2015-03-09
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Activist Chen Yunfei leads a protest against alleged pollution at a petrochemical plant in Pengzhou, in Sichuan province, March 6, 2015.
Photo courtesy of an RFA listener
Authorities in the northern Chinese city of Xi’an are holding two activists who tried to launch a street protest over the toxic smog that routinely blankets the country, fellow protesters said Monday, as censors removed all access to an environmental documentary from local websites after it went viral on the country’s tightly controlled Internet.
A fellow protester from Xi’an, who gave only his online nickname “Zhanpo Dao,” said Zhang Hui and Feng Honglian, known online as “Wu Mian,” were in a police-run detention center, suggesting the authorities plan to bring criminal charges against them.
“They have both been visited in there by others, and their stuff has already been transferred over there,” Zhanpo Dao told RFA on Monday. “Some people took them some food and water and other things.”
He said it was unclear what the police planned to do next.
“There hasn’t been any sort of official paperwork, so right know it’s hard to say whether they are being criminally detained or held for interrogation,” he said.
“But they have definitely lost their freedom.”
Zhanpo Dao said the detentions had come as more than 20 people took to the streets of Xi’an on Sunday, holding up placards in protest at a lack of government action over air pollution.
“The smog should be dealt with by the government, but the government isn’t doing its job,” he said. “So we have no other option but to come out onto the streets.”
“We held up banners and placards in the hope of forcing the government to do something about the smog,” he said. “We never thought they’d … detain people.”
“All we wanted was for other people to see us, and to understand this cancer [of corruption], how it came about, so the government would act.”
Xi’an-based lawyer Dong Falin said he planned to represent Zhang and Feng, who had done nothing illegal.
“It is an abuse of official power for the police to detain someone for this long simply for expressing their demands in a normal manner,” Dong told RFA on Monday.
“This was just an expression of their opinions.”
‘Under the Dome’
China recently censored “Under the Dome,” a hard-hitting documentary film looking at the causes of the country’s “airpocalypse” smog problem, taking it down from video-sharing sites after it clocked up more than 150 million online views.
A link to the film on the Chinese video site Youku returned the message: “We apologize, but Youku couldn’t find the page you requested.”
Former China Central Television (CCTV) anchor Chai Jing released the self-funded film online earlier this month.
