Arrest and Imprisonment
Wang first began to study Xinjiang in 1999. When conducting research for a book following the same suit of Sky Burial: The Fate of Tibet, he was arrested for photocopying an internal publication - stamped as “secret” - of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Refusing to recant or promise collaboration in order to obtain his release, he attempted suicide in the high-security prison in Miquan . He recorded the incident in a short essay entitled Memories of Xinjiang published in 2001. In prison, he shared a cell with an Uyghur prisoner arrested in Beijing for organizing a demonstration protesting discrimination (Mokhtar), with whom he entered into a long and ongoing discussion on Xinjiang which formed the backbone of his book My West China; Your East Turkestan published in 2007. In this book, Wang concluded that Xinjiang’s issues had dangerously “Palestinized.” The XinJiang riot in July 2009 proved his fear.
Wang would be placed under house arrest whenever there were sensitive incidents or events. i.e. the outbreak of anti-Chinese protests in Tibet in March 2008.
Read more about this topic: Wang Lixiong
Famous quotes containing the words arrest and/or imprisonment:
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“... imprisonment itself, entailing loss of liberty, loss of citizenship, separation from family and loved ones, is punishment enough for most individuals, no matter how favorable the circumstances under which the time is passed.”
—Mary B. Harris (1874–1957)