World Tibet Network News Thursday, June 25, 1998

XIAN, China, June 25 (AFP) - Police sought to stifle any sign of dissent prior to US President Bill Clinton's arrival here, detaining three dissidents and barring foreign reporters from interviewing pro-democracy activists.

But Clinton, who has already denounced as a "big mistake" a decision by the Chinese authorities to cancel the visas of three reporters with Radio Free Asia, vowed he would press Beijing on freedom of speech and other human rights issues.

Clinton arrived in the central city of Xian Thursday, on the first visit by a US president since the 1989 Tinananmen massacre.

"When it comes to human rights, we should deal respectfully, but directly with the Chinese," he earlier told staff at the Elmendorf air force base, in Anchorage, Alaska.

"That's more effective than trying to push them in a corner. I will press ahead on human rights in China with one goal in mind, and only one: making a difference."

Pro-democracy activist Yang Hai was taken away by police late Thursday afternoon after a US television network tried unsuccessfully to interview him, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.

On Wednesday, dissidents Yan Jun and Li Zhiying were taken separately by police, the organisation said.

Foreign reporters were also blocked by police during an attempt to interview Lin Mu, former secretary of late Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang, who recently called for political reforms and a reassessment of the Tiananmen massacre.

Despite mounting calls, Clinton has indicated he will not meet with dissidents, and China has taken a hard line on the issue.

"There are no dissidents here. I haven't heard of any arrangement of meeting the dissidents you referred to," Foreign Ministry spokesman Tang Guoqiang told a regular media briefing.

Members of a US-based pro-Tibetan human rights group, who slipped past Chinese immigration to be in Beijing, said meanwhile they would press China to release Tibetan prisoners of conscience.

Their plans include distributing leaflets at a planned briefing by Ye Xiaowen, director of the Religious Affairs Bureau on Friday to protest against China's jailing of Tibetan religious leaders, said John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet.

"It seems like there is a real possibility of some prisoner releases and we're hoping there will finally be a Tibetan released among them," he told AFP.

Yang Hai, Yan Jun and Li Zhiying are all pro-democracy activists in Xian, who have signed a number of protest petitions to the Chinese ogvernment.

Yan Jun was one of 70 dissidents who signed a letter to Clinton urging him to meet dissidents and skip his official welcoming ceremony at Tiananmen Square because of the June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

"Do you know that you are stepping in scarlet blood when you inspect the guard of honor of the Chinese army in Tiananmen Square?" the letter said.

Former party secretary Lin, 70, first ran foul of the authorities in 1995, when he was picked up several times by police in Xian for co-authoring petitions demanding the release of political prisoners.

"This morning some foreign reporters came to talk to me, but there were police on the gate who would not let them in," Lin said from his home.

Lin was the secretary to Hu Yaobang, whose death in 1989 -- two years after he was ousted as general secretary -- sparked the ill-fated pro-democracy movement centred in Tiananmen square.

In September, he wrote to the Communist Party congress, urging political reforms and a reassessment of the Tiananmen massacre.