China stops activist's wife leaving country

BEIJING, Aug 24 (Reuters) China today prevented the wife of a blind, jailed activist from going to the Philippines to collect a human rights award on his behalf after they revoked her passport.

Police detained her at the airport, a friend added.

The Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation named Chen Guangcheng as one of seven winners this year, citing his ''irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law''.

Chen was sentenced to four years and three months' jail last year for disrupting traffic and damaging property, charges his wife and critics say were concocted by officials angry at his exposure of forced late-term abortions in his hometown in Shandong province.

''They said that her passport was not valid,'' said Yuan Weijing's friend and fellow activist Zeng Jinyan. ''But that's not the case. She was able to check in with no problem.'' ''She's still inside. We're outside waiting for her. I think they'll keep her for a hour or so. But there is no reason to detain her,'' Zeng told Reuters by mobile phone.

Police earlier accosted and briefly detained a small group of foreign reporters who had gone to where Yuan was staying in Beijing, the house of another activist, Hu Jia and his wife Zeng.

REUTERS SKB RAI1046