China Aid Association
China blocks activist’s wife at airport
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press WriterFri Aug 24, 7:21 AM ET
Chinese authorities on Friday barred the wife of an imprisoned human
rights activist from leaving the country to accept a humanitarian award
on her husband’s behalf, a friend of the woman said.
Yuan Weijing’s passport and telephone were confiscated as she
attempted to pass through security at the Beijing airport to fly to the
Philippines, said Hu Jia, an AIDS advocate who himself has been under
house arrest for months.
Yuan had planned to fly to the Philippines to accept a Magsaysay
Award, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, for her husband, Chen
Guangcheng, a self-trained lawyer who helped farmers with grievances
file court cases.
Chen, who is blind, was sentenced to four years and three months in
prison in 2006 after he documented cases of forced abortions and other
abuses by family planning officials in his native Shandong province in
eastern China.
Yuan called Hu to let him know her passport had been confiscated but
the call was quickly cut off. Attempts to reach her again failed. It
was not immediately clear whether she had been detained, although Hu
said Yuan called him later to say her luggage had been taken and she
had been “kidnapped,” although she was unable to say by whom.
The Magsaysay Foundation, which gives out the prizes, said in a
statement that it “regrets” that neither Chen nor his wife were able to
attend the ceremony. However, it added that, as a nonpolitical
organization, it respects “every country’s authority and its decisions
with regard to the travel of its citizens.”
Barring Yuan from leaving the country shows the extent to which
China’s authoritarian communist rulers will go to prevent government
critics from drawing attention to human rights abuses within the
country.
In an interview Thursday, Yuan said, “I haven’t done anything wrong,
so I’ll give it a try, and if they stop me then it’s not my problem.”
Yuan said authorities in Shandong had attempted to prevent her from
coming to Beijing and were blocking her from leaving Hu Jia’s apartment
where she had been staying. About 30 policemen blocked her on Friday,
but she was eventually able to leave after about 45 minutes.
Hu said Philippines Airlines service personnel told his wife that
Yuan’s baggage had been taken off the plane by police — a likely sign
that she was being forcibly returned to Shandong.
“The biggest loser here is not Yuan Weijing and not the Magsaysay
Foundation but the Chinese government,” said Hu. “This just really
shows how bad the human rights situation is here.”
China also blocked two previous winners of Magsaysay prizes from
collecting their awards, including army doctor Jiang Yanyong, who
embarrassed the government by revealing the true scale of the 2003 SARS
outbreak.
Also blocked was crusading AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, who has been
repeatedly harassed by provincial officials seeking to squelch news
about the epidemic and government malfeasance that aided the disease’s
spread.
Hu said Yuan told him authorities cited a statute blocking people
who may cause harm to the nation from leaving the country when they
took away her passport.
In Thursday’s interview, Yuan said Chen’s health was suffering in
prison from beatings and poor food, but that he had been thrilled to
hear he had won the prize. She said he welcomed the international
publicity, although it remained far from clear whether it would help
him or his cause.
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