BEIJING (Reuters) - One of China's best known dissidents, Liu Xiaobo, has been formally arrested on suspicion of inciting subversion, following his detention late last year for promoting a petition calling for an end to one-party rule.
State news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday prosecutors approved Liu's arrest on Tuesday for "alleged agitation activities aimed at subversion of government and overthrowing of the socialist system."
"Liu has been engaged in agitation activities, such as spreading of rumors and defaming of the government, aimed at subversion of the state and overthrowing the socialism system in recent years," Xinhua quoted police as saying in a statement.
The move brings one of the best-known critics of China's ruling Communist Party a step closer to trial, and it will be a blow to supporters and human rights groups who had hoped he would be released after China passed the sensitive twentieth anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
Xinhua reported that Liu "confessed to the charge in preliminary police investigation."
But his family and friends have said he has been unfairly persecuted for peaceful expression.
Liu, 53, has been one of China's most prominent dissidents since 1989, when he was heavily involved in the protests in and around Tiananmen Square that were crushed on June 4 that year.
Late last year, he was among the dissidents and rights activists who launched "Charter 08," a petition calling for the dismantling of one-party rule and creation of multi-party democracy.
"Liu Xiaobo is expressing his right to free speech. This is a basic right ... the Communist Party simply shouldn't be detaining people like this," Jiang Qisheng, a dissident who also signed Charter 08, told Reuters in an earlier interview.
Liu was jailed in the wake of 1989 and again in 1996. But he has remained a vocal and acerbic critic of the government, often publishing essays on overseas Chinese websites. He also helped found the Independent Chinese PEN group, which has campaigned against censorship and political controls.
(Reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim and Chris Buckley in Beijing and Lucy Hornby in Shanghai; Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)
Source: Reuters
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