ON Monday night, plainclothes police officers showed up at the
home of retired schoolteacher Zeng Hongling's stepfather and took
her away.
She has not been seen since.
The 56-year-old's crime appears to be penning a series of
first-hand accounts of what happened in the aftermath of last
month's earthquake in Mianyang where she lived.
She had reportedly borrowed her stepfather's computer and wrote
the series of accounts of her personal experiences.
According to the Wall Street Journal, she then sent them to a
friend.
Ms Zeng had reportedly written three articles criticising the
construction of schools that collapsed in the powerful quake.
The friend then posted them on the Internet.
Ms Zeng was arrested on Monday by Chinese police in Chengdu on
charges of 'inciting state subversion, Hong Kong-based human rights
organisation Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said
yesterday.
News of her arrest first emerged through her stepfather, Mr
Huang Shaofu, through '4th Of June Tianwang', a website run by
Chinese human rights advocates.
Ms Zeng was putting up with him temporarily after her home
collapsed.
He said that Ms Zeng was taken away at 8pm on Monday by
plainclothes police officers.
Mr Huang was interrogated separately, SOH radio network
reported.
Ms Zeng's articles had reportedly found their way to an overseas
website that criticised the shoddy construction of many schools
that collapsed during the devastating 7.9-magnitude quake centred
in Sichuan, killing hundreds of children.
The series of articles, one of which was entitled My Personal
Experience In The Earthquake, appeared on www.ObserveChina.com, a
Chinese-language website hosted in the US.
Another, entitled Earthquake Relief Efforts Fully Reveal The
True Face Of Party Officials, questioned the role of Sichuan
officials in relief efforts.
It is unclear how the police located her, as the essays were
posted under a pseudonym, reported The Wall Street Journal.
School collapses have become one of the most heated issues in
the earthquake recovery process - and one that local communist
leaders seem anxious to suppress.
State-controlled media have largely ignored the topic and
parents and volunteers who have questioned the authorities have
reportedly been detained and threatened.
Ms Zeng used to teach at the Southwest University of Science and
Technology in Mianyang, and is being held in the city after being
detained in Chengdu, the centre said.
A man who answered the telephone at the Mianyang public security
bureau said officials did not know about the case, reported The
Associated Press. He refused to give his name.
Telephones rang unanswered at the university.
Ms Zeng's detention comes after Chinese dissident Huang Qi, who
ran a human rights website and wrote about parents who had lost
their children in the quake, was detained in Chengdu last week on
charges of allegedly possessing state secrets.
Some news reports maintain that Mr Huang has 'disappeared'.
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Which idiots in SC were saying Singapore should learn from China
how to be more democratic and open> Sheesh.
The SC folks never cease to amaze me.
It's sheer folly to be so openly against LKY and the PAP.
One fine day, Men in Black are going to kick down their doors and
drag them into some low-level prison... and we won't be missing
them! 
