China detains over 50 human rights lawyers in nationwide crackdown

Human rights group Amnesty global said on Saturday that more than 50 human rights lawyers and activists in China had been “detained, disappeared or summoned by police” over the past 48 hours, with a number of them having failed to make contact with relatives since coming into the hands of the authorities.

Citing the need to buttress national security and stability, President Xi Jinping’s administration has tightened government control over nearly every aspect of civil societysince 2012.

Uighur protesters demonstrate outside the Thai embassy in Ankara last week.

In recent years, the government has detained dozens of Chinese for dissent and Tibetans and Uighurs have complained of rights abuses, prompting criticism from the United States. She disappeared shortly after she sent a text message saying unidentified people were picking at the lock of her front door. Also, Beijing Fengrui Law Firm and the Beijing office of lawyer Li Jinxing have been searched. China has also denied allegations of mistreatment or torture.

“We strongly urge China to respect the rights of all of its citizens and to release all those who have been detained for seeking to protect the rights of Chinese citizens”.

The arrests started after a lawyer at the Fengrui firm, Wang Yu, went missing early Thursday.

The People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said on Saturday that public security authorities had identified Fengrui as a “major criminal organisation” that served as a coordinating “platform” involved in dozens of sensitive cases since 2012.

The article highlighted the role of ex- Fengrui employee Wu Gan, a social media personality known as “Super Vulgar Butcher” who blogs about official misconduct and free speech and has been detained since May.

China’s Ministry of Public Security said on its website that the detained lawyers were a “major criminal gang” who had “seriously disturbed order”.

Two of its lawyers were taken away just before the weekend’s events unfolded on a bigger scale.

“Such an unprecedented nationwide crackdown can only have been sanctioned from within the central government”, said William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty worldwide. “But based on what evidence did you have to prove that they are making trouble… the accusation is vague and you can not see any legal foundation”.

It the largest crackdown on lawyers since 2011, when some lawyers were arrested or beaten in the wake of anonymous calls for protesters to stage a pro-democracy “jasmine revolution” in China, Amnesty worldwide said. Another lawyer, Wang Cheng, who had his personal freedoms reduced, and was taken in for questioning by the police, was released at 6am on the same day.

“These no-holds-barred lawyers staged open defiance inside the courtroom and on the Internet, and behind the scenes instructed their key troublemakers to organize petitioners”, the report said.