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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Communists Arrest 82 Year Old Writer Over 'Forbidden Books'



Communists charge 82 year old 
with "Stirring up trouble"


(Radio Free Asia)  -  Authorities in China's southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Guangxi have detained a writer and a publisher who published politically 'sensitive' material, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party continues its campaign against any form of political dissent.

Sichuan-based writer and publisher Huang Zerong, better known by his pen-name Tie Liu, disappeared from his home last week, police in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu told his wife, Ren Hengfang.

Tie, 82, had earlier been detained from March 28 to April 1 on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

He was later placed under six months' "residential surveillance" by Chengdu police.

Rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said Tie Liu is technically still serving that sentence, and can be redetained at any time if he breaks the conditions of his bail.

"If he breaks the rules under suspended sentenced, then he can be taken back into detention," Liu said. "They can just change his 'residential surveillance' to a location other than his home."


The one book Communists approve of.

"But they still have to inform the family," he said. "It's not yet clear whether he is being taken on a forced vacation, or what is going on."

Ren confirmed to RFA on Monday that her husband had disappeared, but declined to comment further.

"Tie Liu hasn't written anything recently, I have no idea why they took him away again," she told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

"He will be 83 at the end of this month. What 'trouble' can an old man like him provoke?" the CPJ quoted her as saying in a statement on its website.


The "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" charge was linked to 11 articles Tie wrote, six of which mentioned high-ranking Chinese leaders, including Communist Party propaganda chief Liu Yunshan, sources said at the time.

Tie wrote of Liu Yunshan: "He is more evil than [former propaganda chief] Deng Liqun and more left-wing than [former Xinhua news agency chief] Hu Qiaomu."

CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz called on Beijing to "stop harassing" Tie Liu.

"Pulling an 82-year-old man ... from his home and detaining him without telling his family his whereabouts would take China's recent history of detaining writers and intellectuals to new lows," Dietz said in a statement.

"Chinese authorities should immediately disclose whether they are holding [Tie Liu] and why, and stop harassing him."

Tie was also held for five months last year on suspicion of "illegal business activity" after he published a collection of memoirs of people persecuted under late Chairman Mao Zedong.

Tie served a total of 23 years in prison during the "anti-rightist" political campaigns of the Mao era, before being rehabilitated with the advent of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms in 1980.


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