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Chinese dissident refused entry into his native country

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 12, 2009 06:30 PM

By David Abel, Globe Staff

For the second time in less than a year, Chinese dissident and Harvard fellow Yang Jianli was refused entry into his native country.

Yang Jianli

His latest effort to enter Hong Kong was stymied Saturday night, he said in a telephone interview today after returning to Boston.

Yang, a permanent US resident with a valid Chinese passport who was released in 2007 after five years in a Chinese prison, was denied entry after flying to Hong Kong from Taipei, Taiwan. He said he was hoping to meet with democracy activists to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

“They gave me no explanation why they wouldn’t let me into my country,” he said, noting his passport remains valid until June 2017. “They said, according to Hong Kong law, they had made an assessment on my case, and they could not let me in. They refused to answer my questions.”

When he told them they were violating Hong Kong law, he said, they kept repeating, “No comment.”

“I told them that they must have a black list,” he said.

His last effort to enter China came last August on the eve of the Olympics in Beijing as part of a coordinated effort to test how China would react to the return of dissidents at a sensitive time.

"The refusal of Hong Kong authorities to give any cause for denying Dr. Yang's entry into Hong Kong strongly indicates that they were operating under direct orders from the government in Beijing," said Jim Geheran, director of Initiatives for China, which promotes democracy there, in a telephone interview.

Yang said he was provided rice and tea and held for two hours before Chinese authorities put him on a plane back to Taipei.

“They treated me OK,” he said. “They just wouldn’t answer any questions.”

He said he plans to keep trying to return, but he doesn’t expect anything will change until the government changes.

“If there’s a black list, I’m on it, and I don’t think I’ll be off it until the overall situation changes in China,” he said.