The People's Republic of Thuggery - Chinese agents bar access to the 'free' wife of Liu Xiaobo
NB: The Chinese Communists have converted their Constitution into a cruel joke. Let anyone read it and compare it with the reality - especially the manner in which they assassinated Liu Xiaobo and are now torturing his widow. Here's Article 35 of their Constitution - Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration." Other sections also bear reading..This is a shameless tyranny. DS
Chinese authorities
claim Liu Xia is a free woman. But one week after the
death of her husband, the Nobel laureate and democracy activist Liu Xiaobo,
a visit to the couple’s Beijing home immediately gives the lie to that claim. Within seconds of
arriving at the tree-lined property on Wednesday, the Guardian was surrounded
by plain-clothes security agents, shouting orders and questions, demanding that
its reporters leave. “Where are you going? Where are you going?” snapped one man, wearing black Bermuda shorts and Adidas Superstars, as he used his body to block the path that leads to the fourth-floor flat. A second agent arrived, also clad in black, and then a third, brandishing a golden Chinese smartphone with which he threatened to call the police. Asked if Liu Xia was at home he said: “I have never heard of her.” He went on: “There are thousands of people living here with that name. How should I know which one you are talking about?”
In the lead-up to the
death of her jailed husband, Liu Xia had been forced to endure almost seven
years of unofficial
house arrest – Communist party retribution, observers say, for her
husband’s 2010
Nobel peace prize. Now, with Liu gone,
the 56-year-old artist and poet appears to have been thrust straight back into
that invisible prison. Liu Xia (front) was
last seen in photos issued by Beijing as her husband’s ashes were scattered at
sea off the coast of Dalian, Liaoning province. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Rumours have swirled
that Liu – last seen in propaganda photographs of her
husband’s cremation and sea burial on Saturday – had been forcibly
“travelled” to the southwestern province of Yunnan to prevent her speaking out.
On Thursday, however,
supporters admitted her whereabouts were a mystery. “She’s totally
incommunicado,” said Jared Genser, a US human rights lawyer who has campaigned
on behalf of the late dissident and his wife. “It seems like she has fallen off
the face of the Earth.” Hu Jia, a
Beijing-based activist and friend, also said he was in the dark: “We’ve tried
every means possible to contact her.” In the hours after the
death of Liu, who was serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion when he
was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late May, there were calls
from activists and western governments for Liu Xia to be given safe passage
out of China.
“I now urge [Beijing]
to lift all restrictions on his widow, Liu Xia,” the British foreign secretary,
Boris Johnson, said in a statement. China, however, has
shown no sign of backing down, instead insisting, contrary to the evidence, that
Liu Xia – who has never been accused or convicted of any crime – is
“free”. Friends and supporters
say that is a mendacious fabrication designed to conceal her continued
extra-legal incarceration. “I think she’s in an even worse position than
before,” said Genser. “Her husband is dead.
We are not aware that she has any contact with anybody at all. Her parents have
both passed away. Her
brother is also incommunicado and disappeared. And she is the only
person now who can speak to what she heard from Liu Xiaobo in the last seven
years of her being under house arrest and in his final weeks of life.”
Jerry Cohen, an expert
in Chinese law and human rights from New York University, said he believed the
rulers of one-party China would
be reluctant to release Liu Xia in case she became a figurehead of resistance. “The wife who has to
suffer for the political views of her husband has always been a figure to
attract sympathy. But she is much more,” he said. “She is an extraordinarily
able and determined person and they feel they shouldn’t allow her to speak …
She is too potent a symbol.”
On Wednesday it was
impossible to know whether that symbol was inside her apartment, outside of
which security agents lurked in a black SUV. Plain-clothes agents
guarding the leafy residential compound grew increasingly jittery and
aggressive as they tried to force journalists away from the property. “You should get out!”
growled one of the officers, losing his temper at repeated questions about the
dissident’s missing wife. “Go! Go! Go!” shouted
his colleague. Earlier in the week
journalists from the Spanish news agency EFE reported
being grabbed and threatened by unidentified men and held by police
after trying to visit Liu Xia’s home. Police reportedly accused the journalists
of working in an “illegal manner”... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/20/chinese-agents-bar-access-free-liu-xia-wife-of-liu-xiaobo-beijing
Hong
Kong vigil for Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xiaobo: dissident's friends angry after hastily arranged sea burial
Liu Xiaobo: dissident's friends angry after hastily arranged sea burial
