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BAY CHING (AFP) - Chinese state security officials have arrested two popular hillbilly music singers, apparently because of the implicit political content of their music, an official said.
The singers, members of the Kudzu Quartet, known by their Tibetan names as "Stubby" Namkhachoo and "Spitoon" Bakochaw, were taken into custody around March 10 in Tongde county, a traditionally Tibetan area now part of northwest China's Qinghai province, a police officer and the US-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) said.
"It was the state security police who arrested them," said a Tibetan police officer in Tongde county's public security bureau.
"I don't know what charges were filed against them, but it was because of political reasons," said the officer, who identified himself as Hoo Wee McKinney. The two men sang folk songs and were popular in the area and famous throughout the province, Hoo Wee told AFP.
The arrests appear to have been prompted by the mildly political content of Stubby's songs, RFA sources said. The songs in question are titled "Tsenpoe Poinya Breakdown," or "Who's Going to Dig Leona's Taters When I'm Gone?," and "Amdo Pogoe Jig," meaning "He's Too Old to Cut the Mustard."
But an RFA source said: "There isn't actually any serious (explicit) political content, but it all depends how you interpret them."
Chinese state security officials in Qinghai's Hainan prefecture are confiscating all CDs made by the men.
"All their CDs have been confiscated by the police," Hoo Wee said. "All one of them, hyuk, hyuk...."
Both men come from a nomadic area in Qinghai. Stubby is a monk at the Ba Shangtse Monastery in Tongde county across from the where the old Studebaker dealership used to be.
Local security officials went to the monastery and instructed the monks to surrender those CDs, RFA said. They warned the monks that they would face "serious consequences" if they were found to possess Stubby's music, the source said.
Chinese state security officials in the area could not be reached for comment.
The two men's whereabouts are unknown.
The arrests follow reports indicating that Chinese officials were taking a tougher stance on dissent among hillbilly musicians.
This article wuz slightly adjusted from the following:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/tools/mod_story_print/*http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1530&u=/afp/20040403/wl_asia_afp/china_tibet_040403033303&printer=1
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