Dissidents

A 1971 law giving the Christian Science Church an extended copyright to its central theological text was declared unconstitutional this week by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here said the law giving the church a copyright to all editions of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is unconstitutional because it "offends the fundamental principles of separation of church and state."

WASHINGTON - After years of detention and a bold escape to the U.S. Embassyin Beijing, blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States, a bittersweet moment in a harrowing journey that had touched off a diplomatic crisis and poses continued challenges for U.S.-Chinese relations. The human rights leader and his family were whisked quickly and suddenly out of Beijing, as Chen expressed gratitude but also concerns about the safety of the relatives he was leaving behind in China.

Already shaken by defections and the formation of breakaway churches in a battle over doctrine, the Pasadena-based Worldwide Church of God reeled Wednesday from yet another fracture, as a group of its highest-ranking pastors organized a new denomination called the United Church of God.

Yahoo Inc.Chief Executive Scott Thompson resigned from the digital media company Sunday after a dissident shareholder called attention to his apparent misrepresentation of his college credentials. Ross Levinsohn, formerly Yahoo's executive vice president of the Americas region, was named interim chief executive, the company said in a statement. The board of directors also named Alfred Amoroso its new chairman. Amoroso, who is chief executive of Santa Clara software company Rovi Corp., replaces Yahoo board member Roy Bostock, the founder and chairman of Sealedge Investments.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets Monday in Iran's main theological center and clashed with pro-government militiamen during the funeral of the country's top dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. The demonstration in the city of Qom was significant both for its important location and its merging of several currents in Iran's population: It drew older supporters of Montazeri from smaller cities and towns in the countryside as well as young middle-class urbanites from the capital.

Cuba will free seven of 59 dissidents imprisoned since 2003, a move that opponents of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said reflects a "climate of change" under his brother's rule. The releases were negotiated by Spain and announced by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on its website that four of the released dissidents will be sent to Spain with their families to receive medical treatment. They are Omar Pernet, Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo, Alejandro Gonzalez and Pedro Pablo Alvarez.

Cuba's Communist government freed an independent journalist Monday, the 14th member of a group of 75 jailed dissidents released on medical grounds as Havana seeks to repair relations with the European Union. Jorge Olivera Castillo, 43, was freed after serving 20 months of an 18-year prison sentence on charges of conspiring with the United States against Cuba. He said he was suffering from chronic colitis and hypertension.

Chinese police briefly detained liberal author Yu Jie, democracy activist Liu Xiaobo and former Communist Youth League official Zhang Zuhua, friends and family members said, in what appeared to be part of an intensified government crackdown on intellectuals. Yu, 31, is an essayist who once called on the Communist Party to remove Mao Tse-tung's embalmed body from public display, and Liu, 49, is a well-known writer who has been jailed three times for criticizing the party.

What an unintentionally ironic placement of the two articles on the front page of Westside: "The Making of a Dissident" celebrates the bravery of Wang Chao-hua for her pro-democracy actions in China. Right below her is the headline "Yellow Ribbons Knot for Him," a story on the shameful treatment of Steve Raikin, who declined to drape his house in yellow ribbons and preferred a peace poster instead. Apparently some Americans patriotically endorse the American values of dissidence, independence, and democracy, as long as they occur in some other country.

The board of directors of the elite California Club has sent a letter to its members calling on them not to support a group within the club that is seeking to circumvent a Los Angeles ordinance banning discriminatory membership policies toward women and minorities. In a letter to the club's 1,275 regular members and more than 300 non-resident members, the directors labeled the 41 members who have proposed evading the ordinance a "small dissenting group."

BEIJING — Tapping a visa track to America used by thousands of Chinese students, U.S. officials say they have struck a face-saving compromise with China over the fate of a blind Chinese human rights activist, possibly resolving a messy diplomatic dispute that brought deep embarrassment to both countries. The U.S. State Department said Friday that it had secured Chinese agreement to allow Chen Guangcheng to apply to study in the United States, apparently accompanied by his family, under terms that would not require him to seek formal political asylum.

WASHINGTON - When Bob Fu's cellphone rang halfway through a congressional hearing concerning detained Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, all the West Texas pastor had to do was gesture for the congressman in charge, Rep. Christopher H. Smith, to disappear with him into a nearby room. Soon after, Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, returned with a stunning announcement: "Bob Fu has made contact with Chen Guangcheng in his hospital room. " Smith invited Fu to the dais, where Fu knelt next to the congressman, put Chen on speakerphone from Beijing and translated.

WASHINGTON - A diplomatic crisis over the fate of a Chinese activist took a confusing new turn Thursday as Chen Guangcheng signaled during a dramatic phone call to a congressional commission in Washington that he may want to live permanently in China rather than flee to the United States, as he had declared hours earlier. Speaking from a hospital in China where he was being treated for a leg injury, Chen told the congressional panel through an interpreter that he wanted to come to the U.S. only "to rest.

BEIJING - For several hours, it appeared the U.S. and China had struck a deal that would allow Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng to walk free - and avoid a diplomatic disaster. American officials said Wednesday that they had obtained promises from Chinese authorities that the blind 40-year-old lawyer could live in a Chinese city of his choice and attend a university to continue his legal education. They portrayed Chen, who had dramatically fled house arrest in his village for the protection ofthe U.S. Embassyhundreds of miles away in Beijing, as exuberant over the deal.

WASHINGTON - Even before a blind human rights lawyer slipped away from house arrest in rural China last week, Washington and Beijing were each trying to navigate a turbulent time in their internal politics and their relationship. Now they are trying to avoid their worst diplomatic spat in years. Although U.S. officials are mum, Chen Guangcheng's supporters are believed to have outwitted his guards and then spirited Chen several hundred miles from his village to seek refuge with U.S. diplomats in Beijing.

WASHINGTON - A blind Chinese dissident who escaped from house arrest is under U.S. protection, his supporters said Saturday, creating a dilemma for Washington before a visit this week by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Chen Guangcheng, a civil rights activist who has exposed forced abortions and sterilizations in rural areas, escaped a week ago from his heavily guarded home in Shandong province in eastern China. U.S. officials declined to comment Saturday and have not confirmed reports that he sought protection atthe U.S. Embassyin Beijing.

About 15 members of an outlawed Polish peace and ecology movement were released from police custody hours after they were detained, a member of the group said Wednesday. Five demonstrators picked up by police in Krakow and about 10 protesters detained in Wroclaw were released Tuesday night without charges, said Jacek Czaputowicz, a founder of the Freedom and Peace Movement. The Krakow demonstrators picketed outside a local court to protest their upcoming trial on charges stemming from a Feb.

The Obama administration criticized Iraqi security forces this week, saying they botched an attempt last month to establish a police station in a refugee settlement for Iranian dissidents, resulting in clashes that claimed the lives of at least eight of the refugees. Several other of the Iranians were seriously injured and 36 have been reported by humanitarian organizations to be in Iraqi custody and at risk of being forcibly returned to Iran, where they are considered likely to be mistreated.

Fang Lizhi, one of China'sbest-known dissidents whose speeches inspired student protesters throughout the 1980s, has died in the United States, where he fled after China's 1989 military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. He was 76. His wife, Li Shuxian, confirmed that he died Friday in Tucson, where he had been a University of Arizona physics professor for about 20 years. As a leading astrophysicist in China and a senior administrator at the Chinese University of Science and Technology, Fang was once a ranking member of the Community Party.