Chinese dissidents' punishment goes on

Five men who were jailed for supporting the 1989 democracy movement have called on the Chinese Government for economic redress, saying they are struggling to survive because of their punishment.

Harassment of dissidents has increased in the run-up to Thursday's Tiananmen Square anniversary, with Ai Weiwei, one of the best-known critics of the Government, saying that authorities have shut his blog and placed him under surveillance.

Bao Tong, the most senior official jailed over the movement and an outspoken critic of the Government, was asked to leave Beijing by security officials last week.

In an open letter to Chinese leaders, released through United States-based group Human Rights in China, the five former prisoners from Zhejiang province say they are suffering financially because they are still labelled as "June Fourth thugs".

"Since our imprisonment after the June 4, 1989 crackdown, we not only lost our jobs, we were also stripped of the cumulative benefits of our past labour and lost our pension rights," wrote Wu Gaoxing, Chen Longde, Wang Donghai, Mao Guoliang and Ye Wenxiang. "Some are now past retirement age, yet have no source of income to cover living expenses and no medical insurance; others... have no choice but to drift from place to place doing temporary manual labour. If we get sick, we can only wait to die."

They ask that former prisoners should receive pensions based on their work before the crackdown, while those of working age should be able to return to their old jobs or be given compensation.

- OBSERVER