{"id":6815,"date":"2016-03-28T11:13:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T15:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=6815"},"modified":"2016-03-30T11:21:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T15:21:06","slug":"china-launches-all-out-probe-into-letter-calling-on-president-to-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/china-launches-all-out-probe-into-letter-calling-on-president-to-resign","title":{"rendered":"China Launches All-Out Probe Into Letter Calling on President to Resign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chang

Exiled Chinese journalist Chang Ping (L) shown giving a speech in Hong Kong, October 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n

The ruling Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has launched a crackdown on the families of overseas dissidents as part of a nationwide probe into an open letter calling on him to resign.<\/p>\n

The authorities are already questioning a number of employees of the Watching News website after an open letter signed by “loyal party members” and accusing Xi of a major power grab that had damaged China’s interests was published there, allegedly by hackers.<\/p>\n

Now, police have detained three relatives of Germany-based journalist Chang Ping, who lost his job at a state-run newspaper in 2011, apparently in connection with the same investigation.<\/p>\n

“My two brothers and my sister were kidnapped by police in China’s Sichuan province on [Sunday<\/span><\/span><\/span>],” Chang told RFA. “They were on their way back to our parental home to visit our ageing parents when they were detained.”<\/p>\n

“They were held against their will with no legal process whatsoever,” he said.<\/p>\n

Chang’s relatives had been told by police to contact him and warn him off writing any more articles critical of the communist regime, he said.<\/p>\n

“If they didn’t, they said they would find a way to frame them for some crime,” he said.<\/p>\n

Chang said the threats seemed to be linked to the probe into the open letter to Xi.<\/p>\n

“The government is very concerned about this, and they have set up a special task force to investigate,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But I have personally had nothing whatsoever to do with the drafting or publication of this letter.”<\/p>\n

In a longer statement translated by the U.S.-based website China Change, Chang vowed to continue with his work as before, adding that he would support his family if they chose to cut ties with him.<\/p>\n

“The harassment and threats of the authorities allow me to see even more the value of my writings, and encourage me to work harder in future,” wrote Chang, who has a regular column for Deutsche Welle.<\/p>\n

The detention and threatening of Chang’s relatives comes after New York-based blogger Wen Yunchao said his relatives were also targeted.<\/p>\n

Wen, who writes under the pen-name Bei Feng, said on his Twitter feed that that his parents and younger brother were detained on March 22<\/span><\/span><\/span> in the southern province of Guangdong.<\/p>\n

‘Huge pressure’ on family<\/b><\/p>\n

Wen, whose friends say had merely retweeted the report on Watching News about the letter to Xi, said he believed his family\u2019s disappearance was also related to the case.<\/p>\n

But Wen declined to give an interview when contacted by RFA on Monday<\/span><\/span><\/span>. “It’s not convenient to speak to you because my family are really under huge pressure,” he said.<\/p>\n

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said he was shocked at the lengths to which the authorities have gone in reaction to the letter.<\/p>\n

“If I’d known about it, I would have signed it, even put my name to it as a co-author,” Hu said. “Xi Jinping has presided over a brutal regime in recent years, both by jailing people, and by means of an unprecedented level of control on freedom of speech.”<\/p>\n

“He has done so many evil deeds, including the crackdown on lawyers and on citizens who supported [Hong Kong’s pro-democracy] Umbrella movement, that he shouldn’t just resign; he should stand trial,” Hu said.<\/p>\n

Germany-based journalist Su Yutong said she, like Chang, had been forced to leave China because of growing restriction on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

“I think that this open letter really shook them up in a big way, and that the situation looks really very frightening both for a lot of dissidents and for people who had nothing to do with it,” Su said.<\/p>\n

She said Chang, who has been targeted via his family in the past, is unable to return to China, while his family are unable to leave.<\/p>\n

“The authorities will target the families of dissidents like us … but we are doing these things out of personal choice, not because our parents told us to do them,” Su said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, police also detained journalist Jia Jia in connection with the open letter, but have since released him, his lawyer Yan Xin told Deutsche Welle.<\/p>\n

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA’s Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/china-letter-03282016124622.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ruling Chinese Communist Party under … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,110,167],"tags":[576,1578,103],"views":5585,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6818,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6815\/revisions\/6818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}