For most Chinese citizens, Oct. 1, the National Day, marks a seven day holiday, and many will take the opportunity to travel and visit relatives. Chinese dissidents will also be traveling, but their trip isn’t by choice. They’re calling it “being traveled,” and it functions as a kind of house arrest.

As the Chinese Communist Party gears up for the 60th anniversary celebrations of its taking power in China, the enforced travel arrangements are one of many measures authorities are using to control public opinion.

Chinese officials have for some time been “inviting” rights activists and active web bloggers for tea and meals—an invitation they usually cannot turn down. Yet prior to Oct. 1, the courtesy has been upgraded, according to a Radio Free Asia report on Sept. 14. Activists are being notified that they should prepare to leave their homes for a special vacation.  

Zhu Xinxin from the Independent Chinese Pen Center—a non-profit organization of writers fighting to protect freedom of expression and publication —is one individual being forced to travel.

“Qiao Weidong, vice team leader of the Public Security Bureau  in Shijiazhuang’s Qiaodong district, told me on September 12 that I will be taken away for a trip following October 1. It is really just another kind of house arrest,” said Zhu.
 
 “There is no difference between this so-called ‘travel’ and a gangster’s intimidation,” Zhu exclaimed to RFA. “This forced travel has a new name in mainland China: ‘being traveled.’ The name makes sense because these people are being forced to do something; it is a defilement of public opinion. I am now ‘being traveled’ as well .”

The term “being traveled” is another in a string of ironic phrases that rights defenders and netizens have coined to refer to the CCP’s Doublespeak when neutralizing dissent. Others include “being harmonized,” “being disappeared,” and “being suicided.”

The Public Security Bureau also requested that Zhu not accept interviews from overseas reporters and write articles online. Zhu, however, refused to compromise.

Read the original Chinese article.