At least six missing after clampdown

on human rights lawyers in China

Hundreds were targeted in what state media described as a legitimate
law enforcement action but activists fear detainees could face torture

Missing legal assistant Zhao Wei and her husband You Minglei, who claims police have denied knowledge of
her whereabouts. Photograph: You Minglei

Tom Phillips in Beijing-Tuesday 21 July 2015

Nearly two weeks after Beijing launched one of its most comprehensive
crackdowns on civil society in decades, at least six people remain missing
believed to have disappeared into the custody of Chinas security services.
At least 238 people have been detained or questioned since the clampdown
began, according to the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyer
Concern Group, which is keeping a tally of the operations targets.
The missing who include a trainee lawyer, a legal assistant and the leader

of an underground Christian church have not been seen since 10 July,

after authorities began a major round-up of Chinese human rights
lawyers and their associates.
We just really dont know [what has happened to them], said Maya Wang,
theChina researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Most of the six are likely to have been spirited away into some form of
detention where they face the risk of ill-treatment and torture, Wang added
while others may have gone into hiding to escape such a fate.
Nearly two weeks after Beijing launched one of its most comprehensive
crackdowns on civil society in decades, at least six people remain missing
believed to have disappeared into the custody of Chinas security services.
At least 238 people have been detained or questioned since the clampdown
began, according to the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyer
Concern Group, which is keeping a tally of the operations targets.
The missing who include a trainee lawyer, a legal assistant and the leader
of an underground Christian church have not been seen since 10 July,
after authorities began a major round-up of Chinese human rights
lawyers and their associates.
We just really dont know [what has happened to them], said Maya Wang,
theChina researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Most of the six are likely to have been spirited away into some form of
detention where they face the risk of ill-treatment and torture, Wang added
while others may have gone into hiding to escape such a fate.

Human rights lawyer Wang Yu was detained on 9 July. Photograph: Mark

Schiefelbein/AP
Beijings offensive against rights lawyers began on 9 July with the detention
of Wang Yu, an attorney known for defending politically sensitive clients
including five Chinese feminists detained earlier this year.
Chinas state-controlled media have rejected claims Beijing is waging a war
against civil society. Critics should first get the facts right, get to the
bottom of the problem before embarrassing themselves in another
unavailing episode of finger-pointing, an editorial by Xinhua, Beijings
official news agency, argued this week.
The police action was nothing more than a legitimate law enforcement
action, and should not be interpreted as a human rights issue, Xinhua
added.
However, activists, diplomats and academics all describe recent events as
one of the most ferocious Communist party assaults on civil rights in
memory.
The scope is unprecedented, not only in terms of who has been taken

away, detained [or] disappeared but also in terms of the huge numbers of
lawyers who have been taken in for questionings, warnings and
intimidation, said Eva Pils, a China expert from Kings College London.
Keith Hand, an expert in Chinese law from the University of California, said:
Under [president Xi Jinpings] leadership the party is showing a new
determination to seize control of the ideological and political discourse in
China and to marginalise any potential threats [to its power].
Rights lawyers are one of the few groups in civil society that could put
pressure on the regime so I think they are basically trying to take away
what little space is left for them.
Of the scores of people so far affected by the crackdown, 20 are still
believed to be under some form of detention, Human Rights Watch said on
Tuesday. They include the human rights lawyers Sui Muqing and Xie Yang,
who are facing charges of inciting subversion, which could see them jailed
for up to 15 years.
The whereabouts of six of the 20 people thought still to be in custody
remain a mystery, activists say. The missing include Zhao Wei, the 24-yearold assistant of Li Heping, a well-known human rights lawyer who was also
among those held in the recent wave of detentions.
Zhao Weis husband, You Minglei, told the Guardian: She has been out of
contact since she was taken away by police on 10 July.
You said he believed his wife had been detained by officers from the city of
Tianjin but claimed police had provided no information about her location or
condition. He said he called police in search of information but was told
they did not know anything and had not even heard of his wife.
I am very angry about the authorities handling of this, he added. My
wife is just an assistant at the law firm and she hasnt done anything that
violates the law.
Hu Shigen, a dissident writer and underground church leader who spent

more than 16 years in prison after trying to found an opposition political

party, has also been missing since 10 July. Hu Jia, another outspoken
activist, said authorities would fail to silence the veteran campaigner by
imprisoning him: For someone who has served 16 years in prison,
detention is not likely to be an effective form of persuasion.
Maya Wang, from Human Rights Watch, claimed the 20 people still believed
to be in custody were at serious risk of torture or other forms of
mistreatment. Only one had been given access to a lawyer. In these kinds
of conditions it is easy to force confessions out of people, she said.
Many experts and activists see the Communist partys decision to launch
such a sweeping attack against its perceived foes as a sign of its weakness.
Isnt there a profound dread lurking behind this barbarism? Teng Biao, an
exiled rights lawyer, wrote in the Washington Post.
But Hand said it was possible to view the crackdown as an indication of the
partys strength under Xi Jinping, who some call Chinas most powerful
leader since Mao Zedong.
He said the intensifying repression could signal the party was fragile or
paranoid but another interpretation is that it is strong enough that it is not
worried about how parties inside or outside of China are going to react.
He added: The government and the party seem stronger than ever and
more determined than ever to marginalise even moderate alternative
voices. They are just going to do what they want to do to eliminate threats.
Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Public Security Bureau did not
respond to requests for information about the six missing people.
Profiles of the missing
The whereabouts of at least six people thought to have been caught up in
Beijings crackdown remains unknown. They include Zhao Wei, Hu Shigen
and Li Shuyun.
Zhao Wei, legal assistant

Zhao Wei. Photograph: You Minglei

Zhao Wei, 24, studied journalism at Jiangxi Normal University and
graduated in 2013. While there she was an active member of a number of
student groups including the Rainbow Club, which focused on LGBT issues.
She met her husband, You Minglei, at a charity event raising money for HIV
patients from Chinas Henan province. She is a kindhearted person who is
always ready to help others, he said.
In October last year, Zhao began working as the assistant of Li Heping, a
respected civil rights lawyer. Family members have not heard from her
since 10 July when she was taken from her flat in Beijing by police.
Hu Shigen, democracy activist, dissident writer and church leader
Hu Shigen, 60, has been missing since 10 July, the day police began
rounding up Chinese human rights lawyers, activists and their associates.
Hu is a former university lecturer who became a democracy activist
following the military crackdown on protestors in Tiananmen Square in
1989.
He was released from prison in 2008 after spending more than 16 years
behind bars for allegedly leading a counterrevolutionary organisation.
Those charges stemmed from an attempt to found an opposition political
party.
Today, Hu is the leader of several of Beijings unofficial house churches.
Supporters and fellow Christians know him as Pastor Hu. Hu Jia, the
Chinese dissident, said the protestant leader was a person of faith who is
wise and brave. Being a Christian, Hu is always warmhearted and has the

spirit of devotion, he added.

Li Shuyun, trainee lawyer

Li Shuyun. Photograph: Weibo

Li Shuyun was taken from her home by about 10 plainclothes police officers
at 11.30am on 10 July, according to human rights groups. One of those
officers said her detention was part of an investigation into a criminal case,
Amnesty International has reported.
Li was a trainee lawyer at the Beijing-based Fengrui Law Firm, the practice
at the centre of the recent crackdown. The firms website features an image
of Nelson Mandela.
Nobody knows where she is, said one acquaintance, whose name is being
withheld to protect them from possible government retaliation.
Additional reporting by Luna Lin
Posted by Thavam