Beijing Activist Zeng Jinyan Disappeared on Eve of Olympics Opening Ceremony

August 9, 2008       Comments Off on Beijing Activist Zeng Jinyan Disappeared on Eve of Olympics Opening Ceremony

(Chinese Human Rights Defenders, August 9, 2008) – Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕), a Beijing-based human rights activist, disappeared on August 7. All attempts to contact her have failed. It is feared that Zeng has been taken into police custody and might be mistreated.

Zeng has been under intermittent residential surveillance for the last two years by police from the National Security Unit under Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB). Since her husband and fellow human rights activist, Hu Jia (胡佳) was taken into detention on December 27, 2007, Zeng has been under tightened residential surveillance. Journalists who attempted to visit her at her apartment were turned back by those guarding her. As the Olympics open in Beijing, it is believed that Zeng was taken away to ensure that no journalists will have access to her and that she will be unable to speak out about Hu Jia during the Games.

“The Beijing police are either so incompetent that they would let her disappear under their nose or that they must be responsible for taking her away. How can a young woman with an infant child ‘sabotage’ the Olympics while under such heavy and round-the-clock police presence?” asked a friend of Zeng.

CHRD urges U.S. President George W. Bush, French President and rotating E.U. President Nicolas Sarkozy and the chairman of the International Olympics Committee Jacques Rogge, who are in Beijing attending the opening ceremony and meeting Chinese leaders, to ask Chinese President Hu Jintao about Zeng’s whereabouts and situation. They should demand that Zeng be returned home without being mistreated and that once home, she will be free from illegal residential surveillance.

For more information, please see:
Imprisoned Activist Hu Jia Still Denied Access to Adequate Medical Care (June 12, 2008)
Hu Jia, Found Guilty for Criticizing Pre-Olympics Abuses, Sentenced to 3 Years & 6 Months (April 3, 2008)
Hu Jia on Trial: Rights to Free Speech and Due Process Violated (March 18, 2008)
On Eve of 6-Month Countdown to Olympics, Police Stepped up Harassment on Zeng Jinyan (February 7, 2008)
Hu Jia Formally Arrested: Authorities Impervious To International Protest (January 31, 2008)
Hu Jia Detained on Suspicion of “Inciting Subversion of State Power” (December 28, 2007)

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