Uwazi

On 26 December 2020, one of Yu Wensheng's defence lawyers received the Jiangsu Provincial Higher People's Court's appeal decision upholding the original verdict and sentence against the human rights defender. The appeal decision was reached before the defence lawyers had the opportunity to submit their defence statement to the court and before they were able to make copies of and review all the case files.

The appeal decision was dated 13 December 2020, but when Xu Yan, Yu Wensheng's wife, phoned the Court on 16 December, a court official told her that the Court had yet to reach a decision.

It is not yet clear when, or if, Yu Wensheng, who is currently detained at the Xuzhou Detention Centre, will be transferred to a prison. Detention centre officials have rejected Xu Yan's requests to visit him, on the pretext of COVID-19 regulations. Xu Yan has requested the authorities to; allow family visitation as soon as possible, transfer him back to Beijing where she and their child live, and guarantee him access to adequate treatment for medical conditions affecting his right hand and his teeth.

On 14 December 2020, Chang Weiping's parents held a protest in front of the Gaoxin branch of the Baoji Municipal Public Security Bureau, seeking his release and raising concerns about the risk of torture in detention. After the protest, both parents were summoned for interrogation several times. A CCTV camera was installed outside their home in Fengxiang county to monitor their movement and any visitors. Their mobile phones have since been confiscated and they are under de facto incommunicado house arrest.

One of Chang Weiping's brothers-in-law and his father-in-law also had their mobile phones confiscated. Chang Weiping's older sister was prohibited from visiting her father. Chen Zijuan, Chang Weiping's wife, has not been able to contact her father-in-law for over two weeks.

On 6 January 2021, Chen Zijuan submitted a complaint to the Baoji Municipal Procuratorate against local public security officials who visited her in Shenzhen eight times between 22 October 2020, the day Chang Weiping was detained, and 23 December 2020. The officials warned her not to conduct public advocacy for her husband. They also pressured her to delete her social media posts on Weibo about her husband's situation. The officials said she would lose her job if she defied their demands.

The two human rights lawyers who were initially hired to assist Chang Weiping had to withdraw from the case due to intense pressure from the authorities. Two new lawyers who took over the case said they could not give any media interviews due to official pressure. The new lawyers' first attempt to meet Chang Weiping was not successful. In a statement issued on 16 December 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders said the withdrawal of Chang Weiping's first lawyers was "telling of the gravity and scale of the situation faced by human rights defenders and lawyers in China.”

Authorities in Qinghai province in northwestern China last month detained a Tibetan woman known for her online advocacy of democracy and the rule of law, holding her for 10 days before releasing her under continuing surveillance, Tibetan sources say.

Tsering Tso, who had drawn police attention with her postings on the social media platform WeChat, was taken into custody at her home in the provincial capital Xining on Nov. 12 and brought by 10 officers to a detention center in Trika (in Chinese, Guide) county, an India-based Tibetan rights group said this week.

“In addition to surviving only on steamed buns and boiled water during her detention, she was subjected to ill-treatment and intimidation,” the Tibetan Centre For Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said, adding that detaining officers had hoped to pressure her to give up her advocacy work.

“By detaining people like Tsering Tso, the Chinese government is violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed and agreed to abide by. However, China is inflicting many other policies on Tibetans in Tibet that violate international laws,” TCHRD researcher Tenzin Dawa said.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one of some 60 rights instruments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948.

With the approach of the annual UN Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, estimates of political prisoners in Tibet range from more than 500 in U.S. Congressional reports to more than 2,000 in a database kept by the TCHRD.

“Tibetan political prisoners endure harsh prison conditions, including torture, deprivation of food and sleep, and long periods in isolation cells,” said the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, which notes that “opaque” Chinese record keeping makes it hard to determine how many are being held.

“In the current political climate imposed by Chinese authorities, even the most mild expressions of Tibetan cultural or religious identity can be punished by torture and arrest,” says the ICT.

One of the most famous prisoners of conscience is Tibet’s Panchen Lama, who vanished into Chinese custody as a young boy 25 years ago and has not been heard from since.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was recognized on May 14, 1995 at the age of six as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 10th Panchen Lama.

The recognition by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama angered Chinese authorities, who promptly took the boy and his family into custody and then installed another boy, Gyaincain Norbu, as their own candidate in his place.

The ranks of Tibet’s political prisoners include numerous monks, scholars, educators, and artists.

Beaten by police

Tsering Tso had also served a period of detention in 2017 after petitioning for the rights of Tibetans to apply for passports, during which she was physically assaulted by a security officer named Jamga who kicked her in the head, face, chest, and abdomen, leaving her hospitalized for her injuries, TCHRD said.

