2015-04-29
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Online activists gather in Suzhou to remember Lin Zhao, April 29, 2015.
RFA
Authorities in the eastern city of Suzhou deployed thousands of riot police who raided an activist’s home in the early hours of Wednesday morning, detaining dozens of people and blocking a planned ceremony to mark the execution of a Mao-era political dissident, activists said.
“The police surrounded the home of Xu Chunling … who had offered several dozen people who came from around the country a place to sleep … at about 4 a.m.,” local high school teacher and activist Lu Pan told RFA on Wednesday.
“At about 9 a.m., Xu Chunling’s door was busted in by riot police,” Pan said. “There were more than 30 people staying at her place.”
“They are all being held, including Jia Pin, Wang Liang, Peng Zhonglin and others,” she said.
“Zhu Chengzhi was also detained at the guesthouse where he was staying, and taken away by riot police,” Pan said.
In a brief interview from inside the police station, Xu Chunling said police had offered no explanation.
“There were no formalities; all these people just suddenly surrounded the place,” she said. “Those who weren’t detained were escorted elsewhere.”
“There weren’t really any physical clashes,” Xu said, before hanging up the phone.
Memorial event
More than 100 activists from Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Hunan provinces had arrived in the city ahead of the 47th anniversary of Lin Zhao’s execution for alleged counterrevolutionary crimes under the rule of late supreme leader Mao Zedong.
They had planned to hold a memorial event at the Lingyan Shan hillside cemetery, the site of Lin’s tomb, but riot police with shields, helmets and batons had cordoned off the area, and were allowing no one in, activists said.
Pan said other activists who tried to approach the trail-head for the hillside site of Lin Zhao’s tomb had also been detained.
“Various people, including friends from Shandong, Wuxi and Shanghai, were taken away as soon as they get anywhere near the Lingyan Shan area,” she said.
“The authorities in Suzhou dispatched a huge police presence here, around 5,000 people, at a conservative estimate,” Pan added.
