Document 18 of 39.
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
AP Online
July 11, 1998; Saturday
06:50 Eastern Time
SECTION: International news
LENGTH: 531 words
HEADLINE: Nine Chinese Dissidents Detained
BYLINE: CHARLES HUTZLER
DATELINE: BEIJING
BODY:
Police detained nine Chinese democracy campaigners in a crackdown that exiled
dissidents said proves President Clinton left
China without securing progress on human rights.
The nine, veterans of past democracy movements, have tried to set up a
political party to challenge the
Communist Party's monopoly on power. Their push coincided with Clinton's
China trip and his less confrontational appeals to Chinese leaders to improve human
rights.
Police began the wave of detentions Friday morning, taking Wu Gaoxing from his
home in eastern Zhejiang province's Taizhou city, dissident groups in Hong Kong
and the United States said.
Late Friday, about 150 miles to the northwest in Hangzhou city, police swarmed
the
home of Wang Youcai and led away Wang, Wang Peijian and Cheng Fan, as well as
three others all members of the China Democracy Party, the Hong Kong-based
Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement said.
In separate raids on their Hangzhou homes, police
took away Zhu Yufu and Wang Donghai, the Chinese Democratic Justice Party said.
Police confiscated notebooks, tapes, at least one computer and literature for
the China Democracy Party, according to the U.S.-based dissidents and the
center.
Wang Youcai, Wang Peijian and one other
dissident announced on June 25, the start of Clinton's nine-day China tour,
that they wanted to establish the China Democracy Party and would register the
group with authorities as required by law.
Since then Wang Youcai, Zhu Yufu and another dissident were detained at least
once each before
Friday's clampdown. They were released with warnings to stop campaigning for
the party, and authorities have refused to register the group.
In reporting the detentions, the exiled groups described Clinton's China policy
as a failure. Clinton used his trip to try to showcase a more modern, tolerant
China to a skeptical
American public while cajoling Chinese leaders to allow more dissent.
''This is equivalent to giving Clinton a box on the ears,'' the Information
Center said in a statement. It added that the detentions ''prove Clinton
returned home from his China tour empty-handed.''
''What we said about
President Clinton's policy of constructive engagement with China was accurate,
that the Chinese government will not work with the free world to improve human
rights because they are a brutal communist dictatorship,'' said Lian Shengde, a
student leader of the Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrations in 1989 and now
the head of the
Washington-based
Free China Movement.
Like Lian, most of the detained dissidents took part in the 1989 protest
movement. Wang Youcai, Wang Peijian and Cheng Fan were students in Beijing.
Wang Donghai and Wu Gaoxing staged sympathy protests in Hangzhou.
Wang
Youcai spent four years in prison and Wang Donghai and Wu Gaoxing three years
in the nationwide crackdown that followed the military's brutal quelling of the
protests in Beijing.
The Hong Kong-based Information Center also reported today that dissident Fan
Yiping, held since March,
will be put on trial Monday for helping prominent democracy campaigner Wang
Xizhe flee China to avoid arrest.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: July 11, 1998
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