Chinese Police Warn Dissidents Not to Form Party

Chinese police interrogated three dissidents in separate, three-hour sessions and warned them not to try to set up an opposition political party, one of those interrogated said today.

Ren Wanding, one of the dissident community’s most prominent figures, said his Thursday night detention and questioning persuaded him to give up plans to register the China Democracy Party’s Beijing branch.

Police “told me, ‘Now we’re still under the Communist Party’s leadership. Setting up political parties is not permitted,’ ” said Ren, who has spent 11 of the past 19 years in prison.

At least three of Ren’s four colleagues in the would-be Beijing branch had separate run-ins with police. Ma Shaohua and Wang Linhai were interrogated for three to four hours Wednesday and Thursday nights, while police ransacked the home of Zhao Xin, who was out of town, Ren said.

Despite his own five-hour detention Thursday in Shanghai, Yao Zhenxian and four other democracy campaigners mailed an application today to register the party’s Shanghai branch, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.

Since mid-July, after President Clinton’s nine-day China tour, police have rounded up more than two dozen democracy and labor rights campaigners, holding them mostly for short periods of time.

Most of the detentions were connected to the China Democracy Party. Twelve people were detained and later released in Zhejiang province after the first attempt to register the party in late June.