Aged 87, Du Guang is the outspoken and sharp-minded former official at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He is an associate of magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, once known for its comparatively independent coverage of political matters.
Du also organizes regular gatherings of elderly peers. Meeting once a month in Beijing, the group of 20 to 60 people discuss current affairs and social developments for a few hours as they dine.
Their August gathering was crashed by the Chinese police, ostensibly in the interest of “state security.” Du Guang, who has come under pressure from the authorities before, says the move is politically motivated and “reflects the lawless and uncontrolled behavior of the security system.”
This August, Du had planned a luncheon to memorialize his colleague Xie Tao, once vice president of Renmin University in Beijing, who passed away five years ago on Aug. 25. As an intellectual who dared criticize the policies of chairman Mao, Xie suffered ten years of political persecution during the Cultural Revolution.
Xie Tao’s daughter, Xie Xiaoling, had spent months preparing for the occasion, but a few days prior to the meeting was contacted by the authorities and ordered not to attend. Other guests were given similar demands, and the northwest Beijing restaurant they had planned to eat at was menaced by police patrols, Du Guang wrote in an article that appeared on democraticchina.org.
Those who did try to show up, including Xie Xiaoling, were brusquely driven away by the police.
The New York-based New Tang Dynasty Television reported that Bao Tong, a former Chinese official in charge of implementing political reform before he was sacked in the wake of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, had also been warned not to attend the memorial luncheon.
