Document 20 of 39.
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
AP Worldstream
July 11, 1998; Saturday
06:27 Eastern Time
SECTION: International news
LENGTH: 540 words
HEADLINE: Chinese police detain nine dissidents
BYLINE: CHARLES HUTZLER
DATELINE: BEIJING
BODY:
Police detained nine Chinese democracy campaigners in a crackdown exiled
dissidents said Saturday proves U.S. President Bill Clinton left
China without securing progress on human rights.
The nine, mostly 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.
Around 8 p.m. Friday, 250 kilometers (150 miles) to the northwest in Hangzhou
city, police swarmed over the home of Wang Youcai and led away Wang, Wang
Peijian and Cheng Fan and 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 Information
Center and the U.S.-based Chinese Democratic Justice Party reported.
Police confiscated notebooks, tapes, at least one computer and manifestos and
literature for the China Democracy Party, according to the groups.
Wang
Youcai, Wang Peijian and one other dissident announced June 25, the start of
Clinton's nine-day China tour, that they wanted to set up 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 each
detained at least once 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 criticized 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 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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