Sex-worker rights activist Ye Haiyan and family kicked out of Guangdong

Sex-worker rights activist Ye Haiyan was thrown out of Guangdong by security police yesterday in a continuing campaign of harassment.

The 38-year-old single mother, her boyfriend and her 14-year-old daughter were put on a high-speed train to Hubei province from Guangzhou South station under police escort.

The three had arrived in Guangzhou on Saturday afternoon after they were made homeless by Zhongshan security police.

They were forcibly evicted from their newly rented flat in that city after their power and water supplies were cut off.

At 2am on Saturday they were put in a police vehicle along with their furniture, appliances and possessions and dumped on a roadside in the Guanghai district of the city of Taishan , nearly 120 kilometres from their home.

According to Ye's boyfriend, Zhongshan security police threatened to break their legs if they were seen again in the city.

Ye said the forced eviction, which she documented on social media, followed days of harassment by authorities in Zhongshan, where they had attempted to settle after being forced out of Bobai county in Guangxi in June and Wuhan in Hubei in 2010.

After arriving in Guangzhou on Saturday and meeting her lawyer and supporters, Ye was harassed again late in the evening while staying at a friend's place in the city.

One of Ye's friends was injured during a scuffle with a handful of men in plain clothes, who claimed to be security guards. "They forced me to the ground outside my friend's apartment," said a supporter.

"At first they were going to take [Ye] to a local police station, but they hesitated and then forced us from our friend's apartment," he said.

Yesterday morning, Ye and her family were put in a taxi by police, taken to the train station and returned to rural Hubei.

Ye's lawyer Wang Yu said: "This was a shameless act in the extreme. They are exhausted and wish to be left alone until things quieten down."