Beijing, May 6 (IANS/EFE) Chinese authorities have arrested Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent human rights lawyer who has handled cases such as that of the artist Ai Weiwei, for attending a symposium on the Tiananmen massacre at the beginning of this month.
Pu was arrested early Tuesday morning by the Beijing police. He was accused of "disrupting order", and has been taken to a detention centre in the Chinese capital, according to the arrest document to which EFE has access.
The lawyer, as he usually does each year, attended the symposium held in Beijing May 3 on the 1989 massacre in which hundreds of people died, along with activists, professors, lawyers and families of victims of the incident such as Zhang Xianling, one of the women belonging to the group Tiananmen Mothers.
Besides Pu, four other attendees have been missing since the day of the symposium, and seven other were questioned and released, human rights lawyer and Chinese intellectual Teng Biao told EFE Tuesday.
The police searched Pu's house and confiscated his computer, mobile phone, books and other personal belongings Sunday evening, after which they took him to the police station to interrogate him, the organisation Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) revealed.
After taking him to his house the next day for a change of clothes, the authorities took him back to the station confirming his arrest Monday night.
The arrest of Pu, who participated in the student protests in Tiananmen, has provoked reactions from human rights organisations and activists in the light of the campaign of repression that the Chinese authorities normally carry out prior to the anniversary of the massacre June 4.
"It is an unusual and alarming action that they arrest someone so influential instead of putting him under house arrest as in previous years," said Maya Wang, a researcher of Human Rights Watch, in her official Twitter account.
According to Wang, this arrest made a month before the anniversary is "troubling".
The Tiananmen massacre continues to be a taboo subject for the Chinese leaders who suppress any attempt to commemorate it or any demands for justice such as those of the Tianamen Mothers who are under intense surveillance.
This year will mark the 25th anniversary of the incident that took place June 3 and 4, 1989, when the Chinese regime decided to bring tanks into the streets to end the massive pro-democracy protests that were taking place in the country.
--IANS/EFE
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