From The Times:
Chinese police have begun questioning writers, artists and intellectuals who dared to sign a new charter demanding political reforms. It is a move that sets the mood for the year in which the Communist Party will mark the 60th anniversary of its rule.
From across China, reports are emerging of officials and even police calling in some of the 303 people who put their names to Charter 08, a document calling for greater civil rights and an end to the political dominance of the Communist Party.
The co-author, the literary critic Liu Xiaobo, has been in detention since December 8, the day before the bold manifesto was published online.
Another signatory, Xu Youyu, a professor of philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has written an open letter describing how he was notified by his superiors that the charter was “nonsense” and he should retract his signature. He refused.
