According to reliable sources within China, the government arrested several pro-democracy advocates, including Li Renke, Liao Shuangyuan and Lu Yongxiang, for organizing activities to commemorate Zhao Ziyang. A few members of the “Funeral Committee for Mr. Zhao Ziyang” in Guizhou Province are also in danger of arrest.

Lu Yongxiang is held at the Nanming District Detention Center, Guiyang City, Guizhou Province. Li Renke and Liao Shuangyan’s whereabouts and statuses are unknown. With respectful methods, the three have devoted themselves to the democratic movements in China.

During the 1978-1979 “Democratic Wall Movement,” Lu Yongxiang was chief editor of a private publication, Baihua Magazine (Hundred Flowers Magazine) in Guizhou Province. In October 1983, the Chinese authorities sentenced him to seven years in prison for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and instigation.” He was sentenced to another five-year imprisonment in 1995.

Li Renke was a member of the “Enlightening Organization” in 1978. He was sentenced to a four-year imprisonment in 1981.

Prior to the “June 4th” democracy movement in 1989, Liao Shuangyuan was a security officer at the Guizhou Bearing Factory. After participating in the 1989 movement, he also was charged with “counter-revolutionary propaganda and instigation” and was sentenced to three years of “re-education” in a labor camp. In 1996, he and others wrote a public letter to the CCP Central Committee to advocate “an end of one-party autocracy,” “to abolish the bans on political parties and to re-evaluate the June 4th movement.” He was charged as a member of a “counter-revolutionary group” and was sentenced to another four-year imprisonment.

The Global Committee to Memorize June Fourth, also called the “6.4 Memo,” appeals to the international community and media to help the three men. We call for their immediate release and for the Chinese government to allow activities to commemorate Zhao. The “6.4 Memo” advises the Chinese government not to go to extremes regarding issues surrounding Zhao’s death, garnering the people’s disappointment and scorn.

Information from a press release by the Global Committee to Memorialize June Fourth.

For more details please call the Global Committee to Memorialize June Fourth, 212-244-2722 or 718-463-7169.