China uses quarantines as cover to detain dissidents: Activists

On the day of his release from prison, Wang Quanzhang, one of China's leading human rights lawyers, thought he was finally free.

After being held for nearly five years on charges of subversion of state power, the police escorted him to an apartment building in the eastern city of Jinan. There, they gave him a room with iron bars on the windows. Twenty policemen were on duty outside. His mobile phone was confiscated, and his use was later restricted and monitored.

Mr. Wang was indeed under temporary house arrest, but the authorities had another name: quarantine.

Human rights activists say the coronavirus has given Chinese authorities a new pretext to arrest dissidents. Summary quarantines, often imposed just after detainees, such as Mr. Wang, had approved an earlier one, are the latest way to silence dissent, part of a broader campaign under China's top leader, Xi Jinping, to eradicate activism through tougher arrests, detentions and internet controls, activists say.