PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 5:34pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 08 October, 2014, 5:57pm
Patrick Boehler
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A road sign at the Songzhuang artists’ community on the outskirts of Beijing. Photo: Luo Xianjun
Police in Beijing detained at least seven people over a poem reading meeting last week in support of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
They are among the dozens of people who have been reportedly detained in China as the country’s online censors mount their largest-scale censorship operations so far this year.
Two women and five men, most of them artists, were put under detention pending criminal investigation on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” in Beijing early last week, four people familiar with some of the detainees’ situation said.
The seven participated or intended to participate in an October 2 poem recital at the Songzhuang artists’ community in the capital in support of the Occupy movement in Hong Kong. It was unclear whether all of them were actually able to participate in the meeting or had been taken away prior to it.