{"id":39089,"date":"2014-04-09T21:02:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T21:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=39089 "},"modified":"2014-04-09T21:02:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-09T21:02:00","slug":"39089-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=39089","title":{"rendered":"hina Releases Two Citizen Journalists, One Still Held"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>2014-04-08<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2014\/14\/20144940d621b2-12bf-4cc5-97ef-7f87fec13ccd.jpeg\" alt=\"20144940d621b2-12bf-4cc5-97ef-7f87fec13ccd.jpeg (622&#215;406)\" \/><br \/><div><\/div><div>Chinese paramilitary police march on Tiananmen Square toward the Mao Zedong mausoleum (R) in Beijing, Dec. 26, 2013.<\/div><div>&nbsp;AFP<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Authorities in the Chinese capital have released on bail two rights activists detained on public order offenses, but a third remained behind bars, fellow activists said on Tuesday.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Liu Xuehong, Xing Jian and Wang Jing, activists who are also citizen journalists, were all criminally detained by Beijing police last month on suspicion of &#8220;stirring up trouble&#8221; after they posted reports and photos on a self-immolation and other protests on Tiananmen Square.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Liu and Xing returned home on Monday after being released on bail, Xing told RFA in an interview on Tuesday. But Wang remained in detention.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;We were granted bail by the Beijing No. 1 Detention Center at around 10:00 a.m. [on Monday],&#8221; Xing said. &#8220;They made me sign &#8230; [various] documents.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;Then police from our hometown in Xi county [in the central province of Henan] put handcuffs on us and dragged us off to the Beijing west railway station and escorted us home,&#8221; he said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;Then they took us to a police station in rural Xi county and issued me with a warning, and put my contact records on file,&#8221; he said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Xing, who has pursued a long-running complaint against local officials over farmland taken from his parents, said he often files reports of incidents involving petitioners to the website of the Sichuan-based rights group Tianwang.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>He said he believed his most recent detention was linked to reports in overseas media, based on his posts.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;When I was getting out of the detention center, the police there told me not to have any contact with foreign media, because they all have ulterior motives, and they&#8217;re not interested in helping protect our rights,&#8221; Xing said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;Most importantly, they didn&#8217;t want me to have any more contact with Huang Qi, [founder of] the Tianwang website,&#8221; he said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;If I did, they could put me back in jail at any time.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>He said Liu was released late on Monday evening, under similar conditions.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;But <\/div><div>we still don&#8217;t know what has become of Wang Jing,&#8221; Xing said. &#8220;It seems she has been taken back to a detention center in the jurisdiction [of her hometown].&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Calls to Liu Xuehong&#8217;s cell phone resulted in a switched-off message on Tuesday.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Under pressure<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Hong Kong-based fellow activist Wang Yan, who is a personal friend of Liu&#8217;s, said she had been severely restrained during her time in the detention center.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;Her hands and feet were bound together with leg irons and handcuffs as well, that were tied to each other,&#8221; Wang Yan said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;She told me it took four or five people to carry her to the bathroom every time she needed the toilet.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Meanwhile, Liu&#8217;s Beijing-based lawyer Li Jinglin said police had tried to put pressure on her to name Huang Qi as the &#8220;orchestrator&#8221; of her actions.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;They were asking her about the photos she took of people handing out [protest] leaflets during the annual parliamentary sessions, and that she posted on the Tianwang website,&#8221; Li said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;But how is posting something on the Internet &#8216;stirring up trouble&#8217;?&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Xing said the police interrogating him had taken a similar line.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;They wanted me to give evidence against Huang Qi,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They kept asking me whether Huang Qi was directing me from behind the scenes.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;They said Tianwang has links to overseas news agencies and to anti-China forces.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Li said the tactic was a common one when the state security police are trying to pin a case on a particular individual.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;It&#8217;s clear that the police were trying to get them to name names,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Even if the other person is innocent, they will try to pin all manner of things on a specified individual.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Still detained<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Li, who is also representing Wang Jing, said he had traveled to her hometown of Jilin in northeastern China in a bid to visit her in the detention center, but to no avail.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t able to see her, so I made a complaint about the detention center to the local court, but they wouldn&#8217;t accept the case,&#8221; he said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;There is no legal reason for them to refuse me permission to meet with her.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Wang Jing&#8217;s Jilin-based mother Sun Yanhua said her daughter was &#8220;safe,&#8221; but said it was &#8220;inconvenient&#8221; for her to comment further, suggesting she may be under tight surveillance.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>On March 5, Wang Jing reported seeing police and a water truck rush to Tiananmen Square at around 11:00 a.m. to extinguish flames on a woman who had set herself alight, sending a plume of smoke into the sky near Tiananmen Gate.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;There was smoke coming from near the Jinshui Bridge, and I ran over to see what was happening,&#8221; Wang Jing told RFA in an interview at the time.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;I saw white stuff [extinguisher foam] everywhere; you couldn&#8217;t see the person, and then they started to clear the area and the police wouldn&#8217;t let people take photos,&#8221; she said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>She said police had snatched her cell phone after she began recording video on it.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Wang Jing said a group of police officers had appeared very soon after the woman caught fire, and put out the blaze with fire extinguishers.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Tianwang relies on a far-flung network of volunteers for its reports of rights violations and protests across China.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Several other volunteer citizen journalists, including Jiang Chengfen, Li Chunhua and Yang Xiuqiong, are already in detention, awaiting trial on similar charges, according to the group.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Reported by Qiao Long for RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ffffff;\">Continue reading the&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/released-04082014170644.html\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ffffff;\"><strong>original article<\/strong><\/a><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ffffff;\">.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Liu Xuehong, Xing Jian and Wang Jing, activists who are also citizen journalists, were all criminally detained by Beijing police last month on suspicion of &quot;stirring up trouble&quot; after they posted reports and photos on a self-immolation and other protests on Tiananmen Square.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}