China Frees 3 Dissidents Detained Before Anniversary

China has freed three dissidents detained by police before the anniversary of last year’s crackdown on the democracy movement, including a Taiwan-born pop singer who surfaced Wednesday in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s state-run Broadcasting Corporation of China said Hou Dejian, the last of the three dissidents arrested before the June 3 anniversary, arrived Wednesday in Taiwan by fishing boat from an unspecified location in China after 50 hours at sea. Hou, a singer, had defected to mainland China in 1983.

Earlier Wednesday, friends said a second freed dissident, Gao Xin, 33, telephoned at least two friends Tuesday to say he had been released and to tell a tale similar to that of activist Zhou Duo, 43, who was freed Sunday.

“He said he’d been held outside town and was treated well,” an associate said. “He sounded very good. He was in good spirits.”

Gao, a Communist Party member and former editor of Beijing Normal University’s newspaper, appeared fit and said he was not mistreated, the associate said.

Zhou said in an interview Tuesday that he and Hou were held at the same suburban Beijing hotel, but were not allowed to meet.

Until Zhou’s interview Tuesday, there had been no confirmation that the three were detained because the government has rebuffed repeated inquiries.

The three dissidents disappeared May 30--the eve of a risky scheduled news conference at which they had planned to issue an open letter asking China’s hard-line leaders to free political prisoners held since the June, 1989, crushing of the democracy movement.

Zhou said police took him from his home the night before the planned news conference, saying he would be detained until tension surrounding the approaching June 3-4 anniversary had abated.

Hou, Gao and a fourth dissident, university lecturer Liu Xiaobo, conducted a last-ditch hunger strike last June in Tian An Men Square just before Chinese troops moved in and crushed the six weeks of protests. Liu remains in a prison north of Beijing.

In a separate case, sources said authorities arrested the lone student who dared speak out at a midnight rally at Beijing University on June 4, exactly one year after the bloody crackdown on the nationwide democracy movement.

University sources said outspoken democracy advocate Li Mingqi, a 21-year-old economics student, was arrested June 15 at the campus in northwest Beijing.