Preparing for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China’s Authorities Go After Human-Rights Advocates

From USNews

BEIJING—Qianci may well be the youngest political prisoner in the world. The 3-month-old girl and her 24-year-old mother are surrounded 24 hours a day, seven days a week by some two dozen members of China’s state security apparatus. Since December 27, they have not been permitted to leave their small apartment in eastern Beijing, and visitors are brusquely turned away by the plainclothes police who guard the building. Connections to the outside world—mobile phones and the Internet—have been cut off. The young mother and daughter hardly seem like a threat to the state. Their offense? Qianci and Zeng Jinyan are daughter and wife of Hu Jia, a leading activist on behalf of dissidents, human-rights lawyers, and abused farmers. [continues...]