Police officers in November gave no reason for her detention following a trip she made to Thailand, Tso told RFA’s Mandarin Service in an interview.

“There were no concrete reasons for my arrest,” Tso said, adding, “But while I was returning from Thailand, I had a feeling they would arrest me, and I think they had already planned this from the beginning.”

“Finally, on Nov. 2, I was accused of violating the law by sending two message on WeChat related to issues of ‘stability,’ and I was detained for 10 days. I have no idea how my postings might have threatened stability,” Tso said.

A Nov. 13 announcement by the Trika county Public Security Bureau said that Tso had been charged with disseminating discussions of “provocative issues” on social media, adding that she would be fined and held in administrative detention for 10 days.

Tsering Tso had regularly written on topics like democracy and the rule of law on her social media platforms, Dawa told RFA in an interview. “But the Chinese government has always threatened people who speak up about these things.”

Reached for comment on Monday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, “We continue to press the [People’s Republic of China] to respect the freedom of speech and beliefs of its own people, and in particular those who seek to protect Tibet’s unique religion, language, and culture.”

Tibetan researcher held

A Tibetan researcher at Tibet University in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa has meanwhile also been detained, with no word given as to his whereabouts since he was taken into custody in June, RFA has learned.

Kunsang Gyaltsen, a student in his late 20s from Qinghai’s Mangra (Chinese, Guinan) county, is thought to have been arrested for circulating booklets containing unauthorized views of Tibet’s political history, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA, citing sources in the region.

“Chinese authorities have concealed all information about him, and despite numerous attempts by family members to learn where he is being held, there has been no response from authorities at all,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pema Gyal, an analyst at TCHRD, confirmed the account of Gyaltsen’s arrest and disappearance, adding that information about his current status is unavailable “because his parents have been denied access to him.”

A formerly independent nation, Tibet was taken over and incorporated into China by force nearly 70 years ago, following which Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India, and Beijing maintains a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces.

Authorities in the central province of Hunan have detained a prominent rights activist after he helped to publicize the story of Dong Yaoqiong, a woman sent to a psychiatric hospital for splashing ink on a poster of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in a Twitter livestream.

Ou Biaofeng was taken away from his home in Hunan's Zhuzhou city by officers of the Lusong district police department on Dec. 3, who held him under administrative detention for 15 days for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

"Four state security police came to our home without prior notice and took him away," his wife Wei Xinxin told RFA. "The fact that he was taken away so suddenly makes me quite worried, because it is a bit different from previous times."

Ou's friend Chen Siming said Ou's detention was linked to his public support for Dong.

"This is an open secret, and the police and state security police know that," Chen said.

"He was very concerned about [Dong's recent video] and has been in contact with Dong Yaoqiong on Twitter since then," he said.

Following her release from the psychiatric hospital, Dong posted a video on Twitter on Nov. 30 saying angrily that she had no mental illness and complaining of being held under long-term surveillance after her release.

Chen said the authorities likely blame Ou for international news coverage of the video, which broke Dong's public silence following her release.

"[Ou Biaofeng] was the only channel of communication between Dong and the rest of the world," he said. "Dong would never have gotten that much publicity without him."

"She also mentions Ou Biaofeng in the video."

Chen said Ou also has a track record of speaking out on human rights issues, and had been warned by the state security police that he risked a jail term over the cumulative effect of his activities.

A Changsha-based friend of Ou's who gave only the nickname Rosemary said that Ou remained in detention at the end of the 15-day sentence, and that police have been questioning his friends and fellow activists since his detention, suggesting that they may be building a case against him.

"I know of three or four people [who have been questioned]," Rosemary said. "He was held under 15 days' administrative detention, but the stability maintenance system kicked into place in other provinces, across the whole country ... and people were warned not to follow the case or speak out in support of him."

"We are worried this 15-day administrative detention is just a pretext [ahead of a criminal case]," she said. "[Other activists] have also had their administrative detentions converted into criminal detention."

On Tuesday, defense lawyer Zhang Lei was denied permission to meet with Ou, who is being held at the Zhuzhou Detention Center.

"When I was in detention, my friends could meet with me twice a week," Chen, who accompanied the lawyer, told RFA. "Now the detention center is saying that all meetings are suspended due to the pandemic."

"Not even lawyers are being allowed to meet with detainees," he said. "I am pretty worried, given what just happened."

