Police Harassments and Arrests
Guo's very public open letters to President Hu Jintao demanding multi-party elections and the depoliticisation of the People's Liberation Army, was widely published in internet blogosphere as well as the tradition media. Since then the Chinese cyber-police had begun to black out his blogs.
- On 21 May 2008 Jonathan Watts of The Guardian reported: Chinese police have detained Guo Quan, a political dissident who criticized the government's handling of the Sichuan earthquake. Guo was seized outside his home by seven or eight police officers on 17 May 2008. They searched his house and confiscated his computer
Guo Quan's wife Li Jing told reporter that Guo had been detained many times before, for a few days at a time. Now it could be for longer. “The police told me to prepare myself psychologically,” she said.
On 6 Feb 2008 Guo Quan told Jane Macartney, of The Times "that he had now found that the Chinese Yahoo! site had also blocked his name and he planned to bring actions against both companies." Mr Guo said: “Since January 1 a lot of friends told me that websites with my name had been closed. They told me it's impossible to search for my information on Google and Yahoo!”
| “ | Writer and former professor of literature at Nanjing Normal University, detained November 13, 2008 on “suspicion of subverting state authority.” The reason for his arrest is not yet known, but is believed to be related to his writings. He had been detained for ten days in May 2008 following seven articles he published on mainland Chinese web sites that criticize the government’s emergency response to the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the safety of certain infrastructures. | ” |
On 13 Nov 2008 cnews reported that Guo Quan, was arrested Thursday in the city of Nanjing. According to his wife, the police's charge was "subversion of state power" Chinese police routinely uses the charge of "subversion of state power" to imprison dissidents for years. On 17 Oct 2009, Reuters reported that he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He has been described as a political prisoner.
Read more about this topic: Guo Quan
Famous quotes containing the words police and/or arrests:
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)
“On our streets it is the sight of a totally unknown face or figure which arrests the attention, rather than, as in big cities, the strangeness of occasionally seeing someone you know.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)