LAOS Beijing Arrests Anti-Censorship Activist Refugee in Laos

Qiao Xinxin was detained in a cross-border operation by Beijing security forces. According to local sources, he was kidnapped by three Laotian and six Chinese policemen linked to the Communist Party. The dissident and former Radio Free Asia contributor founded the “Internet Firewall of China” movement against internet restrictions.

Beijing () – The iron fist of Chinese repression also crosses the borders and advances silently in neighboring Laos, where a dissident was arrested in great secrecy by the police and disappeared to an unknown destination. The events occurred just days before June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising in Beijing, which was bloodily put down by the communist government. The target was the pro-democratic activist Qiao Xinxin, a former journalist for Radio Free Asia (RFA) and founder of the “Internet Firewall of China” movement that fights against censorship on the Internet, symbolically equated to the Great Wall.

In recent weeks, the dissident had accused Chinese Communist Party leaders of using his family to threaten or blackmail him. And to force him to stop his campaign for rights and the fight against “the wall”, ordering him to cross the border and return from his exile in Thailand and Laos.

The “Great Wall” on the web is one of the main sources of censorship used by China and the reason for fierce clashes between Beijing and the West. It allows blocking browsing and content on the main search engines, such as Google, or on social platforms such as Twitter and YouTube, up to a total of 310,000 websites that are carefully controlled. It also makes it possible to obscure some especially sensitive issues, as happens every year with the events that occurred in Tiananmen or with great events or people such as the Dalai Lama and Tibet.

One of the activists who in recent times has been fighting against this harsh form of censorship is the former collaborator of RFA. Known in the past as Yang Zewei, he was born in August 1986 in Qidong County, Hunan Province. According to some information, he was arrested by the Chinese police in a cross-border operation in Laos between the end of May and the beginning of June, on the eve of the 34th anniversary of Tiananmen Square.

According to the Respect for Rights Protection Network, there is no news on the fate of Qiao Xinxin. On June 3, a friend of the dissident went to her house and found it closed. A Laotian neighbor reported that three local policemen and six Chinese with ties to the Communist Party had arrived three days earlier and taken him away. Other acquaintances confirmed the arrest, but were unable to speak before they were followed by plainclothes policemen.

Qiao Xinxin had known for a long time that he was in the crosshairs of the Beijing authorities, especially the number two of the party’s Public Security Office, Chen Siyuan, who would have launched a real manhunt to find him. At the same time, the Hunan department launched an investigation into the dissident and began putting pressure on family and friends. From the little information available, it is currently impossible to know where in mainland China he is being held or if he is still in custody in Laos.