Activists 'detained while celebrating Hu Jia’s birthday'
Fearing prominent democracy advocate's presence in Shenzhen could inspire others, officers disrupt celebration and detain him for hours
Shenzhen police detained prominent activists Hu Jia, Teng Biao and more than a dozen supporters for several hours on Thursday night in Shenzhen, apparently over suspicions they were using Hu’s 40th birthday dinner as a rallying point to fight for the release of legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and other activists recently detained.
Teng told the South China Morning Post shortly after his release around 11.30pm that plain clothes police interrogated him for two and a half hours over the dinner gathering, specifically asking whether participants had discussed Xu, who was detained last week on the criminal charge of “gathering a crowd to disturb order in public places”.
Xu’s nationwide New Citizen social initiative - which advocates democracy, rule of law and civil rights - launched a campaign several months ago urging senior party officials to disclose their financial assets. Over 40 activists across China involved in that campaign have since been detained, Teng said earlier.
Many dinner gatherings organised by Xu over the past year have similarly been broken up by police, while he was confined at home.
Teng said police did not produce a warrant and did not give a reason for their detentions.
“They have taken away so many people and they are very nervous themselves, so when we got together for dinner, they had to intervene,” Teng said.