Guangzhou Customs searched luggage for two hours before allowing journey to new

The wife of veteran dissident Wang Xizhe is due to be reunited with her exiled husband in San Francisco today after making a low-profile two-day transit stop in Hong Kong on her way from the mainland.

Su Jiang arrived in the SAR from Guangzhou on Saturday and left for a new life in the United States yesterday, the Hong Kong based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.

Guangzhou Customs looked through Ms Su's luggage for two hours, the centre said.

She avoided meeting the press in Hong Kong in case it affected future visits to the SAR by dissidents' relatives, the centre said.

Centre spokesman Lu Siqing said: 'The Hong Kong Government has restricted immigration policy on dissidents and their relatives. Su feared she might be blacklisted and banned from coming to Hong Kong in the future or affect future trips by relatives of other dissidents if she talked with the press.' Ms Su, who has not seen her husband for nearly three years since he fled the mainland, said in a statement she kept quiet in Hong Kong because she hoped to return to the mainland to see her 22-year-old son and parents.

But she met pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, including Lau Shan-ching and Leung Kwok-hung.

'I am glad to have seen many old friends in Hong Kong and to have been able to witness a workers' demonstration led by legislator Lee Cheuk-yan,' Ms Su said.