Outspoken writer flees China after threats

AN OUTSPOKEN Chinese writer and government critic has left his homeland for Germany after police repeatedly threatened him with imprisonment to stop him publishing more works.

Liao Yiwu arrived in Berlin two days ago at the end of a secretive journey via Vietnam and Poland.

He said: "I feel so much more relaxed now that I am in a place where I can speak freely and publish freely. I am in a very good mood now."

The writer said police in China had often visited him in recent months, with veiled threats that if he published more works abroad he would be jailed.

The Sichuan-based writer was also banned from leaving China to attend a literary festival in Australia in March and removed from a plane in the southwestern city of Chengdu in February while on his way to Germany for a literary festival.

The police intimidation of Mr Liao appeared to be part of one of the Chinese government's broadest campaigns of repression in years.

Mr Liao has been under government scrutiny since he publicly mourned those killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989.