Chinese police have arrested an activist university professor on charges of inciting subversion after he set up an independent political party, his wife said yesterday.
Guo Quan (郭泉), a professor at Nanjing Normal University and frequent government critic, was taken into police custody on Thursday, his wife Li Jing (李晶) said by phone.
Guo formed the China People’s Livelihood Party in 2004 — renaming it the China New People’s Party late last year — to protect the rights of “workers, farmers, businessmen, students, and urban residents,” according to Guo’s blog, which is blocked in China.
“Police gave his mother an official notice saying Guo is suspected of subverting state power,” Li said.
“It is suspected that Guo might have been detained for organizing the China Xinmin Party [New People’s Party],” China Human Rights Defenders, a network of Chinese and overseas rights activists, said in an e-mailed statement.
In a recent blog entry, Guo called the eight other legal parties besides the Chinese Communist Party “flowers in a vase” meant to give the appearance of democracy in China.
The group also said the arrest could be linked to articles published online by Guo that criticized the Nanjing city government, particularly for its construction of a chemical plant.
Guo had previously been stripped of his teaching duties over his activism and his been held in detention before, according to his blog.
Guo’s blog claims the China New People’s Party has 10 million members and branches in all provinces of the country.
Meanwhile, two milk inspectors for a major dairy firm were severely beaten in an attack blamed on suppliers angry at tough new safety checks following a tainted milk scandal, the China Youth Daily reported yesterday.
The two men were working in the northern city of Tangshan as inspectors for Mengniu, one of China’s largest dairy companies, which has implemented strict new safety inspections, the paper said.
The attack occurred on Nov. 5 after inspector Li Zhongping had confronted an outside dairy supplier over a batch of milk he was selling that appeared not to confirm with new standards, it said.
“According to an initial analysis, this incident was triggered by [Li’s] decision that this truck’s milk was not in compliance,” it quoted an unnamed Mengniu official as saying.
Li and another inspector, Zhang Liwei, were set on by a group of about five club-wielding men as they left work later that day.
Li was badly beaten, suffering numerous injuries over his body, including fractured vertebra, and was in a coma for “a long time,” the paper said, without specifying Li’s current condition.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in