A Leader of ’89 Protests Held by Police in Beijing

BEIJING — Chinese police detained a student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests before he could attend 100th anniversary celebrations for Beijing University, a human rights group said Sunday.

Wang Youcai was last seen at a Beijing hotel April 27, shortly after he arrived in the capital to take part in festivities for his alma mater, China’s most prestigious university.

Police notified his wife, Hu Jiangxia, on Saturday that Wang had been detained but gave no reason and did not reveal his whereabouts, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.

Wang was a graduate student in physics at Beijing University at the time of the 1989 protests. After the military quashed the movement, Wang was placed on the government’s list of 21 most-wanted student organizers. He was sentenced to four years in prison but was released early, reportedly for repenting.

A resident of Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, Wang received an invitation to attend the university’s celebrations, the information center said.