Guangzhou (AsiaNews / SCMP) - Police in Guangzhou have stopped and interrogated for hours a lawyer and human rights activist because her T-shirt bore a slogan deemed "dangerous to public order." Eventually the police shredded the T-shirt and gave him a white one, without writing. The "dangerous" words were the following: "The dictatorship of one party is a disaster."

According to reports by the South China Morning Post, yesterday afternoon Liu Shihua, a lawyer who has often defended human rights activists, was taking a walk on Mount Baiyun wearing the offending shirt. Public safety officials grabbed him by the neck and interrogated him for more than four hours over the T-shirts slogan. Liu defended himself saying the words "The dictatorship of one party is a disaster", printed on the front of the shirt, is the quote from an Xinhua editorial published in the '40s, the one on his back ( "The Communist Party is against the single party dictatorship of the Kuomintang, and the PC will not ever implement a dictatorship of one party ") is instead taken from a speech by President Liu Xiaoqi.

The police, consider the two inscriptions a "disturbance of public order" that "deceive the public." That is why they removed his shirt and handed it back to him shredded, giving him a white shirt with no writing.

This is the second time that Liu Shihua has problems because of what he wears. In mid-May, weeks before the anniversary of Tiananmen, the police stopped him because he wore a shirt with the same slogan.

In recent months the campaign against the T-shirts has intensified: several members of Charter 08 were detained because they had "provocative" slogans. Charter 08 is the proclamation in support of human rights in China, signed by thousands of intellectuals, party members and civilian people. Last year during the Olympics Chinese and foreign guests were forbidden to wear shirts with any kind of slogan, especially those in support of Tibet.