Two more held after street campaign to force officials to reveal wealth
A lawyer and an activist are taken away and had their homes raided by police over disclosure demands, bringing total arrests to eight
Beijing police detained a lawyer and an activist on Wednesday, bringing the number of people held over a street campaign urging senior Communist party officials to disclose their family assets to at least eight.
The same night, police also took away activist Zhao Changqing and confiscated his computers, cameras and mobile phones, his wife, Liu Xiaodong, said yesterday. Police sent Liu a notice saying her husband had been criminally detained for "illegal gathering" and was being held at Beijing's No3 Detention Centre, she said.
Zhao was jailed for his role as a student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, and has been jailed several times for political activities.
Li and Liu said Ding and Zhao were detained because of their participation in a campaign demanding senior officials disclose their assets. Li said they were also involved in civil rights campaigns of the New Citizen social movement - an initiative started by legal scholar Xu Zhiyong .
Beijing police did not respond to an inquiry yesterday.