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

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 China’s 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 operation’s 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 don’t know [what has happened to them],” said Maya Wang, the China 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.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Human rights lawyer Wang Yu was detained on 9 July. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Beijing’s 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.

China’s 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, Beijing’s 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 King’s College London.

Keith Hand, an expert in Chinese law from the University of California, said: “Under [president Xi Jinping’s] 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.”

China targets lawyers in new human rights crackdown Read more

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-year-old assistant of Li Heping, a well-known human rights lawyer who was also among those held in the recent wave of detentions.

Zhao Wei’s 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 hasn’t 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 party’s decision to launch such a sweeping attack against its perceived foes as a sign of its weakness. “Isn’t 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 party’s strength under Xi Jinping, who some call China’s 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.”

China’s 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 Beijing’s 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 China’s 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 Beijing’s 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 firm’s 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