China arrests dissident who championed reforms

BEIJING — A well-known Chinese dissident who co-authored a bold political manifesto calling for greater freedom and an end to one-party rule has been arrested in an attempt to cow dissent ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule this fall.

Liu Xiaobo had been held by police at a secret location for more than six months with no formal notification given to his family. Police finally delivered a written notice to his wife, Liu Xia, on Wednesday informing her that her husband was arrested the day before on suspicion of “inciting to subvert state power” and transferred to a Beijing city detention center.

Liu’s case marks the most high-profile arrest of a Chinese dissident since human rights activist Hu Jia was detained last year ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Hu was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for sedition last April.

More than 150 writers and rights activists, including Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer and Wole Soyinka, have signed an open letter to President Hu Jintao urging Liu’s release. Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, also wrote Hu last month asking that Liu and other Chinese “prisoners of conscience” be released.

Liu, 53, is a former university professor who spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square.

“I am so worried about him,” Liu Xia said Wednesday, fighting back tears. “I don’t know how many more years he will be imprisoned now.”

Liu Xia last saw her husband March 20 during a supervised visit where she noted that he looked thin and pale but otherwise seemed well.

The charge against Liu carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.

Liu was taken into police custody on Dec. 8 last year, a day before a document he co-authored was released urging sweeping changes to China’s rigid political system. “Charter 08″ called for a new constitution guaranteeing human rights, election of public officials, freedom of religion and expression, and an end to the Communist Party’s hold over the military, courts and government.

It also called for the abolition of the criminal code that allows people to be imprisoned for “incitement to subvert state power” — the crime Liu is suspected of committing.

Police detained Liu ahead of the charter’s release, possibly because they considered him a key organizer, in addition to his role in drafting and revising the document, his lawyer Mo Shaoping has said.

More than 300 lawyers, writers, scholars and artists signed the original “Charter 08.” The document now has more than 8,000 signatures, most of them gathered online.

The singling out of Liu for prosecution seems to be an effort to warn others involved in the charter. Other signatories have been called in for talks with police but not arrested.

Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said he thought Liu’s arrest showed that China’s ruling Communist Party “has less and less tolerance for dissent.”

“The Communist Party is afraid of its own citizens,” he said. “It thinks it has to nip in the bud any challenge; otherwise it will snowball very quickly.”

China has always been aggressive in stifling challenges to its one-party system, but it has appeared particularly sensitive to dissent in the run-up to a gala celebrating the communist regime’s 60th anniversary on Oct. 1.

Chinese state-run newspapers on Tuesday kicked off a 100-day countdown to the celebration with front-page photos showing special SWAT forces taking an oath to protect the event, which will include a military parade and a show orchestrated by film director Zhang Yimou.

Chinese lawyers known for taking cases involving issues such as freedom of speech or religion have been disbarred in recent weeks and efforts to censor politically sensitive online content have been stepped up. The government recently ordered computer makers to include a filtering software with each new computer sold on the mainland.