Police lay in wait until democracy activist and academic Guo Quan was taking his son to school – that's when they decided to pounce.

The former university associate professor, who late last year announced the setting up of a democratic opposition party, was apparently grabbed by about eight police officers. They also searched his house and took his computer.

Guo Quan's family and supporters say he upset authorities with his comments about the government's handling of the Sichuan earthquake. His wife, Li JIng, says she was told he would be held for at 10 days because of false information he posted online.

" … It was unclear which comments upset the authorities. Guo has written a string of critical articles on the communist one-party political system … In the past week, he is said to have raised questions about the emergency services' response to the quake and the safety of nuclear facilities in Sichuan …" writes the Guardian.

Human rights and literary organisation International Pen fears the 40-year-old, who was taken away on 17 May, could face subversion charges.

Plans to sue Yahoo!

Guo Quan has been in the news a lot this year. A couple of months ago it was reported that he planned to sue Yahoo! in the US for blocking his name from search results in China.

" … He could understand why search the engine Baidu.com, a Chinese company and the locally controlled arm of portal Yahoo!, could have been coerced by the Government to block his name, he said, but it was unacceptable for foreign companies to follow suit …"

The major overseas Internet companies operating in China – Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google - have, in one way or another, facilitated or colluded with the Chinese Government's censorship practices.

Online monitors

Since entering the market Yahoo! has given authorities confidential information about its users; Microsoft has admitted shutting down a blog because of a Government request; and Google has launched a censored Chinese version of its international search engine.

In the Times Online story Guo Quan is quoted saying of his plans to sue:

" …Through this I hope that the world will become more concerned to resolve human rights issues in China. The freedom of the internet should be realised all over the world."…"

He ditched his plans to sue Google as well, after the company resolved filtering in connection to his name.

Demoted, detained, jailed

Guo Quan, who was stripped of his job at a Nanjing university last year, is the latest in a string of human rights activists and writers who have been demoted, detained or jailed this year. That's despite promises like this one, from Liu Jingmin, vice-president of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee:

"By allowing Beijing to host the Games you will help in the development of human rights."

Well, that hasn’t happened yet. Just look at some of those who have been demoted, detained or jailed recently – people like Hu Jia, Yang Chunlin, Zhou Yuanzhi, Qi Chonghuai, Naranbilig and Zhang Ping.

Investigated for comments

Over at Global Voices Advocacy John Kennedy, in a post about Guo Quan, questions whether the Chinese Government has loosened its controls on the media in the wake of the earthquake, as some overseas journalists are saying:

" … It depends who you ask…. Former journalist and widely-read Bullog blogger Wen Yuanchao, for instance, reports that as of May 16, at least seventeen netizens had been investigated for comments made online: two of which have been arrested, two made to write declarations of wrongdoing, and with the remaining thirteen forced to undergo disciplinary lectures …"