{"id":32689,"date":"2013-02-25T21:05:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T21:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=32689 "},"modified":"2013-02-25T21:05:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T21:05:00","slug":"32689-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=32689","title":{"rendered":"Guangzhou Police Detain, Beat Anti-nuke Protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2013-02-25       <\/div>
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Police confront protesters demonstrating in Guangzhou on Feb. 23, 2013 over Pyongyang’s nuclear test.<\/div>
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Photo courtesy of an eyewitness<\/div>
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Updated at 5:10 p.m. EST on 2012-02-25<\/div>
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Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have detained and beaten several activists who staged a recent protest over this month’s North Korean nuclear test, rights activists said on Monday.<\/div>
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“Four people are in detention by Guangzhou police for ‘illegal assembly and demonstration,'” the rights group Weiquanwang said.<\/div>
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It said Zhang Shengyu and Liu Yuandong had each received administrative sentences of 15 days, and were being held in the Yuexiu district detention center in Guangzhou.<\/div>
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Xu Lin was handed a seven-day detention in the Panyu district detention center, while Liu Yunyun was being held in the Haizhu district detention center for an unknown period, the group said.<\/div>
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“Weiquanwang strongly protests this suppression by the Guangzhou authorities of citizens’ right to take part in gatherings, demonstrations, and protests, as well as environmental protection,” it said.<\/div>
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“We demand that the authorities immediately release all those activists who were detained.”<\/div>
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Flash-mob protest<\/div>
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Between 13 and 16 people took part in Saturday’s flash-mob protest on the streets of Guangzhou, in a show of public anger at the test on China’s doorstep.<\/div>
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Around 10 protesters were detained while eating a meal together following the protest, although not all were handed administrative sentences, fellow activist Yuan Xiaohua said.<\/div>
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“Zhang Maozhong and Sun Desheng were both beaten, and Wang Aizhong was beaten up quite badly, while I heard that Liu Yuandong was also beaten during his time in detention,” said Yuan.<\/div>
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“Cheng Qiubo and Ran Xiang were released,” Yuan added. “It seems [Ran] was taken to a police station in Panyu rather than the one nearby.”<\/div>
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“I don’t know what happened to the rest of them, because they were unable to get in contact with their families,” he said.<\/div>
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Cheng Qiubo said in a brief telephone interview on Sunday: “The police came to the scene and all of us were dragged away.”<\/div>
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“Afterwards, I found out that there were a few people who were detained.”<\/div>
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Bruises seen<\/div>
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Guangzhou-based lawyer Sui Muqing said he had been to visit Liu Yuandong in the detention center on Monday, and had seen bruises on his face after he suffered a beating at police hands.<\/div>
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Sui said a group of lawyers has already agreed to represent the protesters.<\/div>
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“They are being held under administrative detention for illegal assembly,” he said. “The next step will be an administrative review, because these aren’t criminal cases.”<\/div>
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“We are still in the administrative stage of dealing with this, and we are looking into hiring a lawyer from Beijing,” Sui added.<\/div>
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Ran Xiang later posted to her Twitter-like account that she had been dragged away from the meal by police and questioned for 11 hours at the police station before being released.<\/div>
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She said another detainee, Liu Yunyun, had managed to get a message out to say that police had demanded she write a “confession,” but that she had refused to sign a document presented to her.<\/div>
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Police had responded by saying that Liu could die in the detention center, and that no one would know about it, Ran wrote.<\/div>
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Outrage over detentions<\/div>
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Netizens reacted with outrage to the news of the detentions, with angry tweets from Hunan scholar Fu Zizhuang and Chen Qingqiu of the South China University of Technology.<\/div>
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A Guangzhou-based Twitter user identified only as Xiao Biao said the authorities were opposed to any form of organized protest by Chinese citizens.<\/div>
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“These sorts of protests put the spotlight on the government, which they really want to avoid,” Xiao Biao wrote.<\/div>
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“If I’m honest, I am in despair over China.”<\/div>
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The test earlier this month of a miniaturized nuclear warhead not far from the Chinese border prompted online outrage at the time, with many commentators saying they thought the test was intended as a threat to China rather than to the United States.<\/div>
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Reported by Xin Yu for RFA’s Mandarin Service and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/div>
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 <\/div>Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>the<\/span><\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>original article<\/a><\/a><\/a>.<\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/strong>
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