Of the people, By the people, For the people人民代表姚立法

BEIJING—Authorities in central China have detained a longtime democracy campaigner in a security clampdown ahead of the Communist Party congress this month, his son and another activist said Wednesday.

Yao Yao said his father Yao Lifa and other relatives had been taken from their home in the central city of Qianjiang by plainclothes officers on Oct. 1 and would likely not be freed until after the congress.

China “doesn’t lack for bad news, but I only have one father,” Yao Yao said in an e-mail from New York where he now lives.

Hu Jia, a Beijing-based activist for people with AIDS and other causes, said he had been unable to reach Yao Lifa for days. Hu said he was told that police had recently threatened action against Yao Lifa for providing legal advice to teachers who had started a school outside the state system.

Calls to Yao Lifa’s cell phone were answered Wednesday by a message saying it had been turned off.

Yao Lifa was briefly detained last year while mounting an unsuccessful bid for a local council seat in Qianjiang. The former teacher and local education bureau official won a Qianjiang people’s congress seat in 1998, but lost it in 2003 amid local government hostility toward his efforts to help dispossessed farmers and others.

China’s security services routinely detain or ratchet up monitoring of dissidents, human rights activists and former political prisoners ahead of sensitive occasions.

Security has also been visibly stepped up in Beijing in recent days ahead of the 17th Communist Party congress starting Monday, underscoring authorities’ determination to prevent protests or other disruptions.

More than 2,000 party delegates will gather for the congress, at which president and party leader Hu Jintao will oversee new appointments to top positions and lay out his policy agenda for the next five years.

Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:34am EDT
 
BEIJING (Reuters) - A well-known Chinese human rights campaigner has disappeared and is probably in secret detention, his son said on Wednesday, as the government imposes strict controls on dissidents ahead of a key Communist Party meeting.

Yao Lifa, from rural Hubei province in central China, is known for dogged campaigns to win an independent seat in his local Party-controlled congress and to organize citizens, especially disgruntled farmers, to challenge long-standing restrictions on political activity.

His son, Yao Yao, told Reuters that his father was apparently taken away on October 1 as part of a sweep of potential protesters before the Communist Party convenes a five-yearly congress next week.

“I heard from a source with good information that he’s been put in detention, probably until after the congress, but we haven’t heard anything official,” said Yao Yao, who is currently studying in New York.

A police officer in Yao Lifa’s hometown, Qianjiang, said he did not know anything about his disappearance.

“I haven’t heard about that,” said the officer, surnamed Wang, when asked whether Yao may be in informal detention. “I know who he is but I don’t have any information about this.”

There seems no doubt, however, that wary authorities are taking extraordinary precautions against protests before the Congress, when President Hu Jintao is set to seal another five years as national leader.

The streets of Beijing have been awash with police and plainclothes guards, whose neat haircuts and wary stance mark them out.

They question and often take away passers-by whose ruddy features and rumpled clothes suggest they may be rural petitioners intending to air complaints about lost land, corruption and official abuses during the Congress.

Other dissidents were also reported being under house arrest ahead of the congress, among them Hua Huiqi, an outspoken leader of a Christian “house church” in Beijing who was only recently released from jail.

“Whenever there’s a big meeting or event, the government keeps him under house arrest or tails him,” said Hua’s wife, Wei Junmei, who said by phone that she was also under informal detention with him.

Hu Jia, an activist whose campaigns embrace AIDS, political rights and Tibet, has been under house arrest since May but said the plainclothes guard around his apartment has been intensified since September.

“That shows how worried they are about anything at all that could upset plans,” said Hu by phone.