Police detained one of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers in Beijing on Friday, after three other rights lawyers who worked together disappeared in the capital within 24 hours, apparently caught in an expanding investigation focused on their firm, their colleagues and family members said.
The reasons for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) moves against the lawyers remains unclear. However, this appeared to be another step in the party’s campaign to use criminal investigations to crush China’s nascent rights defense movement, which has used litigation and advocacy to challenge party restrictions on expression, the legal system and political life, several lawyers and rights advocates said.
“We’re used to seeing lawyers detained at a courtroom, but this seems like it’s different,” Amnesty International Hong Kong-based researcher William Nee (倪偉平) said. “It looks like a large-scale, coordinated thing, rather than catch and release. It has the potential to be a lot more serious.”
The best-known of the lawyers taken away was Li Heping (李和平), who was in his home on Friday morning when police entered, searched the home, seized computers and documents and took him away, his brother Li Chun-fu (李春富) said in a telephone interview, citing his brother’s wife who was at home.
The officers were from Tianjin, said Li Chunfu, who is also a lawyer.
“They said it was about a criminal investigation, but they didn’t say what investigation, nothing else,” he said.
Three other lawyers and a paralegal working at a different practice, the Fengrui Law Firm, disappeared or were taken away by plainclothes officers either early Thursday or Friday morning, according to Liu Xiaoyuan (劉曉原), a colleague at Fengrui.
The apparent detentions were confirmed by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, citing Liu and other rights lawyers.
Nee said that at least seven people from the firm were missing, probably detained.
Zhou Shifeng (周世鋒), another Beijing lawyer who has taken up politically contentious cases, was led away from a hotel in eastern Beijing by three men on Friday morning, with his head hooded by clothing, Liu said.
“We’re fairly sure he was taken away by plainclothes police,” Liu said, citing the account of a person who was there. “But there’s been no notification, and his wife hasn’t heard anything. We’re all waiting.”
Hours before Zhou disappeared, he had exulted at the release of a client, Zhang Miao (張淼), a news assistant for a German weekly, who was freed on Thursday night after nine months in detention. Zhou had gone to the detention center to receive Zhang.
Wang Yu (王宇), a colleague of Zhou’s, disappeared from her home in Beijing early Thursday, after sending friends a text message that her power and Internet connection had been shut off and, later, that people were trying to enter her home, Liu said.
Last month, Xinhua news agency condemned Wang in a commentary that called her a “hypocritical, bogus lawyer.”
Also taken from their homes by plainclothes officers on Friday morning were Li Shuyun (李姝雲), a probationary lawyer at the firm, and a paralegal, Liu Sixin (劉四新), Liu Xiaoyuan said, citing Li Shuyun’s sister and a phone call from the detained paralegal and the accounts of his relatives.
On Friday afternoon, police also searched the Fengrui offices and took away at least three computers, Liu Xiaoyuan said.
“Other people in the law firm have also been detained, but it’s hard to count, because some maybe are hiding and turned their phones off,” he said. “I’m also in danger and staying outside Beijing.”
The firm has dozens of lawyers, and its Web site features inspirational quotes from Nelson Mandela and the slogan “Equality, freedom, democracy, legality.”
The police have not confirmed that they are holding the four lawyers or Liu Sixin.
However, supporters said the lawyers appeared to be the latest people to be detained for taking up politically contentious cases and causes that have upset the CCP.
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has been in power, his government has enforced a sweeping crackdown on dissidents, rights advocates and lawyers who try to defend them.
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