China Uses Heavy Hand Even With Its Gadflies

Zheng Enchong in his Shanghai home. Police sometimes keep him from attending church. (By Feng Zhenghu)

For that, he was convicted of revealing state secrets and sentenced to three years in prison. After serving his time, he was released in 2006. That, he said, is when the surveillance cameras were installed and plainclothes police from the local Public Security Bureau were stationed on the landing.

The Zhabei District Public Security Bureau, queried by telephone, said it knew nothing about the team monitoring Zheng. "Don't disturb us," a woman said before hanging up. An official at the city Public Security Bureau's information office said he would investigate and call back, but did not.

Zheng has been unable to return to work because of the restrictions, which include disabling his land-line and cell phones. He said he relies on his wife's pension and contributions from sympathetic lawyers in Beijing and the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group in Hong Kong.

Police have cited Zheng as a suspect because his wife's younger brother has been accused of evading taxes on an adjacent apartment, Feng said. He has repeatedly been called in to testify. "But the more they try to pressure him, the more he sticks his neck out," Feng said, smiling.

In what was interpreted as a gesture of U.S. government support, Zheng's daughter, Zheng Zhaojia, 22, was granted a U.S. visa last year and has gone to the United States to study. "We are dismayed by the restrictions on Mr. Zheng's freedoms, including his inability to leave his residence and meet with other people," the U.S. Consulate here said in a statement.

Long after Zheng's accusations irritated officials, party secretary Chen was fired and tried for massive corruption; he is awaiting a verdict. Huang Ju died of cancer last year, but his secretary, Wang Weigong, was taken into custody on charges of corruption in the same case. The Shanghai government, however, still appears concerned with Zheng.

A pair of civilian officials visited him on Wednesday last week, he said, and urged him not to post anything on the Internet about Tibet because of the "sensitive situation." On Friday, the plainclothes police squad upbraided him for trying to leave for evening services at the church down the street.

"Why are you trying to surprise us?" he quoted them as saying, suggesting they had orders that the Sunday morning leave was all he was going to get.

A reporter who visited Saturday evening was escorted to Zheng's landing by a man dressed in black slacks and a black leather jacket. The man said nothing as he stepped into the elevator alongside the reporter. After pushing the button for Zheng's floor without being asked, he rode up and got out on the 14th floor, but turned away when the reporter opened Zheng's door. The next day, as Zheng tried to leave for church around 6:30 a.m., plainclothes police turned him back without explanation.

His wife called the local police station for help, Zheng said, but nobody came.