THE WORLD: China detains prominent intellectuals in new wave of repression

As revealed today by the organization Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CAD), Beijing authorities have closed the Transition Institute, an independent research group, and the Liren Group, who runs a private school and independent bookstores, and they have arrested various intellectuals affiliated with them as well as independent writers..

Among them is the administrative director of the Transition Institute, He Zhengjun, whom the police took into custody 26 November, and a former employee, llamado Liu Jianshu, who returned from studying at Harvard University and Oxford in 2011 and who since then was in charge of the Liren bookstores.

Las autoridades también se "han llevado" a Xue Ye, executive director of the liberaries and former director of the NGO Friends of Nature, and the well-known writer Xu Xiao, editora jefe de la publicación "New Century".

The human rights organization explains that the authorities have not revealed what charges those arrested are accused of., except Xu, quien es sospechosa de "poner en peligro la seguridad del Estado" although it is unknown, as in all previous cases, where is it located.

The writer, highlights CHRD, He already suffered a prison sentence for "counterrevolutionary" durante la "Revolución Cultural" promoted by Mao Zedong at the end of the years 60, and had recently become involved in activities promoted by Liren.

These arrests come after those of Guo Yushan, the founder of the Transition Institute and its former director, and Huang Kaiping's, its current director, in october. Both are in detention center number 1 de Pekín acusados de "crear disturbios", a crime that, junto a la "alteración del orden", is being used by the regime to silence uncomfortable voices.

The Transition Institute, founded in 2007, has conducted research on tax reform, local elections, legal reforms, business regulation, citizen participation and educational rights. Its founder and other employees played a key role in the rescue operation of blind activist Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest and subsequent refuge in the American embassy in Beijing made headlines around the world in 2012.

At the beginning of October, Beijing police stopped the writer Kou Yanding, también por "crear disturbios". CHRD believes his accusation may be related to his comments supporting democracy in Hong Kong. This series of arrests comes after the arrest and trial of prominent journalist Gao Yu., with important connections in the ranks of the Communist Party, and other activists, what is alarming for CHRD.

"El Gobierno chino sigue su campaña de represión de la libertad de expresión, asociación y asamblea que comenzó el año pasado con el encarcelamiento del defensor de los derechos humanos Xu Zhiyong", Wendy Lin denounced, ChRD researcher at Hong Kong, who criticized that the regime is undertaking "a direct assault on the liberal intellectual community" from China.