China dissidents under lockdown as Nobel tensions linger
By Chris Buckley
BEIJING (Reuters) – Dozens of Chinese dissidents and human rights activists remain under house arrest as a wary government seeks to stifle support for jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, a New York-based human rights group said.
China’s ruling Communist Party has assigned squads of police and guards to keep people considered sympathetic to Liu confined to their homes or under constant surveillance, said the group Human Rights in China in an emailed statement seen on Friday, as well as dissidents who spoke to Reuters.
They include Liu Xia, the wife of the Nobel winner Liu, who last year was jailed for 11 years for his combative criticism of the one-Party government and role in a petition campaign to promote democratic transformation.
Liu Xia has said her husband hopes she would be allowed to travel to Oslo to collect his prize. But China has not said whether it will allow her to go, and the government’s vehement condemnation of the prize makes it most unlikely.
“The restrictions on so many of us have never been this strict before. This is going to new extremes,” said Yu Jie, a writer in Beijing who campaigns against state restrictions on religion.
Yu told Reuters that he has been mostly confined in his house in the southeast edge of the city since the Nobel Prize was announced on October 8, and police initially prevented his wife from going to hospital to get treatment for the flu.
They relented on Thursday night and allowed a doctor to come to their home and take her to a clinic, he said.
“I don’t know how long this can last. At least until December when the Nobel Prize is given out,” said Yu.
The prize will be formally bestowed on December 10 in Oslo, and December 25 will be the first anniversary of Liu Xiaobo’s conviction, another date that may keep Beijing on guard.
Yu said police had also installed video cameras to monitor his home.
The sweeping clampdown underscores the many resources that China’s government devotes to pre-empting unrest and challenges.
China’s total spending on domestic security reached 514 billion yuan ($77 billion) in 2009, a whisker below the military budget of 532 billion yuan, researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing estimated earlier this year.
China’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Liu Xia’s circumstances, and has deflected questions about whether other dissidents are also being held.
Human Rights in China cited estimates that nearly 40 Chinese dissidents and activists are also under house arrest.
The official Xinhua news agency issued a commentary attacking Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, for defending the decision to give the Nobel to Liu.
“What Jagland has said is apparently wrong and groundless as his notion (of human rights above sovereignty) stemmed from a partial value system,” Xinhua said, adding that Liu was a “convicted criminal.”
“It is known to all that Liu’s conviction for agitation aimed at subverting the government is a sheer law issue that concerns China’s judicial sovereignty, and it is by no means an issue about human rights,” it said.