Huang Qi suspected of “illegal possession of state secrets”

Reporters Without Borders today called for charges to be dropped against cyber-dissident Huang Qi who has been in custody since 10 June suspected by police of “illegally holding state secrets”. His family said he had been arrested because of news posted on his website, which chiefly reports on the organisation of humanitarian aid. “With two months to go before the Olympic Games, this arrest is yet another provocation, which is in contradiction with the openness promoted by the government during the earthquake that shook Sichuan province on 12 May”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. Huang Qi was only doing his duty of informing Internet users of the plight of victims of the earthquake”, the organisation added. Witnesses saw three people bundle Huang and two colleagues into a car in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, on the evening of 10 June. They were reported missing two days later. Police in Chengdu said they had received communist party orders not to give out any information about the case. Haung's former wife, Zeng Li, has asked the lawyer Mo Shaoping to defend him. Mo has defended many human rights activists, including the journalist Li Changqing, former deputy news editor of the Fuzhou Daily, and Zhao Yan, formerly of the New York Times. Huang Qi founded the website 64 Tianwang, which posts news about human rights. The editor of the website www.64tianwang.com, Zhang Guo Ting, said it was possible that the case was linked to the latest article posted by Huang Qi about the arrest of a retired professor from the Technology University of the South-West, Zheng Hongling, aged 53, for “divulging news abroad“.