Lily Kuo - 'The last time I saw Granny Pu': 85-year-old mother of Chinese dissident seized by police

By Dilip -
For the last two years, Pu Wenqing, 85, has spent most of her time writing articles about her son, Huang Qi, a long-time dissident who has been in prison for more than two years awaiting trial. She posts updates about Huang, the founder of China’s first known human rights monitoring website, on Wechat and in October she recorded a video, pleading for help, and posted it on YouTube.

Now, Granny Pu, as she is known to her friends, has disappeared and is likely under house arrest or in a black jail, according to friends and human rights advocates. On 7 December, she took a 10-hour train to Beijing from her home in Sichuan province with the goal of appealing to China’s leaders to release her son, who has been charged with leaking state secrets, a vague offence often used for activists. On the train, police questioned Pu and her travel companion several times and searched their luggage. When they arrived in Beijing, they were followed and then intercepted.

“Seven or eight men in plainclothes surrounded us and grabbed Granny Pu by her arms. Granny was pushed onto ground. I was screaming and shouting, asking people passing by to help us,” said Wei Wenyuan, who accompanied Pu to Beijing. Photos show Pu, wearing a bright yellow traffic vest and clutching a case to her chest, laying on the ground. Pu and Wei were taken to a police station where police eventually took Wei away. “That was the last time I saw Granny Pu,” Wei said... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/the-last-time-i-saw-granny-pu-85-year-old-mother-of-chinese-dissident-seized-by-police

'Death knell' of press freedom in Hong Kong has been a long time coming // Young Marxists are going missing in China after protesting for workers

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