Hu Jiangxia: "They raided our house"

Hu Jiangxia told the BBC that her husband was taken from his home in the eastern city of Hangzhou on Monday night for allegedly violating the terms of his house arrest.

Mr Wang - a founding member of the China Democracy Party and a prominent student leader during the Tiananmen Square protests - was jailed during President Clinton's visit to China in June for his attempts to establish the party. He has been in-and-out of house arrest since then.

Mrs Hu said the police had taken her husband because they said he had breached the terms of an order imposed in August requiring him to inform the authorities every time he left his home.

Fuschia Dunlop reports on Mr Wang's detainment

She said the police had refused to give any details about his whereabouts or about how long he would be detained. They had also searched the house for politically-sensitive material.

Mrs Hu said: "They confiscated things - for example, three documents which Wang Houcai had printed a great many copies of and was planning to publicise.

"One was the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, one the International Covenant on Economic and Cultural Rights, and one the Universal Declaration on Human Rights."

She said: "I asked them: 'Our government has already signed these things - why do you want to confiscate them?' And they just said it was orders from above."

Change of heart?

China last month signed the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to widespread international approval.

But many foreign observers were sceptical about the Chinese Government's willingness to put this into practice.

In recent days, the authorities have taken action against a group of pro-reform intellectuals in Beijing, removing their computers and preventing their leader from going to the United States.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human rights has said that two Chinese activists, both living overseas, have also gone missing in Hangzhou this week.

The group believes that they may have been detained for meeting with Mr Wang.

China had made an unusual decision when it released Mr Wang and allowed him to remain at home in August instead of pursuing its original charge that he had incited the overthrow of the government.