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SCMP Reporter

CHINA'S best-known dissident Wei Jingsheng was formally arrested yesterday on charges of attempting to overthrow the Government.

Wei has been held in detention for more than 18 months.

Xinhua (the New China News Agency) reported that the Beijing Public Security Bureau had gathered 'sufficient evidence' to show Wei, 44, had 'conducted activities in an attempt to overthrow the Government after his release on parole' in September 1993.

'His actions were in violation of criminal law and constituted crimes,' Xinhua said without elaborating.

Wei's case has now been passed to the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate, which, according to China's criminal procedure law, has three months to file charges and send the case to the Beijing Intermediate People's Court for trial.

Although charges of attempting overthrow the Government carry a potential death penalty, Wei is expected to receive a similar sentence to the 15-year prison term he was given by the same court in 1979.

At that time he was found guilty of leaking state secrets to a foreign journalist.

News of Wei's arrest was met with condemnation by human rights organisations around the world.

'Placing Wei on trial for a potential capital offence should be met with the strongest possible protest from governments around the world,' said Robin Munro of Human Rights Watch Asia in New York.

'It also gives the lie to suggestions from the Chinese Government that they were considering revoking the laws on counter-revolution,' he said.

The only good thing to come out of the arrest, Mr Munro said, was at least the world now knew what the intentions of the Chinese Government were with regard to Wei after 11/2 years of incommunicado detention.

The Foreign Ministry earlier yesterday cautioned the United States Government to curtail its 'confrontation with China' over human rights, possibly making the statement in anticipation of a sharp reaction to Wei's formal arrest.

'With regard to human rights, we are prepared to conduct a dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said.

'But the US side must first curtail its confrontation with China at the Geneva UN Human Rights Commission and stop interfering in China's internal affairs.' Foreign Affairs police surrounded the home of Wei's parents in western Beijing yesterday afternoon to prevent journalists from talking to relatives and neighbours.

Uniformed officers were stationed at the entrance to the alley leading to Wei's parents' flat and half a dozen plain-clothes officers occupied the gate house at the entrance to the residential compound.

Wei's sister, Wei Ling, said the charge against the activist was 'ridiculous' and that police did not notify the family that Wei would be formally arrested.

'They have rejected every one of our requests to see him, so I guess it's not surprisingthey would not tell us he was arrested,' she said.

'I am scared for him because this time the sentence could be very serious, like life imprisonment. His life is hopeless now.'  Arlette Laduguie, a China researcher for the London-based Amnesty International, said the organisation would lodge a formal protest with the Chinese Government over Wei's arrest.

 Ms Laduguie said the charges against Wei were 'vague'.

  Since his release on parole in September 1993, after serving all but six months of his 15-year sentence, Wei spent six months in and out of police custody before finally being detained on April 1, 1994 as he was attempting to return to Beijing from Tianjin. He has remained in custody ever since.

Wei's secretary Tong Yi, who had been acting as Wei's liaison officer while he was away from Beijing, was also detained in April and was later sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly forging a seal.



Dissident Wei to go on trial