RM awardee’s wife blocked from flying to RP

BEIJING (AP) – Chinese authorities yesterday barred the wife of an imprisoned human rights activist from leaving the country to accept a humanitarian award on her husband’s behalf, a friend of the woman said.

Yuan Weijing’s passport and telephone were confiscated as she attempted to pass through security at the Beijing airport to fly to the Philippines, said Hu Jia, an advocate for people with AIDS, who himself has been under house arrest for months.

She had planned to fly to the Philippines to accept a Magsaysay Award, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, for her husband, Chen Guangcheng, a self-trained lawyer who helped farmers with grievances file court cases.

Chen, who is blind, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison in 2006 after he documented cases of forced abortions and other abuses by family planning officials in his native Shandong province in eastern China.

Yuan called Hu to let him know her passport had been confiscated but the call was quickly cut off. Attempts to reach her again failed. It was not immediately clear whether she had been detained, although Hu said Yuan called him later to say her luggage had been taken and she had been “kidnapped,” although she was unable to say by whom.

Barring Yuan from leaving the country shows the extent to which China’s authoritarian communist rulers will go to prevent government critics from drawing attention to human rights abuses within the country.

In an interview Thursday, Yuan said, “I haven’t done anything wrong, so I’ll give it a try, and if they stop me then it’s not my problem.”

Yuan said authorities in Shandong had attempted to prevent her from coming to Beijing and were blocking her from leaving Hu Jia’s apartment where she had been staying. About 30 policemen blocked her on Friday, but she was eventually able to leave after about 45 minutes.

Hu said Philippine Airlines service personnel told his wife that Yuan’s baggage had been taken off the plane by police – a likely sign that she was being forcibly returned to Shandong.

“The biggest loser here is not Yuan Weijing and not the Magsaysay Foundation but the Chinese government,” said Hu. “This just really shows how bad the human rights situation is here.”

China also blocked two previous winners of Magsaysay prizes from collecting their awards, including army doctor Jiang Yanyong, who embarrassed the government by revealing the true scale of the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Also blocked was crusading AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, who has been repeatedly harassed by provincial officials seeking to squelch news about the epidemic and government malfeasance that aided the disease’s spread.

Hu said Yuan told him authorities cited a statute blocking people who may cause harm to the nation from leaving the country when they took away her passport.

In Thursday’s interview, Yuan said Chen’s health was suffering in prison from beatings and poor food, but that he had been thrilled to hear he had won the prize. She said he welcomed the international publicity, although it remained far from clear whether it would help him or his cause.

“He told the guard right away, ‘I’m going to the Philippines,’ but the guard said, ‘That’s not what I heard,”’ Yuan said with a smile.