China Detains AIDS Activist, Clears Guangdong Protests

By RADIO FREE ASIA
December 30, 2007

As the city gears up to host the Olympic Games in 2008, authorities in Beijing have detained a prominent civil rights activist on charges of "incitement to subvert state power" and have demolished the last of a shanty town housing people lodging complaints against the government.

Chinese rights activist Hu Jia, best known for his advocacy work on behalf of those living with HIV/AIDS, has been detained by national security police in Beijing on charges of "incitement to subvert state power," a fellow activist said.

Hu was detained while in the middle of an exchange of instant messages via Skype with another rights activist, Qi Zhiyong, Qi told RFA's Cantonese service.

"I was chatting on Skype with Hu Jia, and it was right in the middle of that conversation that he was detained. The charge was incitement to subvert state power," Qi said.

"Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan, and their child and his mother-in-law are now under surveillance."

Shanty Town Cleared

"They have cut off all their means of communication with the outside world, and confiscated all their communications devices," Qi said.

Meanwhile, bulldozers cleared away the last shacks in "Petitioner village" near the southern railway station in the capital, petitioners say.

Beijing-based petitioner Zhao Shuling said: "It's because of the Olympic Games. The area around the southern railway station will become an international railway terminus, which will be huge, with three levels underground."

"Around the time of the Olympics, a lot of foreigners will come to Beijing, and the petitioner village will spoil the look of the city. That's why the authorities have demolished it."

Asked where the petitioners were going to live, Zhao replied, "Of course there's nowhere for them to go."

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