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Saturday July 11 6:50 AM EDT
Nine Chinese Dissidents Detained
CHARLES HUTZLER Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - 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.
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