Mr Bao Tong was one of the most senior leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. Yet recently in Beijing the elderly official was unceremoniously forced into a taxi by plainclothes police. Reports say his 69-year-old wife was pushed to the ground.
Mr Bao's crime was that he was an adviser to the former party head, Mr Zhao Ziyang, who was purged for sympathising with the pro-democracy student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
With the anniversary this weekend of the June 4th, 1989, crackdown in which hundreds of Beijingers died, Mr Bao has released the text of a letter to China's public security ministry, complaining about continual harassment, and challenging them to prove their commitment to civil rights.
Mr Bao said that for the last five months he has been followed and shoved around by 20 uniformed police and plainclothes operatives, with access to Mercedes cars and claiming to be under orders from the communist party. "It appears to be an evil organisation that aims to trample on the constitution and human rights," the letter said.
In another appeal, 108 injured casualties and relatives of people killed by Chinese troops during the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests have demanded that the premier at the time, Mr Li Peng, who gave the order for the imposition of martial law in 1989, be prosecuted.
"The extensive slaughter of peaceful demonstrators and peaceful civilians seriously violated not only China's constitution but also the international obligations of sovereign countries to protect humanity," they said in a letter to China's senior prosecutor.
Both letters were released yesterday by the New York-based group, Human Rights in China. China has always refused to respond to such appeals. A similar petition submitted to the Supreme People's Procurator a year ago has yet to receive a reply.
It said that Mr Li, currently the ranking number two in the communist party and chairman of the national parliament, "should bear primary responsibility for the massacre". The Chinese government described the demonstrations as a "counterrevolutionary rebellion"' that was crushed to safeguard stability and economic growth.
Amnesty International estimates that 213 people are still in prison for their role in the 1989 protests. In a pre-anniversary crackdown, Beijing police have detained 1,300 people without papers, money or jobs.
In Taipei, capital of Taiwan, a memorial concert will be held this evening to mark the 11th anniversary of the crackdown. The organisers include the Taipei mayor and leading figures from the island's political parties.