{"id":7035,"date":"2016-05-23T05:59:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T09:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=7035"},"modified":"2016-05-25T06:05:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T10:05:43","slug":"china-holds-writer-publisher-over-dissent-forbidden-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/china-holds-writer-publisher-over-dissent-forbidden-books","title":{"rendered":"China Holds Writer, Publisher Over Dissent, ‘Forbidden Books’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tie

Sichuan author Tie Liu in an undated photo. File photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Authorities in China’s southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Guangxi have detained a writer and a publisher who published politically ‘sensitive’ material, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party continues its campaign against any form of political dissent.<\/p>\n

Sichuan-based writer and publisher Huang Zerong, better known by his pen-name Tie Liu, disappeared from his home last week, police in Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu told his wife, Ren Hengfang.<\/p>\n

Tie, 82, had earlier been detained from March 28 to April 1 on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.”<\/p>\n

He was later placed under six months’ “residential surveillance” by Chengdu police.<\/p>\n

Rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said Tie Liu is technically still serving that sentence, and can be redetained at any time if he breaks the conditions of his bail.<\/p>\n

“If he breaks the rules under suspended sentenced, then he can be taken back into detention,” Liu said. “They can just change his ‘residential surveillance’ to a location other than his home.”<\/p>\n

“But they still have to inform the family,” he said. “It’s not yet clear whether he is being taken on a forced vacation, or what is going on.”<\/p>\n

Ren confirmed to RFA on Monday that her husband had disappeared, but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n

“Tie Liu hasn’t written anything recently, I have no idea why they took him away again,” she told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).<\/p>\n

“He will be 83 at the end of this month. What ‘trouble’ can an old man like him provoke?” the CPJ quoted her as saying in a statement on its website.<\/p>\n

Leaders criticized<\/b><\/p>\n

The “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” charge was linked to 11 articles Tie wrote, six of which mentioned high-ranking Chinese leaders, including Communist Party propaganda chief Liu Yunshan, sources said at the time.<\/p>\n

Tie wrote of Liu Yunshan: “He is more evil than [former propaganda chief] Deng Liqun and more left-wing than [former Xinhua news agency chief] Hu Qiaomu.”<\/p>\n

CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz called on Beijing to “stop harassing” Tie Liu.<\/p>\n

“Pulling an 82-year-old man … from his home and detaining him without telling his family his whereabouts would take China’s recent history of detaining writers and intellectuals to new lows,” Dietz said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Chinese authorities should immediately disclose whether they are holding [Tie Liu] and why, and stop harassing him.”<\/p>\n

Tie was also held for five months last year on suspicion of “illegal business activity” after he published a collection of memoirs of people persecuted under late Chairman Mao Zedong.<\/p>\n

Tie served a total of 23 years in prison during the “anti-rightist” political campaigns of the Mao era, before being rehabilitated with the advent of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in 1980.<\/p>\n

Suspect charges<\/b><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, authorities in Guangxi announced over the weekend that they have detained the former head of the Guangxi Normal University Press on “bribery” charges.<\/p>\n

Guangdong rights activist and author Ye Du said the detention of He Linxia, 58, came after he published a number of cutting-edge titles under the publisher’s Lixiangguo imprint, including a planned book by historian Gao Hua.<\/p>\n

The Lixiangguo titles weren’t published through traditional channels, but were sold via the online auction site Taobao, using an account which the authorities have now shut down, Ye said.<\/p>\n

“The account they used to sell these books on Taobao was forced to shut down last month,” Ye said. “The Lixiangguo imprint had already been closed for a few months.”<\/p>\n

Ye said there is a new ideological campaign afoot targeting any form of dissent.<\/p>\n

“There is no room for traditional values under this new ideology,” Ye said. “You could say we now look back to the previous era of openness as a golden age that will never return.”<\/p>\n

“The authorities will no longer tolerate these books about constitutional politics; they won’t allow them to be published any more.”<\/p>\n

Constitutional scholar Chen Yongmiao said he believes He’s detention is politically motivated.<\/p>\n

“There are so many of these cases that get politicized, and then become sensitive,” Chen said. “That’s the way this case is going, too.”<\/p>\n

“There is a problem with selective enforcement of the law; they use this sort of charge to find fault, and then they use it as an excuse to suppress your freedom of speech and publication,” he said.<\/p>\n

Reported by Qiao Long 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\/books-05232016123637.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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