Activists charged and ousted as noose on dissent tightens

The crackdown on mainland activists appears to be intensifying with the formal arrest of an outspoken writer, and the ousting of a prominent opinion writer and an editor at two publications.

Sichuan writer and blogger Ran Yunfei's wife said she received police notification yesterday of her husband's formal arrest on the charge of 'inciting subversion of state power'. 'My husband is an intellectual and a writer, that's the person I know,' Wang Wei said by phone, declining to elaborate.

Ran, 46, was taken away by police on February 20, as protests across the Middle East prompted online calls urging Chinese people to stage their own 'jasmine revolution' in mainland cities on that day. He was officially detained on February 24.

On the mainland, formal arrests usually indicate that prosecutors are preparing to press charges and often lead to convictions.

Ran, a government critic, had criticised the authorities for prosecuting those who blamed corrupt officials for the deaths of thousands of children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake: fellow activists Tan Zuoren was jailed for five years for 'inciting subversion of state power' in February last year, and Liu Xianbin was given 10 years on Friday on the same charge.

'In striking against those who criticise the government with subversion ... they think that would block people's determination to fight for freedom, but that's just underestimating people's resolve to protect their own rights,' Ran wrote in 2009.

Nicholas Bequelin, senior researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Ran's formal arrest was 'another step back for freedom of expression in China'.