Mainland China Activists Said Held After Heading for Disputed Islands

Text of report by Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post website on 31 October

[Report by Choi Chi-Yuk And Associated Press in Beijing: "Mainland Activists Held After Heading for Disputed Islands"; headline as provided by source]

Four mainland activists who sought to set foot on the disputed Diaoyu Islands were put under house arrest by authorities in Zhangzhou, Fujian, yesterday.

The Diaoyus, in the East China Sea, are being claimed by both China and Japan.

The house arrest action came just hours after the central government rebuffed a diplomatic protest by Tokyo over the four men’s attempt to reach the islands on Sunday night.

Beijing said Japan’s protest was “illegitimate” and violated international law because the Diaoyu Islands were Chinese territory.

“Our position is (the islands) have always been Chinese territory,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said yesterday. “I think the action by Japan violates international law, it is illegitimate and China is firmly against that.”

But the four mainlanders, instead of getting a hero’s welcome, found themselves arrested by mainland police on unknown charges after they returned home. They had gone within 13km of the islands before Japanese water cannons turned them away.

Li Yiqiang, an executive member of the China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, was one of the four who were forcibly taken to Xicheng Hotel by local officials as soon as they went ashore in Zhangzhou at about 5am yesterday.

“I felt this was sort of an insult when we were detained by public security officers,” Mr Li said.

They were not permitted to leave the hotel, but were allowed to use mobile phones to contact friends. The police interrogated them and asked them to write down the details of their trip -an order the activists said they refused to obey.

“Those guys who took us to the hotel were not in their uniforms except for one of them who was wearing a military police suit,” Mr Li said. “We had a scuffle when they tried to move us to another place.”

The four activists were eventually transferred to an unknown location at about 1pm.

One of the activists quoted a police officer as saying that their decision to set off from Zhangzhou had upset the local government, which saw the trip as creating trouble.

The chairman of the Hong Kong Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, Raymond Chan To-wai, said Mr Li called him early yesterday morning and asked him to inform the media about their situation.

“I feel encouraged whenever our mainland counterparts go and declare our sovereignty over the Diaoyus even though we have been blocked several times before,” Mr Chan said. “We shall spare no efforts to offer a hand in case they need help.”

He staged a protest in front of the Japanese consulate in Hong Kong yesterday morning and handed a letter to a staff.

The row over the islands is one of many issues that have strained ties between Tokyo and Beijing.

Originally published by South China Morning Post website, Hong Kong, in English 31 Oct 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.