Security Tight for Fourth Plenary Session in Beijing

Chinese authorities ramped up security in Beijing on Sept. 15 for the fourth plenary session CCP Central Committee.
Security Tight for Fourth Plenary Session in Beijing
Beijing authorities set up wire fences to block petitioners from gathering. (Blogger image via Apple Daily)
Matthew Robertson
9/16/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/gates_beijing.jpg" alt="Beijing authorities set up wire fences to block petitioners from gathering. (Blogger image via Apple Daily)" title="Beijing authorities set up wire fences to block petitioners from gathering. (Blogger image via Apple Daily)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1826221"/></a>
Beijing authorities set up wire fences to block petitioners from gathering. (Blogger image via Apple Daily)
Chinese authorities ramped up security in Beijing on Sept. 15 for the fourth plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, half a month before the Oct. 1 National Day.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau raised the security level to “high,” calling for a mobilization of personnel to maintain order and stability throughout the period leading up to the 60th national anniversary, according to the Hong Kong-based Apple Daily.

At over 200 passageways entering and exiting Beijing authorities have adopted the policy, “See a car, it must be checked; see a person, they must be checked.” Anyone entering Beijing by train or long-distance bus must also go through an identity check.

Thousands of soldiers and security guards are patrolling the streets day and night. Political dissidents and human rights defenders say the surveillance is stricter than before the June 4 Tiananmen Massacre anniversary, and the tension is higher than last year’s Olympic security check.

At the same time, authorities are sweeping the capital of undesirables, warning that those making trouble will receive “hostile treatment,” according to the Daily.

Police from Beijing and Guangxi Province, for example, colluded to send Wang Debang, a human rights defender, back to his hometown.

The movement to clean the city extended to a nun.

Zou Yijun, a 27-year-old nun from Shenzhen City who settled down in Beijing two years ago received a notice from her landlord on Sept. 14, asking her to move out. The landlord told her that it was an order from the Police Department.

“I have never done anything illegal.” she told the Daily. “I cannot understand why the authorities cannot even put up with monks and nuns. They have gone too far and this is too freakish!”

Authorities also put up metal fences where petitioners usually gather—an apparent attempt to hamper their efforts, according to the Daily.

Read the original Chinese article.

Matthew Robertson is the former China news editor for The Epoch Times. He was previously a reporter for the newspaper in Washington, D.C. In 2013 he was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award for coverage of the Chinese regime's forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience.
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