengming (祝政明), a pro-democracy advocate and friend of Zhu Yufu in Hangzhou.
“But he didn’t say any time or place or suggest that people wave any banners or shout any slogans. He just called for a stroll,” he said.
Group “strolls” have become one way for Chinese people to show, in an oblique way, discontent with the government.
Human rights groups said Zhu may have been detained for spreading messages online about the rally calls.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2