ICC NOTE: China has sped up its prosecution of many human rights lawyers and Christian activists over the past couple of weeks. Many of which has been televised publicly so the population could see their alleged confessions to their alleged crimes. To create further dissension between the government and the activists, their families have become victims in their push for unopposed power. Many have been denied visas and the ability to even leave their respective counties according reports from Radio Free Asia. Among some of the more deplorable acts have been the governments pressure upon the landlords to evict the families from their dwellings. While China wishes to paint a rosy picture for the international community, especially during the summer Olympics, they continue to quash democratic movements and persecute religious minorities with impunity.
8/16/2016 China (Radio Free Asia) – Chinese authorities are continuing to mete out punishment by association to the families of detained human rights lawyers and activists, preventing them from leaving the county on “national security” grounds, activists said.
“Collective punishment against Chinese activists means blocking family members from traveling and obtaining passports or visas,” the Chinese website Weiquanwang reported on Friday.
“China continues to arbitrarily apply ‘endangering national security’,” it said via Twitter.
In one case, the 17-year-old daughter of exiled rights activist Liu Huanjun, now resident in the United States, was stopped by police at Beijing’s international airport after she tried to board a flight to meet him in Hong Kong for a vacation.
“They reason they gave was that my daughter would be a danger to national security if she were allowed to leave,” Liu wrote via social media.
“But what harm can a 17-year-old child do?” she wrote. “The Chinese government is shameless.”
Liu, a former primary school teacher who first became engaged in rights work during a bitter eviction struggle, has a long history of vocal and conspicuous campaigns against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
She was detained in 2013 for calling on the nation’s leaders to reveal details of their wealth, and threw herself in front of the motorcade of President Xi Jinping during his September 2015 state visit to the United States to protest rights violations.
