China 'behind disappearance' of renowned photographer

Police and family are searching for Lu Guang, award-winning documentary photographer possibly abducted by Chinese police. Photo shows Lu and Greenpeace photographer John Novis (right) in front of a storyboard with Lu's work at the Dalian oil spill in 2010. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace)

BEIJING: Internationally renowned Chinese documentary photographer Lu Guang has gone missing while on a trip to Xinjiang, his wife said on Tuesday.

The wife of the award-winning Chinese photographer says he was taken away by state security agents more than three weeks ago during a trip to the country's far west.

A 57-year-old US green card holder, Lu is a familiar name in domestic and foreign media alike. His work reflected his strong views about industrialisation and damage done to the environment.

Since 1993, he has worked in documentary photography, recording the effects of environmental pollution, poverty, Aids villages, and drug addiction in a rapidly industrialising China.

Lu's wife, Xu Xiaoli, told The Associated Press late Tuesday that he was travelling in Xinjiang when she lost contact with him on Nov 3.

She told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post she last heard from Lu while he was in the regional capital of Urumqi. He visited Xinjiang to meet other photographers, Xu said.

Missing photographer Lu Guang (right) with his wife Xu Xiaoli, in a photo taken in New York. Lu has reportedly been disappeared by Chinese security forces. (Photo via Twitter/@Xiaoli11032018)

Xinjiang is the site of current human rights violations by Beijing against at least a million Muslims. It is not known if Lu was photographing that event.

Xu says a friend helped her inquire about his whereabouts in Zhejiang, his home province. Authorities there said he and another photographer had been taken by Xinjiang state security, but gave no further details.

Xu said in a phone interview with the AP that he would never have done anything illegal because of his sense of social responsibility.

Xu established a new Twitter account on Monday and posted an extensive letter detailed what she knows of the disappearance.

"He has been lost for more than 20 days and as his most direct family member, I have not received any notice of his arrest," the post says. "I have repeatedly contacted Xinjiang police but have been unable to get through."

Next week "is our 20th wedding anniversary. We should be celebrating it together. I can only hope for his safe return."

Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that Wang Longmeng, a political commentator currently living in France, said Lu's presence in Xinjiang likely made the authorities there nervous.

"Why has such a well-known photographer been detained in Xinjiang? Maybe it has something to do with the current, and highly repressive, policies being implemented in Xinjiang right now," Wang said.

"They are building the biggest concentration camps in the world."

He added: "Maybe they were afraid of what Lu Guang would see and reveal on his trip; that he would let the international community know about what is going on in Xinjiang."

RFA also spoke with Patrick Poon, China researcher for the London-based rights group Amnesty International, who said Lu's sudden disappearance came as Beijing seeks to fend off mounting international criticism of its mass internment of Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic groups in "re-education" camps in Xinjiang.

"The situation in Xinjiang has indeed caused a lot of international concern, so the Chinese government is taking various steps to shut down the flow of information," Poon said.

"I don't know if the authorities are worried about something that Lu Guang photographed [in Xinjiang]."

"But they shouldn't suppress it in this way. It won't work, and the effect will be to increase public attention," he said. "We call on the international community to watch closely and request that the Chinese government ... release him immediately."

Lu won a World Press Photo prize in 2004 for a series on poor Chinese villagers suffering from HIV.

He has won many other international awards since 2004, including the Henry Nannen Pries, the W Eugene Smith Grant Humanitarian Photography Award, the National Geographic Photography Award, the Dutch Prince Claus Award. He has also won the highest domestic award, the China Photography Awards.