Activists Held in Crackdown Ahead of China's Parliament Session

Chinese authorities have detained a number of high-profile rights activists in a nationwide crackdown ahead of the opening of the latest session of the country's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), this week.

Liu Feiyue, founder of the Hubei-based Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch group, was placed under administrative detention by police in his hometown of Suizhou after refusing police demands that he not post articles online, fellow activists said on Tuesday.

"Liu Feiyue agreed to not go out, but he was never going to agree not to post stuff online," a rights activist surnamed Wu from the eastern province of Zhejiang told RFA.

"He was detained and taken to the local police station," Wu said.

Liu's own website posted the news of his detention, saying that he had received a visit from state security police late on Monday night.

An officer who answered the phone at the Dongcheng district police station in Suizhou declined to comment on Liu's case.

"I don't really know. This is the duty officer," the officer said.

"You need to speak to the case officer."

Fellow Hubei-based activist Shi Yulin, who spoke to Liu shortly before he was taken away, said Liu had been arrested by a high-ranking state security police officer.

"He said there was no basis in law, and that he would agree not to go out [for the duration of the NPC], but not to stop posting things online," Shi said.

Repeated calls to Liu's cell phone rang unanswered on Tuesday.

'It's harrowing'

In Beijing, rights activist Hu Jia,who is himself being held under house arrest during the NPC sessions, said Hong Kong-based rights activist Liu Linna, better known as Liu Shasha, was being held in Beijing's No. 1 Detention Center.

"Liu Shasha has been very active in Guangdong and Hong Kong, so for her to come to Beijing would put huge pressure on the government, because Beijing is the political center of the country," Hu said.

"I don't know what sort of future she faces, but every day in a detention center feels like a year," Hu said.

"It's very depressing to be locked up in such a place for that sort of charge," he said. "It makes you feel intensely anxious; it's harrowing."

Liu Shasha's husband, prominent Diaoyu Islands activist Yeung Hung, is under criminal detention in the southern city of Shenzhen on suspicion of illegally crossing the immigration border with neighboring Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, China's Special Administrative Region, is a former British colony and still maintains an immigration border with the mainland.

As the NPC's advisory body opened in Beijing on Monday, the iconic Tiananmen Square at the heart of the capital was under tight security, local residents said.

"Tiananmen Square is under security lockdown, with police standing guard every five meters," a resident surnamed Li said.

"As soon as they spot anyone with a petition or a complaint, they detain them."

Open letter

Meanwhile, a group of high-profile lawyers, academics and journalists have penned an open letter to the NPC calling for the convictions of New Citizens' Movement anti-corruption activists to be overturned.

"The New Citizens' Movement activists are typical of cases in which someone is treated as a criminal for their speech alone," the letter said.

"Lawyers say that the judgements against them fail to establish significant harm as a result of their gathering a crowd together, and that the witnesses called in the case were all either police or private security guards," it said.

"We would like to ask the delegates whether these judgements are protecting public order, or the interests of corrupt officials?"

China has jailed a number of "New Citizens' Movement" anti-corruption activists on public order charges in recent weeks after they staged public demonstrations calling on the country's leaders to reveal details of their wealth.

Last month, a court in Beijing convicted Yuan Dong, Ding Jiaxi, Li Wei, and Zhang Baocheng for "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order," a day after the sentencing of prominent dissident Xu Zhiyong, a co-founder of the New Citizens' Movement, to four years' imprisonment on the same charges.

The NPC opens in Beijing on Wednesday and is expected to debate economic growth, smog, official corruption and military spending, as well as domestic security in the wake of the deadly Kunming railway station attacks at the weekend. Dissenting votes are rare.

Reported by Xin Yu and Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Fung Yat-yiu for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.