Skip to main content

Coronavirus: China Arrests President Xi’s Critic

Chinese President Xi Jinping
Police in China have arrested a prominent activist who had been a fugitive for weeks and criticised President Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic while in hiding, a rights group said Tuesday.
Anti-corruption activist Xu Zhiyong was arrested on Saturday after being on the run since December, according to Amnesty International.
China’s ruling Communist Party has severely curtailed civil liberties since Xi took power in 2012, rounding up rights lawyers, labour activists and even Marxist students.
The death this month of a whistleblowing doctor who was reprimanded by police for raising the alarm about the deadly new virus before dying of it himself triggered rare calls for political reform and freedom of speech.
The “Chinese government’s battle against the coronavirus has in no way diverted it from its ongoing general campaign to crush all dissenting voices,” said Patrick Poon, China researcher at Amnesty International, in an emailed statement.
Another source, who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity, said Xu had been arrested in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Guangzhou police did not respond to requests for comment.
Xu went into hiding after authorities broke up a December gathering of intellectuals discussing political reform in the eastern coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province, prior to the coronavirus crisis.
Over a dozen lawyers and activists were detained or disappeared after the Xiamen gathering, according to rights groups — and Xu’s detention appears linked to his presence at the meeting, explained Poon.
But while on the run, Xu continued to post information on Twitter about rights issues.
On February 4 Xu released an article calling on Xi to step down and criticised his leadership across a range of issues including the US-China trade war, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests and the coronavirus epidemic, which has now killed nearly 1,900 people.
“Medical supplies are tight, hospitals are filled with patients, and a large number of infected people have no way to be diagnosed,” he wrote. “It’s a mess.”
“The coronavirus outbreak shows just how important values like freedom of expression and transparency are — the exact values that Xu has long advocated,” Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told AFP.
But the disappearance of Xu illustrates how the Chinese state “persists in its old ways” by “silencing its critics”, she said.
Xu — who founded a movement calling for greater transparency among high-ranking officials — previously served a four-year prison sentence from 2013 to 2017 for organising an “illegal gathering”.
“That he was a fugitive for so many days while continuing to speak out, that in itself was… a kind of challenge to (Chinese authorities),” said Hua Ze, a long-time friend of Xu who told AFP she lost contact with the Chinese activist on Saturday morning.
AFP

Source:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Death toll rises to at least 100 after Pakistan snow, avalanches

Local residents search for the avalanche victims in the snow in Neelum Valley, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on January 15, 2020. – Avalanches, flooding and harsh winter weather killed more than 130 people across Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent days, leaving others stranded by heavy snowfall, officials said on January 14. (Photo by STR / AFP) Search teams found the bodies of 14 people buried by avalanches and heavy snowfall in Pakistani-administered Kashmir Wednesday, with harsh weather hampering rescuers as they race to find any survivors, officials said. The death toll from days of bad weather now stands at 76 in Kashmir, and at least 100 across the country, according to a statement from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Most were killed in Kashmir’s picturesque Neelum Valley, which had been hard hit by avalanches earlier in the week, said operations director of the Kashmiri disaster management authority Saeed ur Rehamn Qureshi. He said “scores” of houses had b...

5 Ways Alcohol Is Affecting Your Body

People toasting drinks in bar | Konbini There are several ways heavy drinking is affecting your body. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), heavy drinking is characterised as more than four or five drinks in a two-hour sitting. From DNA to hormones, heavy drinking can alter your body’s biology in a big and detrimental way. Keep reading for ways alcohol affects your body according to  Everyday Health . Change Your DNA And Make You Crave More Alcohol A  study, published in December 2018 in the journal  Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research , identified two genes that are subject to change — one affecting the body’s biological clock and one regulating the stress response system. The study’s authors, from Rutgers University also found that the genetic changes in binge and heavy drinkers were associated with a higher desire for alcohol. Increase the Risk of Cancer — Especially of the Head, Neck, Liver, and Breast The Natio...

Hong Kong Slashes Border Crossings With China Over Coronavirus

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam (L) gestures as she takes part in a press conference while wearing a facemask in Hong Kong on January 28, 2020. Anthony WALLACE / AFP Hong Kong on Tuesday announced drastic measures to cut the number of people crossing into the city from mainland China in a bid to curb the spread of a SARS-like virus that has already killed more than 100 people. With tour groups from the mainland suspended earlier, the new measures blocking individual travellers will dramatically reduce the number of Chinese able to visit the semi-autonomous city. The number of flights from the mainland to Hong Kong will be halved and all ferry services suspended to “reduce the mobility of people from both sides”, city leader Carrie Lam said, adding six of 14 border checkpoints will close from January 30 “until further notice”. Cathay Pacific Airways, which has its main hub at Hong Kong International Airport, announced that it would be “progressively reducing” flights to and from ...