Chinese Activists Say Protesters Being Detained Ahead of Ceremonial Parliament’s Annual Session
By DEAN VISSER
BEIJING March 3 – China’s government is detaining people who were protesting problems ranging from poor health care to property seizures as the country’s ceremonial parliament prepares to open its annual session, activists and human rights groups said Friday.
Thousands of people visit Beijing each year during the 10-day legislative session, hoping to air complaints about corruption and other problems. Police routinely detain them and send them home.
This year, those detained or warned ahead of the parliament session, which begins Sunday, include AIDS patients who want better medical care and people who have petitioned the government over the loss of their homes for redevelopment.
Liu Xinjuan, an activist who has complained about homes being demolished without proper compensation, was sent home to Shanghai from Beijing and forced into a mental hospital, said New York-based Human Rights in China.
A woman who answered the phone at Shanghai’s Minxin Mental Health Center confirmed Friday that Liu was there. The woman, who identified herself only by the surname Zhang, refused to give details about Liu’s case or say when she would be released.
Ji Wenpai, a Beijing woman who says her house outside the capital was demolished in 2004 without compensation, said Friday that police were blocking her and her husband from going into city during the parliament.
Ji, 46, said her family now lives with her husband’s parents.
“Now the police are outside my in-laws’ home,” Ji said in a telephone interview. “Yesterday, two police officers came to the house and took my phone book away,” apparently to keep her from contacting people outside.
“If I go shopping, the police follow me,” she said.
In addition, 10 people from the central province of Henan who say they were infected with the AIDS virus by an unsanitary blood-buying industry have been warned by police to stay away from the capital, said Wan Yanhai, a Beijing health activist.
Zhang Jianping, who said he was paralyzed after being struck by a car owned by a forestry official, said six police officers were outside his home in the eastern city of Yixing to keep him from going to Beijing.
“I hope every person in China can fully enjoy citizen’s rights, whether they’re rich or poor,” said the unemployed former chemical plant manager. “I hope China can bring about democracy and a clean judicial system in the near future.”
A city official in Yixing, who identified herself by the surname Jiang, said the local government was concerned about Zhang’s case and had offered his family financial help.
China has a centuries-old tradition of people from the provinces coming to the capital to appeal for attention to problems ranging from abusive local officials to land disputes.
The practice has continued in the communist era, despite the government’s creation of a nationwide network of complaint offices that are supposed to hear and resolve grievances.
Petitioners include farmers who have lost their land, laid off workers who say they were cheated of unemployment benefits or people who say they were mistreated by officials enforcing China’s strict birth control policies.
In many case, people complain that local officials try to suppress embarrassing information. But the central government also takes part in the suppression of complaints, organizing police throughout China to collect detained petitioners in Beijing and return them to their hometowns, sometimes by the busload.
“The Chinese government’s crackdown on its more vocally critical citizens before high-profile meetings … undercuts the legitimacy of what is supposed to be a representative process,” Human Rights in China said in a statement this week.
The New York-based group said police also are trying to suppress knowledge of a hunger strike launched by activist Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng to protest violence against political activists.
Gao and other activists say at least a dozen people have been detained for taking part in the strike, which began last month.
Shanghai activist Wang Lizhuang was detained on suspicion that he was publicizing the hunger strike on the Internet, Human Rights in China said. Police seized his computer and other materials, it said.
