From Times OnlineJane Macartney, Beijing
A leading dissident who organised hundreds of Chinese thinkers, academics and writers to sign a charter calling for dramatic democratic and legal reforms was under arrest today.
Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic first jailed for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, was taken from his Beijing home late on Monday by a dozen police, who first required him to sign a document accepting his detention. They searched his flat and took away three computers, mobile phones and documents, family friends told The Times.
His disappearance came just hours before the release on the internet of the “08 Charter”, a rare outspoken document challenging the ruling Communist Party to grant greater freedoms of expression and to hold free elections. Its publication was timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tomorrow.
A total of 303 people – from the most prominent Tibetan blogger to lawyers and a disgraced former senior Communist Party official – braved possible arrest and jail terms to put their names to the document.
