2014-01-07
Guo Feixiong in a file photo.
Photo courtesy of Guo Feixiong
Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have detained activists and a lawyer on the first anniversary of a rare press freedom protest, with a strong police presence around the offices of a cutting-edge newspaper in an apparent bid to muffle further dissent, netizens and lawyers said.
Guangzhou-based activist Xiao Yuhui said he was detained by police at the weekend outside the headquarters of the Southern Media Group, which publishes the outspoken Southern Weekend newspaper at the heart of the dispute in January last year when the public held a rare protest supporting the paper’s journalists who had gone on strike.
The protest and strike on Jan. 7, 2013 occurred after the paper’s pro-reform New Year editorial message was radically altered by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department to reflect the party line.
“I heard [on Sunday] morning that there were large numbers of police and state security police gathered there, and no sooner had I arrived there than I was surrounded by police and state security police,” Xiao said in an interview on Tuesday.
“There was a bit of an altercation between us, and about nine of them used considerable force to get me into their vehicle,” he said.
Xiao said he was taken to a nearby police station for questioning, where he was held for four hours before being released at around 10:00 p.m. local time.
Police presence
Meanwhile, a Hunan-based activist known online by his nickname Xiao Bao said he had had news from a number of activists at the scene that the police presence was a bid to prevent any public commemoration of last year’s protests.
“This is clearly a case of obstruction by the authorities of those who wish to mark the first anniversary of the protest,” he said.
“They have taken preventive measures … They stepped up controls and were interrogating any passersby who looked suspicious,” Xiao Bao said.
Xiao Bao, who recently returned from a visit to Guangzhou, said he was questioned by phone by state security police from his hometown.
“They didn’t give any reason; just said they wanted to take me out to eat,” he said. “I hung up the phone after a brief exchange.”
Guangzhou-based rights lawyer Sui Muqing said police had detained a fellow lawyer who had inquired after another missing activist, Xiao Qingshan, and others who had gone incommunicado since the anniversary.
Lawyer Liu Shihui’s whereabouts were only discovered after he replied to lawyers who were shouting his name in the police station, but police had initially claimed he had left, Sui said.
“I expect he got into an altercation and was detained,” Sui said. “They totally lied to us. The police are supposed to be public servants, but even they tell lies.”
Administrative detention
Sui said he believed Liu is being held under administrative detention, a punishment which can be handed out by police to those they see as troublemakers for up to 15 days without a trial.
The rewriting of the paper’s New Year front page editorial last January sparked a public outcry after internal documents were leaked, and prompted a strike by journalists at the paper, which was supported by students and rights activists who gathered at the gates of the paper’s headquarters.
The original editorial had called for constitution, government and political reform, but was reportedly changed by provincial propaganda official Tuo Zhen without the consent of the authors, an unprecedented move, even for China’s state control of the media.
Campaigning Guangzhou-based rights lawyer Yang Maodong, better known by his pseudonym Guo Feixiong, was later detained for “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” in connection with the Southern Weekend incident.
Guo, also a veteran of the Taishi village campaign to remove its Communist Party leader in 2005, which ended in violent clashes, was formally charged at the end of last year, paving the way for a trial.
Reported by Xin Yu for RFA’s Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
