On Monday, November 30, the Chinese Government jailed my father, Xu Wenli, yet again. This time it accused him of 'subverting the government'.
I grew up without him. In 1981, when I was eight years old, the authorities imprisoned my non-violent father for 12 years, because he advocated free speech.
He was in solitary confinement for his entire term. For three of those years he was kept in a room not much wider or longer than a coffin and was allowed no visitors.
All he has done is to try to register a new political group, the Chinese Democratic Party. There is no law against forming a political party. If the authorities do not want him to do this, they certainly have the power to stop him. They do not need to jail him.
From the time of his release in 1993, the government had a team of police officers constantly watching our house. Several stood near the front door while others sat in the apartment next door.
We have no back door, just a window facing a school yard. Several policemen sat in the school yard and stared at the window. Every time my father left the house, he was followed by a car, a motorcycle, and by men on foot. Last year, the police raided our house on three occasions.
