A former Tiananmen prisoner has been detained and other dissidents placed under house arrest or tight surveillance ahead of the 20th anniversary of the crackdown, activists said yesterday.
Wu Gaoxing (吳高興), who was jailed for two years after he protested in 1989 in Zhejiang Province as the pro-democracy demonstrations were taking place in Beijing, was taken away on Saturday, fellow activist Chen Longde (陳龍德) said.
Wu had just written an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) seeking economic redress for those jailed after the army crackdown on and around Tiananmen Square on June 4, which killed hundreds and possibly thousands.
Chen, who himself was jailed for three years and signed the letter along with three other former prisoners, said they wanted the government to resolve their living problems, which included a lack of health insurance.
“We were also fired from our companies,” he said over the telephone. “For 20 years, they have deprived us of our right to life.”
Chen said he and the three other signatories had not been bothered by police, and believed Wu had been detained because he wrote the letter.
In Beijing, meanwhile, Ding Zilin (丁子霖), a 72-year-old woman whose son Jiang Jielian (蔣捷連) was shot and killed in the crackdown on the evening of June 3, said she had been asked to leave Beijing ahead of tomorrow’s anniversary.
“But I refused,” she said, adding she had been followed yesterday when she left her house to buy things to mark her son’s birthday, which would have been yesterday, and his death.
In Guizhou Province, human rights activist Chen Xi (陳西) said he had been put under house arrest, and fellow dissidents in Guiyang, the provincial capital, were under strict surveillance.
The latest crackdown on dissidents came after Bao Tong (鮑彤) — a former aide to late Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) — was taken out of Beijing last week.
Qi Zhiyong (齊志勇), who lost a leg after being shot during the crackdown, said he was under house arrest in west Beijing, and had been stopped from going to church on Sunday.
And Jiang Qisheng (江棋生), who was jailed in 1999 for four years for calling on people to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the crackdown, said police had been stationed at his Beijing home around the clock.
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