Chinese dissidents denied rights
By Eva Cheng
Jailed dissident Wang Dan is suffering from severe pain, which doctors suspect is caused by a brain tumour, but officials have turned down Wang's repeated requests for a test.
Wang is in weak and declining health, related partly to a painful disorder which prison doctors diagnosed as "stomach neurosis", his mother Wang Linyun told the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in China.
Wang, 21 in 1989, when he was playing a leading role in the Tiananmen protests, was rearrested and sentenced to an 11-year jail term last October for "counter-revolutionary" crimes. He earlier completed four years' imprisonment for his 1989 activities.
Beijing has also stepped up harassment of other democracy activists. Veteran dissident Ren Wanding, 52, was place under house arrest again recently. He was released from prison in June 1996, after seven years in jail for his 1989 pro-democracy activities. Ren has to obtain permission to leave home and be accompanied at all times when he is out.
Ren, an activist in the Beijing Spring pro-democracy movement in the late 1970s, is denied a residence permit, which is essential in China to obtain a range of basic rights.
Beijing-based dissident Jin Cheng, 38, was taken into police custody twice in August after having written to Qiao Shi, head of the Chinese parliament, to demand a formal trial for corruption of former Beijing party chief Chen Xitong.
Chen was never brought to justice after being removed from power in 1995. Jin spent three years in jail after the 1989 protests and was in occasional custody since.
Wang Guoqi, 37, currently serving an 11-year sentence for organising a "counter-revolutionary" group in 1994, has been denied family visits since a few weeks ago for refusing to memorise prison regulations.
Despite imprisonment for eight years in the 1980s for his political activities and two years in hard labour camp from late 1993, Wuhan-based dissident Qin Yongmin, 44, wrote to President Jiang Zemin in mid-August to call for democratisation of China's political system. His demand is modest — for direct election of the lowest level of government by the year 2000 — but that can still put him at big risk. To that he said: "Danger is unavoidable, but I'm not afraid".