<\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Chang Ping<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> The ruling Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has launched a crackdown on the families of overseas dissidents as part of a nationwide probe into an open letter calling on him to resign.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> The authorities are already questioning a number of employees of the Watching News website after an open letter signed by “loyal party members” and accusing Xi of a major power grab that had damaged China’s interests was published there, allegedly by hackers.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Now, police have detained three relatives of Germany-based journalist Chang Ping, who lost his job at a state-run newspaper in 2011, apparently in connection with the same investigation.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “My two brothers and my sister were kidnapped by police in China’s Sichuan province on [Sunday],” Chang told RFA. “They were on their way back to our parental home to visit our ageing parents when they were detained.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “They were held against their will with no legal process whatsoever,” he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Chang’s relatives had been told by police to contact him and warn him off writing any more articles critical of the communist regime, he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “If they didn’t, they said they would find a way to frame them for some crime,” he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Chang said the threats seemed to be linked to the probe into the open letter to Xi.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “The government is very concerned about this, and they have set up a special task force to investigate,” he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “But I have personally had nothing whatsoever to do with the drafting or publication of this letter.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> In a longer statement translated by the U.S.-based website China Change, Chang vowed to continue with his work as before, adding that he would support his family if they chose to cut ties with him.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “The harassment and threats of the authorities allow me to see even more the value of my writings, and encourage me to work harder in future,” wrote Chang, who has a regular column for Deutsche Welle.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> The detention and threatening of Chang’s relatives comes after New York-based blogger Wen Yunchao said his relatives were also targeted.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Wen, who writes under the pen-name Bei Feng, said on his Twitter feed that that his parents and younger brother were detained on March 22 in the southern province of Guangdong.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> ‘Huge pressure’ on family<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Wen, whose friends say had merely retweeted the report on Watching News about the letter to Xi, said he believed his family’s disappearance was also related to the case.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> But Wen declined to give an interview when contacted by RFA on Monday. “It’s not convenient to speak to you because my family are really under huge pressure,” he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said he was shocked at the lengths to which the authorities have gone in reaction to the letter.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “If I’d known about it, I would have signed it, even put my name to it as a co-author,” Hu said. “Xi Jinping has presided over a brutal regime in recent years, both by jailing people, and by means of an unprecedented level of control on freedom of speech.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “He has done so many evil deeds, including the crackdown on lawyers and on citizens who supported [Hong Kong’s pro-democracy] Umbrella movement, that he shouldn’t just resign; he should stand trial,” Hu said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> Germany-based journalist Su Yutong said she, like Chang, had been forced to leave China because of growing restriction on freedom of expression.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “I think that this open letter really shook them up in a big way, and that the situation looks really very frightening both for a lot of dissidents and for people who had nothing to do with it,” Su said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> She said Chang, who has been targeted via his family in the past, is unable to return to China, while his family are unable to leave.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> “The authorities will target the families of dissidents like us … but we are doing these things out of personal choice, not because our parents told us to do them,” Su said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p> <\/strong><\/p> ![\"20163280e31f996-3885-4a0b-8843-7c2722aaca40.jpeg](\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2016\/12\/20163280e31f996-3885-4a0b-8843-7c2722aaca40.jpeg\")
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