Chinese authorities accused of press crackdown

CHINESE police have arrested a human rights activist - in what campaigners are claiming is a pre-Olympic crackdown on high-profile dissidents.

Blogger Huang Qi has been arrested for 'illegal possession of state secrets' - a charge that carries a possible three-year prison sentence.

Campaign group Reporters Without Borders claims he is also being denied without access to a lawyer.

Huang's wife, Zeng Li, said: "I am very upset about my husband and I do not understand what is pushing the authorities to bring this charge against him. 

"All Huang did was report what things were like for the victims after the Sichuan earthquake."

Another high-profile activist, Du Daobin, has also been arrested this week according to the Paris-based group which campaigns for press freedom.

Du has been accussed on posting articles on foreign websites and 'receiving guests without permission'.

"Du was living under a permanent threat," the group said. "He could have been imprisoned at any time under the sentence he received more than four years ago. 

"He is the third leading cyber-dissident to be imprisoned in the run-up to the Olympic Games, after Hu Jia and Huang Qi." 

JAMES TONEY