Two Beijing based lawyers, Tong Zongjin and Zhang Lei, were denied permission to meet with Chen and his brother on the grounds that in early July the Supervision Commission had launched an investigation into bribery on their clients.

A month later, in an article entitled “A Perspective of Chen Jieren’s Alleged Crime of Extortion and Illegal Business” state news agency Xinhua accused Chen of “using official’s fear of his reporting to extort money from them.” The agency also quoted excerpts of his “confessions” supposedly obtained during liuzhi detention. 116 Video footage of his forced confessions were also broadcast on state media.

On 12 November 2018, Hunan authorities placed Chen Jieren, one of his brothers and one of his assistants under criminal detention on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble, extortion and concealing a crime,” according to his lawyers. Although by that time, the case had been transferred to the procuratorate, their lawyers were still not able to meet their clients.

Example of liuzhi used to limit exposure of official wrongdoing

89. Wang Linqing. On 3 January 2019, former Supreme Court judge Wang Linqing disappeared just

weeks after he had exposed that key legal documents relating to a mining rights dispute between a private and a state company had been stolen. He emerged on 22 February in a shocking confession aired on Chinese state TV in which he said he was the one who taken the documents to stop other judges working on the case and taking credit. It should be noted that at this point Wang had not been formally accused nor had he had any access to legal counsel. It is not clear what happened to Wang on 3 January, but sources say he was taken to a hotel near the Supreme Court in Beijing to be interrogated and it seems likely that he was placed in liuzhi.117

News of the missing papers was leaked in December 2018 by former state TV presenter Cui Yongyuan on his Weibo. A few days later, Wang released a video saying that CCTV cameras had been tampered with when the documents went missing in late 2016 and he was making the video to protect himself.

In May 2019, Wang was formally accused of theft and fabrication and officially placed under the custody of Beijing’s anti-graft agency. Cui also went missing for one week. Upon his release, he took to social media to apologize for spreading false information. Zhao Faqi, the owner of the private company in the mining dispute, has been disappeared since Wang’s TV confession.

116 http://www.xinhuanet.com/2018-08/16/c_1123280255.htm

117 http://rsdlmonitor.com/missing-chinese-supreme-court-judge-makes-forced-tv-confession/