2014-12-11
Hada in an undated photo.
(Photo courtesy of SMHRIC.)
Chinese authorities in Inner Mongolia are continuing to hold veteran dissident Hada under “residential surveillance,” even after his release from unofficial detention, a U.S.-based rights group said on Thursday.
The long-serving ethnic Mongolian political prisoner was released by Chinese authorities on Tuesday to a police-owned apartment after spending four years in extrajudicial detention at the Jinye Ecological Park in the regional capital Hohhot, where he was being held after serving a 15-year jail term for “separatism” and “espionage.”
Hada, 59, was initially allowed to meet with his wife Xinna, son Uiles, brother Yushan,and sister Yuyue following his “release,” although he had been living in the apartment since Nov. 17, the Southern Mongolia Human Rights and Information Center (SMHRIC) said in a statement on its website.
The SMHRIC said the New York-based group had managed to contact Hada via Skype for an interview on Thursday morning local time, but that the interview had been curtailed.
“The interview lasted only 15 seconds before the communication line was cut, apparently by the Chinese authorities,” it said.
But before being cut off, Hada, who like many Mongols goes by one name, told the group that he was currently “confined to the fifth-floor apartment in a residential complex that has been heavily guarded around the clock by security personnel.”
Hada’s family views his “release” as relatively meaningless, SMHRIC said.
“Rather they consider this as another form of house arrest or the so-called “residential surveillance” under which Hada has no freedom of movement or assembly, no freedom of communication and no freedom of speech and expression,” it said.
“Although brief and sporadic meetings with family members and relatives are allowed under tight surveillance, no true family reunion has yet taken place in their own home.”
It said cable Internet and wireless network connections have been completely cut in Hada’s apartment and throughout the surrounding area.
“The same state security personnel who guarded Hada in the “black jail” are reportedly following Xinna and Uiles,” it added.
Text message
A text message from Xinna sent to SMHRIC, read: “On International Human Rights Day today, we are still having difficulty defending our right to communication and right to give media interviews.”
On Wednesday, Xinna told RFA she believed Hada’s transfer to the police apartment was the result of factional strife within the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
