{"id":7029,"date":"2016-05-20T05:46:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T09:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=7029"},"modified":"2016-05-25T05:50:49","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T09:50:49","slug":"prominent-chinese-writer-taken-by-police-for-tea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/prominent-chinese-writer-taken-by-police-for-tea","title":{"rendered":"Prominent Chinese Writer Taken by Police &#8216;for Tea&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_7030\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7030\" class=\"wp-image-7030\" src=\"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/files\/2016\/05\/Tie-Liu.jpg\" alt=\"Tie Liu\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/files\/2016\/05\/Tie-Liu.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/files\/2016\/05\/Tie-Liu-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7030\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Huang Zerong, better known by his pen name Tie Liu, is seen in a photo from social media.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A prominent Chinese writer living under police surveillance in China\u2019s southwestern city of Chengdu has been missing for nearly a week, according to friends and relatives.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The wife of the 83-year-old Huang Zerong, who is better known by his pen name Tie Liu, told VOA on Thursday that police from the Chengdu Public Security Bureau took her husband\u00a0 away &#8220;for tea&#8221; on May 13, offering no specific reasons for the apparent detention, nor how long he would be held.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know why he was taken away. According to police, [it was] nothing serious, just some old problems,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They seemed to [suggest] that he had failed to comply with certain rules and did not write reports of his thinking and failed to participate in studies. &#8230; but I feel that is not the problem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If police have concerns about Huang&#8217;s activities, she added, they should be addressed via proper judicial channels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Long history of speaking out, being arrested<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Police have closed Huang\u2019s WeChat online account twice since arresting him in late April for &#8220;creating a disturbance,&#8221; sentencing him to five days of detention and a fine. Police later announced they had confiscated his personal identity cards as part of a six-month residential surveillance, during which he would not be allowed to travel.<\/p>\n<p>Huang\u2019s friends in Beijing say his disappearance may be linked to a recent visit to the city by Liu Yunshan, the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s propaganda chief. Huang was sentenced to prison in August 2015 for posting articles online criticizing Liu for opposing Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s fight against corruption.<\/p>\n<p>Huang was also one of the initiators of a March 2013 petition for increased freedom and political reforms, which was signed by more than 100 elderly Chinese citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Huang was arrested in 2014 for &#8220;causing a disturbance&#8221; and &#8220;illegal business activity,&#8221; resulting in a $4,800 fine and two-and-a-half year prison term that was indefinitely suspended pending good behavior.<\/p>\n<p>Huang spent 25 years in labor camps for being anticommunist during Chairman Mao Zedong&#8217;s rule. Some Chinese bloggers say his latest detention is just another example of a recent government clampdown on political dissidents and political commentators.<\/p>\n<p>On April 21, President Xi publicly stated that the Communist party should welcome well-intentioned criticism from intellectuals and commentators, and officials shouldn&#8217;t fault or punish critics.<\/p>\n<p><em>This report was produced in collaboration with VOA&#8217;s Mandarin Service.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Source: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.voanews.com\/content\/prominent-chinese-writer-taken-by-police-for-tea\/3338409.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.voanews.com\/content\/prominent-chinese-writer-taken-by-police-for-tea\/3338409.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A prominent Chinese writer living under  &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/prominent-chinese-writer-taken-by-police-for-tea\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232,35,43,167],"tags":[1666,1476,956,1665,955],"views":5056,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029"}],"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=7029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7031,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029\/revisions\/7031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}