BEIJING AP Police have detained two of China's most prominent dissidents and three other democracy campaigners in a concerted crackdown apparently aimed at crushing a budding opposition party. Police in two cities descended on the homes of Xu Wenli Qin Yongmin and other members of the China Democracy Party on Monday night and took them away relatives and a human rights group said Tuesday. The police action was one of the harshest since dissidents announced the formation of the would-be opposition group in June to challenge the ruling Communist Party's monopoly on power. Since then police have questioned briefly detained and harassed the activists but refrained from filing charges. Police on Tuesday informed the family of Qin Yongmin that he was arrested for plotting to overthrow the government the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. The crime carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. In taking Xu Wenli from his home Monday night police produced an arrest warrant and a search warrant that identified him as a criminal suspect said his wife He Xitong. Unlike previous occasions when Xu was held only for short periods she feared this time authorities were planning to charge and convict him. Twenty police officers ransacked their Beijing apartment seizing a computer a fax machine address books video tapes a typewriter more than 1000 pages of documents and even a telephone she said. ``Xu Wenli has already paid heavily for democracy. I understand that he is ready to pay again'' said his wife. ``Xu Wenli won't give up.'' Qin and Xu are among the most influential figures in China's fractured persecuted dissident community. Their campaigning started in the Democracy Wall protest movement of the late 1970s. Xu spent 13 years of a 15-year sentence in jail much of it in solitary confinement and was released in 1993. Qin was jailed for several years in the 1980s and then again in 1994-95. Aside from Qin police in the central city of Wuhan also hauled away two other members of the China Democracy Party Chen Zhonghe and Xiao Shichang the Information Center said. A fifth member of the party Lai Jinbiao also was detained Monday afternoon in eastern Hangzhou city after making a speech in a public park demanding the ruling Communist Party carry out political reforms the Information Center said. Encouraged by China's recent signing of key U.N. human rights treaties dissidents in many parts of the country have since June been trying to formally register the China Democracy Party. Despite brief police detentions and almost constant surveillance Xu Qin and other dissidents continued their efforts setting up local party branches taking party oaths and nominating people for party posts. In their 3 and 1/2-hour search of Xu's apartment the police paid particular attention to documents related to the party and made a careful record of each document they seized his wife said. Police also were watching the homes of other party members in Beijing. Given the possibility of arrest Xu had already prepared a bag containing clothes and washing gear that he took with him his wife said. APW19981201.1291.txt.body.html APW19981201.0033.txt.body.html