Clampdown on Activist's Wedding

Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan disrupted the marriage celebrations of a prominent rights activist at the weekend, beating a friend who tried to take photographs, holding some guests under house arrest and stopping many of them in mid-journey, activists said on Monday.

More than 70 guests managed to attend the marriage ceremony of veteran pro-democracy campaigner Qin Yongmin and his second wife Wang Xifeng, but 12 guests who tried to travel to Wuhan to congratulate the couple were waylaid by the authorities.

The wedding itself was attended by dozens of police, Wang said on Monday.

"There were a lot of plainclothes police standing around watching," she said. "Maybe 20 or 30 of them."

"There were a lot of [police] vehicles parked on both sides of the road outside the hotel [where the banquet was held]," Wang said. "They seemed to be guarding against us."

Fellow activist Shi Yulin said there were "hundreds" of invited guests across China who had been prevented from coming.

"A lot of people traveling a long distance were stopped on the way by police, including Wei Zhongping from Jiangxi, Li Yuanfeng from Shenzhen and Guo Chunping from Henan."

"They were detained for more than four hours before being released," he said.

Even those who did attend weren't immune to police harassment. Zhejiang-based dissident Zhang Honghai said he was beaten up by police after he took photos of everyone together after the ceremony.

"They saw me taking photos and came over to snatch away my camera," Zhang said on Monday. "I wouldn't let them have it, so more than a dozen of them came rushing over and started to beat me up ... It was right there on the street; a lot of people saw it."

He said police had taken the memory card from his camera, which they later returned to him.

"They beat me up pretty hard, as if they were arresting a criminal, with their fists and their feet," Zhang said, adding that he had suffered injuries all over his body. He was dragged into a police car, where the beatings continued, before being questioned at a police station and returned to his hometown.

Guests detained

Shi said many other wedding guests had been detained by Wuhan police after arriving in the city before they even arrived at Qin and Wang's marriage ceremony.

"It was already hard enough for them to get that far, and they still got detained in the end," he said. "Some had come from Harbin, and others from Ningxia."

He said some of the guests had disappeared following a welcome meal ahead of the wedding.

"I told them all to find separate places to stay, but ... they still got caught," Shi said. "They were taken away as they got off the bus on the way back to their hotels."

He said Qin estimated that several hundred people around China had been prevented from attending the event. "I know that there were a great many of them," he said.

Retired Shandong University professor Sun Wenguang said he had already bought the train ticket when he was held under house arrest.

"The police came and told me not to go, that it was a long way, and a great inconvenience," Sun said. "They said they would get a refund on the ticket for me, and they have already given me back the money."

He said his plans were likely revealed to police by the use of China's real-name registration system for rail tickets.

"I think they found out very soon after; it seems that they were terrified at the prospect of everyone getting together," Sun added. "But we only wanted to go to congratulate Qin Yongmin on his new family."

Reported by Fang Yuan for RFA's Mandarin service, and by Grace Kei Lai-see for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.