The United States expressed "deep concern" Friday about two imprisoned Chinese dissidents accused of masterminding the Tiananmen Square protest and urged the Bei-jing government to free them and all other political detainees.
Wang Juntao, 33, and Chen Zeming, 38, are each serving 13-year sentences for allegedly plotting the spring 1989 protest movement that was crushed by the Chinese military."We wish to state our deep concern about the situation of Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming, who are imprisoned in the People's Republic of China for no apparent reason than that they have peacefully expressed their political views," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement.
The two, former editors of an economics journal, began hunger strikes Aug. 13 to protest poor living conditions in their Beijing jail cells, where their families said they were being held in solitary confinement without access to proper medical care.