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Arrests made in China amid online
protest calls
BLOCKING UNREST:Several prominent human rights lawyers
have been detained, while references to the ¡¥Jasmine Revolution¡¦ on the Internet
have been blocked
AFP and AP, BEIJING
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A man arrested by police gestures in front of
the Peace Cinema in Shanghai yesterday, where Internet social networks were
calling to join a ¡§Jasmine Revolution¡¨ protest.
Photo: Reuters
Several top Chinese rights activists have disappeared into police custody as a
Web campaign urged angry citizens to mark the Middle East¡¦s ¡§Jasmine Revolution¡¨
with protests, campaigners said yesterday.
More than 100 activists in cities across China were taken away by police,
confined to their homes or were missing, the Hong Kong-based group Information
Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
¡§We welcome ... laid off workers and victims of forced evictions to participate
in demonstrations, shout slogans and seek freedom, democracy and political
reform to end ¡¥one-party rule,¡¦¡¨ one Internet posting said.
The source of the call was not known and many activists seemed not to know what
to make of it, even as they spread the word. They said they were unaware of any
known group being involved in the request for citizens to gather in 13 cities
and shout: ¡§We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness and
long live democracy.¡¨
The postings, many of which appeared to have originated on overseas Web sites
run by exiled Chinese political activists, called for protests in Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou and 10 other major cities.
As the word spread on the demonstrations, numerous political dissidents and
rights lawyers were placed in police custody, activists said.
¡§Many rights defenders have disappeared [into police custody] in recent days,
others are under house arrest and their mobile phones are blocked,¡¨ rights
attorney Ni Yulan (Ù¥ÉÄõ) said.
¡§The police detachment outside my door has increased. They follow us if we go
out,¡¨ Ni said of the surveillance on her and her husband.
Telephone calls to prominent rights lawyers including Teng Biao (¼ð³C), Xu Zhiyong
(³\§Ó¥Ã) and Jiang Tianyong (¦¿¤Ñ«i) went unanswered yesterday. Friends and other
activists said they had been detained by police.
Police pulled Jiang into a car and drove away, his wife said, telling reporters
by telephone on Saturday night that she was still waiting for more information.
Chinese authorities have sought to restrict media reports on the recent
political turmoil that began in Tunisia as the ¡§Jasmine Revolution¡¨ and spread
to Egypt and across the Middle East.
Yesterday, searches for ¡§jasmine¡¨ were blocked on China¡¦s largest Twitter-like
microblog Weibo, and status updates with the word on popular Chinese social
networking site Renren.com were met with an error message and a warning to
refrain from postings with ¡§political, sensitive ... or other inappropriate
content.¡¨ Messages on the popular Baidu search engine said that because of laws
and regulations, such results were unavailable. Some Chinese Internet search
pages listed ¡§jasmine¡¨ postings, but links to them were blocked.
Mass text messaging service was unavailable in Beijing due to ¡§technical
issues,¡¨ according to a customer service operator for leading provider China
Mobile.
On Beijing¡¦s busy Wangfujing pedestrian mall, where protesters were told to
rally in front of a McDonald¡¦s restaurant, there was a heavier-than-normal
police presence amid the crowds of shoppers.
Along with uniformed police and ¡§public security volunteers¡¨ wearing red
armbands, plainclothes officers monitored the crowd with video and still
cameras. A police surveillance van was parked across the street from the
restaurant.
At least two people were seen being taken away by police, one for cursing at the
authorities and another person who was shouting: ¡§I want food to eat.¡¨
¡§I don¡¦t think the call to protest was serious, no one really intended to
protest because there are too many police,¡¨ leading rights lawyer Li Jinsong
(§õ«lªQ) told reporters.
¡§By taking this so seriously, police are showing how concerned they are that the
Jasmine Revolution could influence China¡¦s social stability,¡¨ Li said.
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