From AP:
The number of people arrested in China on charges of endangering national security more than doubled last year, a rights lobbying group reported Wednesday in a finding that underscores the communist government’s sustained clampdown on dissent.
The San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation said a recently published Chinese government yearbook showed that state security charges ” commonly used against political critics ” were filed against 604 people in 2006, compared with 296 the year before.
The state security arrests were the highest number since 2002, Dui Hua added.
Only a few of the highest profile prosecutions have been publicized, either by China’s government or rights groups, while more than 90 percent of the defendants were not publicly known, Dui Hua said. [Full Text]
Read also New Statistics Point to Dramatic Increase in Chinese Political Arrests in 2006 by Dui Hua Foundation.