Document 4 of 22.
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
AP Online
July 11, 1998; Saturday
05:17 Eastern Time
SECTION: International news
LENGTH: 510 words
HEADLINE: Six Chinese Dissidents Detained
BYLINE: CHARLES HUTZLER
DATELINE: BEIJING
BODY:
Police detained at least six Chinese democracy campaigners in a crackdown that
exiled dissidents said proves President Clinton left
China without securing progress on human rights.
The six, 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.
On Friday night, 150 miles to the northwest in Hangzhou city, police swarmed
the
home of Wang Youcai and led away him, Wang Peijian and Cheng Fan, the groups
said. The U.S.-based Chinese Democratic Justice Party said Wang Youcai's wife
reported that police detained two other visitors whom she didn't recognize.
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 Hong
Kong-based Information Center of Human
Rights and Democratic Movement in China.
Wang Youcai, Wang Peijian and one other dissident announced 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.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: July 11, 1998
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