To think that only a month ago Ye Guzhou was free to roam the streets of Beijing, a dire threat to all, boggles the mind. Thank God that the Chinese authorities finally recognized the imminent danger and took firm but appropriate action. I only hope it isn’t too late.

China has formally arrested a man detained nearly a month ago for trying to organise 10,000 people to protest against abuse of power and widespread evictions, a state newspaper said today.

Ye Guozhu and his son organised the protest after the government razed their restaurants and then their home and neighbourhood as part of a Beijing facelift for the 2008 Olympics.

The protest would have been the biggest since practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement held a sit-in near the heavily guarded compound of China’s leaders in 1999.

It would have come at a sensitive time, when the Communist Party’s elite was holding a meeting in Beijing this month.

The Beijing Youth Daily said Ye had petitioned several government and party offices and his actions ”seriously interfered with the work and order of the state organs, and public order”.

In one incident almost a year ago, he unfurled a banner, shouted slogans and ”made trouble” in Beijing’s showcase shopping district, Wangfujing, it said.

”The small number of people who unreasonably make trouble and disturb social order in the name of reporting problems are bound to be subjected to legal punishment,” the newspaper quoted a police official as saying.

Let’s each of us utter a prayer of thanks and support to the CCP and their diligent thugspolice, and wish them well in hunting down each and every poor petitioner. Until they do so, none of us is safe.