2014-10-01
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Mainland Chinese supporters of Hong Kong’s democracy protests gather in Beijing, Sept. 29, 2014.
Photo courtesy of a Chinese democracy activist
International rights groups called on Wednesday for the release of dozens of activists being held across China for showing support for Occupy Central’s mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
At least 20 people have been detained by police in a number of mainland Chinese cities after they posted photographs of themselves with shaved heads as a message of support for the protests, which are calling for genuine universal suffrage in 2017 elections in the former British colony.
At least 60 more have been called in by state security police for questioning, Amnesty International said in a statement on its website.
“The Chinese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release all those detained for peacefully showing support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,” the group said.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s censorship machine, known colloquially as the Great Firewall, has blocked and filtered keywords linked to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and banned the photo-sharing service Instagram in a bid to keep its more than 600 million netizens in the dark about developments there.
Among those detained or held under guard at their homes to prevent them from traveling to Hong Kong to join the demonstrations were Hunan activist Ou Biaofeng and Shenzhen-based Wang Long, detained on criminal charges of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” it said.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, police seized dozens of activists and citizens who gathered in the Martyr Memorial Gardens to show support for the Hong Kong protests on Tuesday, the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said in an e-mailed statement.
The group, which monitors and collates reports from rights groups inside China, said an estimated 20 people were detained and taken to unknown locations.
Luo Xiaoxiang, another activist from Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province which borders Hong Kong, was also detained, while Xie Dan and Luo Yaling are being held in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, Amnesty said.
Shanghai-based Chen Jianfang and Shen Yanqiu were also named, along with Song Ningsheng, Gong Xinsheng and Chen Maosen from the eastern province of Jiangsu.
In Beijing, police have imposed tight domestic surveillance on Liu Huizhen, Li Dongmei, Guo Zhiying, Chen Lianhe, Wu Xiaoping, Han Shuzhen, Cui Baodi and Zhang Chonggang, Amnesty reported.
Circumvention software
While the complex system of filters, blocks and human censorship severely limit what Chinese netizens are able to see online, activists and intellectuals are increasingly making use of circumvention software and virtual private network (VPN) services to “scale the Wall” and read blocked content.
