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'Police harass Chinese dissidents during Clinton visit'
Chinese human rights activists said on Saturday police had harassed and intimidated them so they would not speak out during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing.
Chinese human rights activists said on Saturday police had harassed and intimidated them so they would not speak out during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing.
"I am under house arrest because Hillary Clinton came," Zeng Jinyan, one of China's most prominent dissidents and wife of jailed activist Hu Jia, told AFP via an Internet message.
The Chinese Human Rights Defenders group also said that a number of dissidents had been put under residential surveillance, questioned and followed by Beijing police in an effort to silence them during Clinton's visit.
Their comments came after Clinton said she would not press China's communist leaders on the sensitive issue of human rights during her visit to Beijing so that the two sides could focus on major issues of global concern.
Clinton's comments triggered a fierce reaction from human rights groups around the world, with Amnesty International saying it was "shocked and extremely disappointed".
"The United States is one of the only countries that can meaningfully stand up to China on human rights issues," said T. Kumar, Asia advocacy director with Amnesty International USA.
Zeng said security police monitoring her at her Beijing apartment told her she would not be allowed outside on Saturday.
"They said they had received orders from the top that I can not go out today," she told AFP.
In a blog posting, Zeng wrote that she had intended to go out on Saturday to meet Gao Yaojie, an AIDS activist from central China who was due to arrive in Beijing ahead of a planned meeting with Clinton on Sunday.
"I was very angry. I even cursed... but I breathed deeply and called my friend to send Gao to the hotel, and then I fed my baby."
The Chinese Human Rights Defenders said police had also told Jiang Qisheng, previously jailed for his pro-democracy work, not to meet with Clinton.
The group named other activists it said had been harassed and were notable for signing Charter 'O8, a petition released last year calling for political reform in China.
