Deposed Chinese Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽), who died last year after spending 15 years under house arrest, wrote to party leaders in 1997 asking for his freedom, a report said yesterday.
Radio Free Asia, a US-funded broadcaster, said it obtained a previously unpublished letter dated Oct. 13, 1997, in which Zhao -- purged from his position for sympathizing with pro-democracy protesters in 1989 -- asked party leaders to lift his house arrest.
"I hope this letter of mine could generate concern from the general secretary and party comrades. I hope these blatant and illegal acts that are being perpetrated under the noses of the central leadership will be stopped," a copy of the letter read.
"I hope my house arrest will be lifted soon to restore my personal freedom, so that I no longer have to live out the remainder of my years in loneliness and confinement," it said.
The letter was to be published in Hong Kong on Saturday in a book that also features essays and poems commemorating Zhao, Radio Free Asia said.
As premier and then party leader in the 1980s, Zhao spearheaded economic reforms under China's then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping (
He was ousted after sympathizing with student protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, in which hundreds, if not thousands, died in a military crackdown.
"I don't know what laws I have violated," the letter said.
The house arrest had "caused great harm to the health of an old man nearly 80 years old like me," Zhao wrote.
Since 1989, Zhao's name has been rarely acknowledged by the government, which is still wary of stirring up sympathy for his liberal views.
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