Boxun’s reporter has learned that Yang County, Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province renowned democracy activist Zhao Changqing has now probably been repatriated to a Shaanxi Province jail to serve out his sentence. Zhao Changqing’s wife Liu Xiaodong told Boxun’s reporter that on January 23, 2015 she went to the detention center for repatriating criminals outside Beijing to see Zhao Changqing. Zhao Changqing told her that perhaps on Tuesday January 27, 2015 he would be returned to Shaanxi Province. If he’s not sent back before Chinese New Year, he surely won’t still be in Beijing in March.
This is Zhao Changqing’s fifth time in jail. His first time was the result of participating in the spring 1989 democracy protests. He spent June-September, 1989 in Beijing’s Qincheng Prison. The second time was in 1997 for participating in Hanzhong Municipal People’s Congress elections. He was charged with “inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced to three years and held in Hanzhong prison. The third time was in 2002, for organizing support of US-based dissident Yang Jianli who’d returned to China on a false passport. He was charged with the crime of “inciting anger against the state” and sentenced to five years in prison in Shaanxi’s Weinan Prison. The fourth time in jail was for celebrating Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Zhao Changqing was charged with “unlawful assembly and disturbing social order,” administratively detained for eight days and held in Beijing’s Eastern District detention center.
On April 17, 2013, due to his participation in the New Citizens’ Movement, Zhao Changqing was criminally detained on suspicion of the crime of “unlawful assembly.” On May 24, 2013, he was formally arrested for the crime of “illegal assembly.” In 2014, Zhao Changqing was arrested for “incting a mob to disturb public order” and sentenced by Beijing’s Haidian court to two months and six days in jail. On June 27, 2014, the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court upheld the decision.
