{"id":76216,"date":"2017-08-16T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=76216 "},"modified":"2017-08-16T16:43:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T16:43:00","slug":"76216-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=76216","title":{"rendered":"Poet Held in Southern China Over Planned Poetry Anthology Remembering Liu Xiaobo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2017-08-22<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2017\/33\/2017822image(6).jpg\" alt=\"2017822image(6).jpg (605&#215;340)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Wu Minglang at a police station in Guangzhou in an undated photo.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Photo courtesy of an RFA listener<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have criminally detained a poet after he compiled an anthology to commemorate late Nobel peace laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo, who died last month of liver cancer in police custody.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Wu Minglang, 49, known by his pen-name Langzi, was detained in Guangdong&#8217;s provincial capital Guangzhou on Aug. 18 on suspicion of &#8220;illegal business activity.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A copy of his initial statement showed that he was interviewed by &#8220;law enforcement from the Haizhu District State Administration for Press and Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT).<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;It is our intention to begin an investigation based on your suspected violation of rules and regulations pertaining to publications,&#8221; the officer told Wu. &#8220;Do you understand?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I understand,&#8221; Wu replied, according to the record, before giving his name, date and city of birth.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;They detained him using charges of illegal business activity,&#8221; Independent Chinese PEN co-founder Bei Ling told RFA on Tuesday. &#8220;It is clear that the Chinese government doesn&#8217;t want to see any poems commemorating Liu Xiaobo &#8230; published.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;Writer of conscience&#8217;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Fellow poet Meng Lang, who had been working on plans for the same anthology alongside Wu, said he is a &#8220;writer of conscience.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;In early July, I started to gather together an anthology with the help of my friends who are writers and poets,&#8221; Meng said. &#8220;Langzi was among those who took part.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Langzi has since been detained because he helped with the editing selection of the poems, as well as writing a poem himself to commemorate Liu Xiaobo,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Meng said he believes the anthology is entirely appropriate, given that Liu was a writer who also wrote poetry.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The government should encourage this, not suppress it,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A friend of Wu&#8217;s who asked to remain anonymous said the authorities had yet to issue any formal notification of Wu&#8217;s detention, however.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I haven&#8217;t seen the notification of criminal detention yet because they haven&#8217;t made it public,&#8221; the friend said. &#8220;I think this has to do with Liu Xiaobo.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&nbsp;china-gong-xinhua-400.jpgGong Xinhua in an undated photo. Credit: RFA listener Rights activist detained<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Meanwhile, authorities in the eastern province of Jiangxi have detained rights activist Gong Xinhua on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble, his friends told RFA.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;They said he is being held under criminal detention &#8230; I heard he was detained in Guangzhou and brought back from there,&#8221; Zhang Zanning said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Another associate of Gong&#8217;s surnamed Yang said he had hoped to find a job in the city.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I called the police station and they said he is under criminal detention, but that they were planning to have him diagnosed with a mental health problem,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The results of the psychiatric examination aren&#8217;t out yet, and they haven&#8217;t sent him to the psychiatric unit yet.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But online posts said Gong is being targeted by the authorities for advocating a more democratic form of government online.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/poet-08222017110033.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Wu Minglang, 49, known by his pen-name Langzi, was detained in Guangdong&#39;s provincial capital Guangzhou on Aug. 18 on suspicion of &quot;illegal business activity.&quot;A copy of his initial statement showed that he was interviewed by &quot;law enforcement from the Haizhu District State Administration for Press and Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT).&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-76216","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\/76216","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=76216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}