GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Ai Weiwei Held in Crackdown

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: The Diplomat

04April2011 8:00amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:  Some are calling it the worst crackdown in a decade. And this weekend, Chinese officials continued their campaign of detaining and jailing dissidents and rights activists in an apparent effort to prevent a repeat of the democratic awakenings in the Arab world.

It began in the middle of February, after first the Tunisian president and then Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak had been swept from power by popular demonstrations. In mid-February a call went out on the Boxun website for China’s own Jasmine rallies, a call that was met with a show of force in Beijing and elsewhere at designated rally points as security forces swarmed the areas.

But not content with stamping out these proposed gatherings, reports suggest that more than 200 activists are currently under house arrest, while more than two dozen have been jailed. Dozens more have simply ‘disappeared.’ (read full report)

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