At least three activists have been detained in Beijing ahead of June 4 over a 1989 Tiananmen Massacre commemoration meeting that took place in Zhao Changqing’s home. Human rights activists Zhao Changqing, Zhang Baocheng, Xu Caihong were detained in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
According to Chinese human rights advocate Liu Xuehong, she was video chatting with Xu when police visited Xu’s home at 1:30am. Liu said that the call was cut and she could no longer contact Xu afterwards. Zhao and Zhang were arrested at around 7 am, according to Zhou Fengsuo, San Francisco-based co-founder of Humanitarian China.
Zhao was recently released from prison, and is a survivor of the Tiananmen Massacre while Zhang is a member of New Citizens Movement, a civil rights collective in China.
Zhou told HKFP that “it’s hard to predict [what the state might do] because Zhao Changqing in particular is a veteran and he was released not too long ago… but this can be really serious for him and for Zhang Baocheng.”
“This is their basic right. They’re just having a private meeting… likely a Bible study. They were praying together, just a private event in Zhao Changqing’s home,” he said.
Zhou called for the trio to be freed.
The Chinese authorities have been cracking down on activities related to June 4th in recent days. According to Ming Pao, Fu Zhihai was recently arrested for allegedly making bottles of wine that were labelled with allusions to the 1989 massacre. A poet named Ma Qing, who promoted the wine, was also arrested.
