Elderly Chinese dissident arrested during live TV interview

Chinese police forced their way into the home of a dissident academic and detained him during a live TV interview after he criticised the country’s human rights abuses.

Retired professor Wenguang Sun, 84, was speaking by telephone to the Chinese-language Voice of America network (VOA) when police stormed into his house in Jinan, in Shandong province, on Wednesday evening, reports Newsweek.

As he was taken away, Sun could be heard saying: “I am entitled to express my opinion. This is my freedom of speech.”

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Sun, who previously taught at at China’s Shandong University, is a well-known critic of his country’s human rights record. He had been explaining his concerns about Chinese government investment in Africa when police raided his home.

The former academic recently wrote an open letter criticising President Xi Jinping, who can remain in power indefinitely after scrapping presidential term limits, according to The Guardian.

This is not the first time Sun has faced persecution for speaking up. In 2009, he was “badly beaten while visiting the grave of Zhao Ziyang, a former Communist Party chief who lost his position and was held under house arrest after sympathising with the student protesters in Tiananmen Square”, the newspaper reports.

Voice of America said it had tried but failed to reach Sun by phone and on social media.