BEIJING |
BEIJING (Reuters) - Days of interrogation in a cold, secluded room taught Liu Anjun that China's security forces see dissidents and protesters like him as players in a plot to topple the Communist Party, a fear that is magnifying Beijing's hard crackdown on dissent.The most internationally prominent target of that crackdown has been the artist Ai Weiwei, but the net reaches far wider and reflects Party anxiety that it confronts not just general discontent, but a subversive movement waiting to pounce.
Liu, a gravel-voiced, charismatic agitator for petitioners' rights, was taken from his family on February 18. Police bundled him into a van and locked him in a hotel room in south Beijing, where he was watched by rotating teams of guards, he said.
There, for six days, police interrogators showed Liu pictures of dissidents, human rights lawyers, and activists, seeking information about their mutual contacts, beliefs and plans, Liu told Reuters at his home in a Beijing alley where he was recovering after his release from 45 days in detention.
The police have been hunting for evidence of a web of conspiracy bringing together domestic and foreign foes that the Chinese government believes are behind recent calls for Middle East-inspired "Jasmine Revolution" protests against the Party.
"They took out picture after picture, mainly of democracy activists and rights defenders, and asked about each of them," Liu said, seated in his cigarette smoke-filled living room.
"They were trying to build up links among everybody, trying to get me to tell them who was supporting what," said Liu, who walks on crutches after a leg injury sustained in a protest over the demolition of a former home.
Chinese leaders believe domestic foes, their foreign backers and Western governments are scheming to undermine and ultimately topple the Communist Party. Recent speeches and articles from security officials echo with warnings of subversive plots backed by Western "anti-China" forces.
Shortly before China's clampdown ramped up in February, a senior domestic security official, Chen Jiping, warned that "hostile Western forces" -- alarmed by the country's rise -- were marshalling human rights issues to attack Party control.
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