China detains retired teacher for criticizing collapsed schools after earthquake

A retired Chinese teacher who criticized the construction of schools that collapsed in last month's powerful earthquake has been detained, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization said Wednesday.

Police detained Zeng Hongling in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on charges of "inciting state subversion," according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Zeng wrote three articles for an overseas Web site that criticized the shoddy construction of many schools that collapsed during the devastating 7.9-magnitude quake centered in Sichuan, killing hundreds of children.

The series of articles titled "My personal experience in the earthquake" appeared on http://www.ObserveChina.com, a Chinese-language Web site hosted in the United States. One was titled, "Earthquake relief efforts fully reveal the true face of Party officials," which questions the role of Sichuan officials in relief efforts.

School collapses have become one of the most charged issues in the earthquake aftermath, and one that local communist leaders seem anxious to suppress.

State-controlled media have largely ignored the issue, apparently under instructions from propaganda officials. Parents and volunteers who have questioned authorities have been detained and threatened.

Zeng, 56, used to teach at the Southwest University of Science and Technology in Mianyang. He was being held in the city after being detained on June 9 in Chengdu, the center said.

A man who answered the telephone at the Mianyang public security bureau said officials did not know about the case. He refused to give his name. Telephones rang unanswered at the university.

Zeng's apparent detention comes after Chinese dissident Huang Qi, who ran a human rights Web site and wrote about parents who had lost their children in the quake, was detained in Chengdu last week on charges of allegedly possessing state secrets.

Meanwhile, a Red Cross official said heavy summer rain could hinder aid delivery to victims of the earthquake. Summer is the peak of China's rainy season and severe floods in the country's southeast this week have already killed dozens of people.

Medium to heavy rain was forecast in the next few days for areas in Sichuan, the province hit hardest by the May 12 quake, which killed almost 70,000 people and left 5 million homeless.

"The rain will not facilitate the distribution of assistance, and it will not facilitate the reconstruction phase either," said Carl Naucler, head of the East Asia delegation for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Hundreds of tent communities have sprung up everywhere — from fields to city sidewalks — as earthquake victims try to create a semblance of normal life. Many complain of the summer heat and cramped conditions as several families squeeze into tiny spaces.

"When it rains heavily, we have to keep throwing out pans of water because it leaks everywhere," said a 58-year-old woman Yan Tianxiu who lives in a tent made of plastic sheeting north of the hard-hit city of Shifang. The government has so far not given her a more permanent shelter, she said.

Some of the temporary shelters do not have adequate drainage and are set up near mountains on plains at risk of flooding, said Naucler, whose organization has been focusing on providing tents, safe drinking water and medical support to the area.

"If we don't drain out the water, life will be even more miserable for these people living in tents," he said without giving more details.

China's Health Minister Chen Zhu also said fighting epidemics remains a struggle in the disaster-hit areas and urged greater vigilance, the China Daily newspaper said Wednesday.

The threat of infectious diseases increases as summer approaches, the newspaper quoted Chen as saying at a meeting of health officials Tuesday. He said, however, that there had been no outbreaks so far.

"Simply experiencing such a huge trauma weakens people's immune systems. For those in more vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and children, the risk of infection is even greater," Chen was quoted as saying.

He also said that restoring quake-damaged health care facilities should be made a priority, and that medical workers from other areas of China will be sent to help.

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Associated Press writer Cara Anna contributed to the report from Shifang, China.