Missing Australian writer feared detained in China

Rod Mcguirk, Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia has asked China for information on a Chinese-born Australian writer who disappeared in the country, the government said Tuesday as a friend claimed Yang Hengjun (楊恒均) had been detained in Beijing's ongoing crackdown on political expression.

The Sydney-based spy novelist phoned an assistant Sunday from Guangzhou airport in southeastern China to say three men were following him, said his friend Feng Chongyi, Associate Professor in China Studies at the University of Technology in Sydney.

Yang was later able to briefly phone a sister in Guangzhou to say "he's having a long chat with his old friends," Feng said. This was a prearranged signal that Yang had been taken by the secret police, Feng said.

"I'm 100 percent sure that he was been taken away by the secret police," said Feng, adding that the current crackdown on political expression in China was the reason.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed Tuesday that it is investigating the disappearance.

Yang, 46, was an official in the Chinese Foreign Ministry before moving to Australia. His novel, "Fatal Weakness," deals with espionage between China and the United States and has been published on the Internet in China.

He also writes a blog that frequently discusses sensitive issues involving China's government and democracy, Feng said.

"He is one of the most influential bloggers in China, especially for political issues," Feng said. "Usually his blogs get millions of visitors; he's very popular."

Yang spends most of his time in China, although his wife and two children live in their Sydney home, Feng said.

China's Foreign Ministry said it had no information on Yang.

"I have not heard of that person," spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_re_as/as_australia_china_writer_disappears 

本文於 修改第 2 次

China sentences democracy activist (劉賢斌) to 10 years

Gillian Wong, Associated Press

BEIJING – A longtime Chinese democracy activist was sentenced Friday to a heavy penalty of 10 years in prison for advocating government change in online articles that authorities say slandered Communist Party leadership as autocratic.

The trial came amid a vast crackdown on activism in China that may reflect government anxiety about unrest inspired by uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of well-known Chinese lawyers and activists have vanished, been interrogated, held under house arrest or criminally detained for subversion.

Activist Liu Xianbin (劉賢斌), who has previously spent a decade in prison, was found guilty of inciting subversion of state power by the Suining Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province after a trial that lasted a few hours, his wife Chen Mingxian told The Associated Press.

Liu's sentence is among the heaviest handed down for inciting subversion, an offense stipulated in Chinese criminal law as punishable by up to five years, or in serious cases, more than five years.

Chen said she and Liu's elder brother were allowed to attend the trial. She said her husband was calm and composed and looked relatively well, but that the judge frequently interrupted Liu and their lawyer's attempts to present a defense.

"The 10-year sentence to me, because we've already been through 10 years ... (is) a repeat of the painful process, one in which I can only watch and wait anxiously," said Chen, who is a schoolteacher. The couple have a 13-year-old daughter.

China's authoritarian government routinely uses the vaguely worded subversion charge to jail activists it considers troublemakers. It is not the first time Liu has been accused of it.

An indictment advice issued by the Suining public security bureau points to articles Liu wrote between April 2009 and February last year that were posted on overseas Chinese pro-democracy websites.

Liu authored articles that "slandered" the Communist Party's leadership as "autocratic rule," and "on many occasions incited others to subvert the country's state power and socialist system," the police notice said, according Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a China-based rights group.

In the articles, Liu allegedly also urged the Chinese to "create a strong opposition organization," and advocated large street protests, among other things, the advice said.

"Liu's harsh sentence is part of the Chinese government's growing intolerance towards human rights activism, as reflected in the continued and widespread crackdown on activists following the online call for a 'Jasmine Revolution,'" said the group's research coordinator, Wang Songlian.

In a sign of Chinese police's sensitivity over the case, activists in Sichuan province and elsewhere reported being taken away by police to prevent them from attending Liu's trial while others were warned against trying to go, Wang said.

Liu was a founding member of the China Democracy Party and was convicted in 1999 of subversion of state power and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He was released in November 2008.

After his release, Liu continued to be involved in several high-profile human rights activities, his wife said.

He was a signatory to the Charter 08 manifesto, which called for an end to single-party rule and advocated democratic political reforms. Chinese authorities have harassed supporters of Charter 08, and co-author Liu Xiaobo was sentenced in December 2009 to 11 years in prison for incitement to subvert state power.

Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his democracy activism, an honor that China furiously condemned. Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xianbin are not related.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110325/ap_on_re_as/as_china_democracy_activist