From International Herald Tribune:
A “green, high-tech and people’s Olympics” in Beijing 2008? Nothing is more ironic than this official slogan as I look out of my window at my home in Bobo Freedom City in the Beijing suburbs, not far from where the Games are intended to bring glory to my country.
I live here with my husband, Hu Jia, an environmentalist and AIDS activist. We chose to move here because we loved the area’s greenery and the Bohemian lifestyle it promised, as well as the idea of a “freedom city” in which civil rights were respected. But instead we have often found ourselves under house arrest or round-the-clock surveillance.
Since we moved in two years ago, state security police officers have been frequent visitors to Freedom City. My husband has been repeatedly harassed, including being detained by plainclothes police, without any legal procedure, for 41 days earlier this year. [Full Text]
See also Interview With AIDS Activist Hu Jia by Radio Free Asia, Wife of AIDS Activist Faces Down Beijing Police by Gao Ling and The Person Known as ‘Knight Errant’ Peng written by Zeng Jinyan, translated by Roland Soong.
