The New York Times

Monday, June 14, 1999

Chinese Police Arrest Professor

By The Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese police have arrested a university professor after he helped organize a branch of an outlawed opposition party, a human rights group said today.

Police confined Tong Shidong to his home in southern Hunan province on June 8 and have since formally arrested him, a sign he might be facing a prison sentence, the New York-based group Human Rights in China said.

Tong organized a preparatory committee of the China Democracy Party at Hunan University, where he teaches, the group said. He also drafted party documents police found in a search of the home of another dissident, Liao Shihua, who also is in detention, the group said.

Meanwhile, Chinese police allowed three Hong Kong students into Beijing, where they plan to petition congress not to intervene in a Hong Kong immigration dispute.

The students have been closely followed by police since leaving Hong Kong. But authorities did not prevent them from boarding a train to Beijing, and they arrived in the capital today. Two Hong Kong lawmakers headed to Beijing in the same cause were barred from flying to the mainland.

The dispute centers on a Hong Kong court ruling that said the self-governing province must allow any Chinese with one Hong Kong parent to immigrate from the mainland to Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong government fears that the ruling will allow some 1.6 million Chinese into the province over the next decade and overwhelm it. It has asked the Chinese legislature to intervene by offering a new interpretation to the Basic Law that will scale back the court ruling.

A majority in Hong Kong supports the government's request for help from Beijing, but legal professionals fear Hong Kong could be surrendering its judicial independence.