China accuses AIDS activists of endangering security

BEIJING, May 18 (Reuters) China barred a prominent AIDS and environmental activist and his wife from leaving the country today, accusing them of endangering national security, the pair said.

Both have been placed under house arrest.

Plainclothes police took Hu Jia, 33, away from his Beijing home for questioning hours before he and his wife and fellow AIDS campaigner Zeng Jinyan were to board a plane bound for Hong Kong en route to nine European countries, Zeng said.

The activist was released after about five hours of questioning and told that he and his wife were suspected of ''endangering national security'' and barred from leaving the country, Hu said, adding that they would be under house arrest for an indefinite period.

''The authorities are worried what we say during our European tour would ignite international opposition to Beijing hosting the Olympics,'' Hu told Reuters. The city is hosting the 2008 Summer Games.

Hu's activism has set him on a collision course with the Communist Party, which has stepped up curbs on NGOs, the media, the Internet, lawyers, academics and civil rights campaigners to maintain its grip on power.

Zeng, 22, who is three months' pregnant, was recently named by Time magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people. Hu said he was questioned about whom he and his wife met, what they did and said when they visited Hong Kong in February and March this year.

''It's laughable. They see freedom of expression as endangering national security,'' Hu said.

Hu said he was also interrogated about a 20-minute film he and his wife made which showed the couple under surveillance by plainclothes police.

''The film exposed human rights abuses by police with Chinese characteristics,'' Hu said, adding that house arrest was ''illegal detention and a crime''.

Hu has been a thorn in the government's side and was put under house arrest for 214 days last year.

During that time, Hu followed closely the trials of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and blind civil rights campaigner Chen Guangcheng and tipped off foreign reporters about the latest developments.

In a rare display of official tolerance, Gao was given a suspended three-year jail sentence for subversion last December.

Chen, known as a self-taught ''barefoot lawyer'' for providing legal advice to peasants, was jailed for four years and three months last year after exposing forced late-term abortions and other coercive birth control measures in his home province.

Hu also championed the cause of fellow AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, who was barred from leaving for the United States to receive an award until US Senator Hillary Clinton and Chinese President Hu Jintao intervened.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman's office, reached by telephone, had no immediate comment on Hu's house arrest.

China's new foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, defended his country's record in Sudan today, saying calls for a boycott of next year's Beijing Olympics were doomed to fail.

REUTERS SYU ND1722