Charter signatories harassed

BEIJING - POILICE in China have questioned and in some cases intimidated people who signed a charter calling for democratic reform, activists and a human rights group said on Tuesday.

More than 300 people from all walks of life, from farmers to intellectuals and lawyers, signed Charter 08, calling for democracy, freedoms of assembly and expression and other reforms in China.

It was published on Dec 10 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

According to more than 10 signatories who spoke to AFP on Tuesday, many of those who signed the charter had since been interrogated by police, often more than once, and sometimes given serious warnings.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a local network of human rights activists and groups, meanwhile said it had documented at least 86 cases of signatories being 'questioned, summoned and intimidated.'

Mr Jiang Qisheng, a prominent rights activist who signed the charter, said he had been questioned twice by police, and believed most of the 303 signatories had received a visit from authorities.

Mr Jiang mentioned the case of a couple of farmers in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang who had signed Charter 08 and subsequently been questioned.

Mr Yao Lifa, a teacher in the central province of Hubei, said police had warned him not to engage in any other activities after he put his name to the charter.

'They said I must not publicise its contents on the Internet, not publicise it to society,' he said.

So far, Liu Xiaobo, a prominent activist and former leading figure in the pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989, is the only signatory to have been detained by authorities.

Liu was taken away on Dec 8, and is being kept under a form of pre-trial detention at an undisclosed location near Beijing.

Another signatory, Mr Li Datong, a journalist who was sacked as editor of a hard-hitting supplement to China Youth Daily, said police had visited and asked for him twice at his new workplace, but he had been absent.

'What they are most concerned about is whether an opposition party has been set up, but that's not the case; it's just a statement of ideas and opinions,' Mr Li told AFP by phone. -- AFP