11/26/2010, 00.00
CHINA
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Fan Yafeng, a Christian, is arrested, he signed Charter 08

A researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Fan was fired in 2009 for his work on behalf of the population. Police detained his wife and three-year-old child. The authorities continue to persecute supporters of Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – Police took Fan Yafeng, a Christian legal scholar and rights activist, from his Beijing home for interrogation this week, along with his wife and young son. He was one of the people who signed Charter 08 and has been a target of government repression for quite sometimes because of his social activism.

Fan’s arrest on Wednesday marks another stage in the government’s “hunt” for people who might travel to Norway to collect the Nobel Prize on behalf of Liu Xiaobo, co-author Charter 08 and a leading figure in a new generation of anti-Communist dissidents.

Fan said that about a dozen police agents took him away and that he was questioned for five hours until 2 am. The summons accused him of carrying "out activities in the name of social organisations".

In addition and without his knowledge, police also took his wife and their three-year-old son back to the police station for interrogation shortly after he was led away. “My son said later he was frightened," Fan said.

Fan has been the target of persecution in the past. A legal researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), he was summoned on 13 November 2009 by the head of his department, who, along with the local party chief, told him that he was fired for “political reasons”.

According to China Human Right Defenders (CHRD), Fan’s dismissal was tied to the government’s policy of cracking down on the capital’s underground Protestant Churches. Other experts suggest however that Fan, a model student at CASS, his arrest might linked to the fact that he wrote extensively on political and constitutional reforms, and that he often defended the religious rights of Protestants.

Fan Yafeng, 41, was born in Anhui. In 1992, he got a BA in education at Anhui Normal University. In 1995, he was awarded a Master from the Beijing University Law School. In 2003, he earned a Doctorate in Comparative Constitutional Law at CASS.

Since 2007, the authorities have carried out a crackdown against underground Protestant Churches, which, according to conservative estimates, have a membership of some 50 million.

The government’s campaign is designed to force them into the official, government-controlled Three Autonomies Movement; failing that, the authorities want them suppressed.

Many Christians are involved in the defence of human and religious rights. At the same time, many dissidents and activists find in Christianity the human and philosophical bases to fight for human rights. Thus, the government is afraid of an “alliance” between social and religious activists. For this reason, it has taken repressive steps against both.

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