Two elderly Chinese women who sought to protest during Olympics ordered to labor camp

BEIJING — Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday.

The women were still at home three days after being officially notified that they would have to serve a yearlong term of re-education through labor, but were under surveillance by a government-backed neighborhood group, said Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women.

Li said no cause was given for the order to imprison his 79-year-old mother, Wu Dianyuan, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77.

"Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of reeducation through labor can she serve?" Li said. "But they can also be taken away at any time."

Beijing announced last month that it would allow protests in three parks far from the Olympic venues during the games but they had to be approved in advance. Of the some 77 applications lodged so far, none has been approved, and rights groups have called the zones a charade.

The elderly women, Wu and Wang, small and gray-haired, make unlikely activists. Wang, who used to sell ice cream, walks with a wooden cane, one hand holding onto Wu for support. But Li said they have been fighting since being kicked out of their Beijing homes in 2001 to make way for redevelopment.

They complained to district officials, then to city authorities, and finally demonstrated 16 times this year in two of Beijing’s most sensitive areas — Tiananmen Square and Zhongnanhai, the compound where China’s leaders live and work.

After Beijing announced the Olympic protest zones, Wu and Wang applied repeatedly for a permit but failed to get one.

The cases of Wu and Wang "show that while China has now proven it is able to host international events to perfection, it still has a long way to go before it respects even minimal international human rights standards," said Nicholas Bequelin of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"China is riding roughshod over its promises to allow lawful protests during the games," he said.