Authorities put on trial Ge Zhihui, a human rights defender with disabilities, on December 15, 2020. Ms. Ge is an advocate for social and economic rights, who had been disabled by a demolition team while resisting the forced eviction of her family from their home. At her December 15 trial at the Beijing Fengtai District Court, she faced the charge of “picking quarrels & provoking trouble.” The prosecution’s case against her included the claims that Ms. Ge had showed support for persecuted human rights defender Cao Shunli, protested against officials who were interfering in a village election, and posted critical comments online. Except for her lawyer, nobody was allowed into the courtroom, not even her family members. The court did not announce a verdict. Police detained Ms. Ge in July 2019 and she has since languished at the Fengtai District Detention Facility. China ratified the international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008, The UN’s disability rights and social, economic and cultural rights treaty bodies are both currently conducting reviews of China’s implementation of the treaties.

Chinese journalist and filmmaker Du Bin has been detained by authorities for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on December 16. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) calls on the Chinese government to release Du immediately and respect Chinese citizens’ right to freedom of expression.

Du, 48, is a Chinese documentary filmmaker and journalist who has previously worked for The New York Times as a freelance photographer. According to Du’s sister Du Jirong, Du was arrested and detained by Beijing police on December 16 over vague allegations he was ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’.

The journalist’s detention may have been linked to his recent writing, including a book on the rule of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin scheduled for publication in 2021. According to South China Morning Post, Du has been under scrutiny from the Chinese Communist Party for writing and editing a number of politically sensitive books, such as a documentation of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

The police have recently summoned Du for questioning on multiple occasions, during which he was asked to delete sensitive contents on his Twitter account, according to Weiquanwang, a website tracking detentions and persecution of activists and dissidents in China, as well as Voice of America. Authorities have also inquired about his book projects, the reports said.

Violations of press freedom and journalists’ rights have increased in China in recent years as authorities continue to expand their control over the media. A number of citizen journalists were detained for their coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in China during 2020, while about a dozen foreign journalists have been expelled, partly due to the ongoing tension between the United States and China.

Last week, the IFJ documented the arrest of Haze Fan, a staff member who has been at the Bloomberg News Beijing bureau since 2017, on suspicion of taking part in activities endangering national security. In August, Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian journalist who had worked in the English service of the state run television CGTN, was detained by the Chinese government for the same accusation leveled against Fan.

Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested eight activists in connection with a July protest, the latest in a widening crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

Local media reported that those arrested included former legislators Wu Chi-wei, Eddie Chu and “Longhair” Leung Kwok-hung, along with Civil Human Rights Front’s (CHRF's) Figo Chan, among others.

The police accused them of “inciting, organizing and taking part in an unauthorized assembly,” referring to the July 1 demonstrations in which thousands defied a protest ban and rallied on the streets against the national security law imposed on the city by Beijing the day before.

Speaking to reporters after he was released on bail, Figo of the pro-democracy CHRF said Hong Kong authorities are oppressing dissidents by filing unreasonable charges.

“I strongly condemn the Hong Kong government for continuously suppressing Hong Kong citizens,” he said.

Since pro-democracy protests erupted in Hong Kong in 2019, the city’s police force has been at the forefront of Beijing’s efforts to eliminate the demonstrations.

According to a survey published by Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute on Tuesday, the police now rank last in public approval among Hong Kong's "disciplinary forces," which include first responders, correctional officers, People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison troops, anti-corruption investigators, and customs and immigration officials.

“The Police Force attains a rating of 40.3 marks, with 34% of the sample giving zero mark and continues to be the lowest among the nine disciplinary forces,” the organization said.

Chan Ka Lok, an associate professor and director of the Comparative Governance and Public Policy Research Center at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the low ratings were due to police abuse of power, and the force’s unwillingness to establish an independent investigation committee to assess police performance in handling the pro-democracy movement since 2019.

Tuesday’s arrests were carried out hours after the United States sanctioned another 14 Chinese officials over China’s move last month to expel four pro-democracy lawmakers from Hong Kong’s legislature. When asked whether there is any correlation, Chan told VOA that “the police's approach is a replay of ‘hostage diplomacy’ in the Cold War era.”

Since Monday, more than a dozen Hong Kong citizens have been arrested for their roles in pro-democracy demonstrations. Chan said these arrests resemble the mass arrests often used by the Chinese police force in the mainland and will turn Hong Kong into a place ruled by fear.

New pro-Beijing party

Meanwhile, a group of mainland-born, pro-establishment executives working in Hong Kong have founded a new political party in a bid to influence local government policies.

The Bauhinia Party was founded in May by three powerful executives: Li Shan, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and director of Credit Suisse Group AG; Huang Qiuzhi, chairman of CMMB Vision Holdings Limited; and Chen Jianwen, chairman of Bonjour Holdings Limited. Li and Wong were born in mainland China and later became Hong Kong residents.

According the Hong Kong Companies Registry, a government department that registers local and foreign companies, the party seeks to “promote a democratic political system best suited to Hong Kong based on the rule of law and civil liberty with the realization of universal suffrage as guaranteed by the Basic Law, so as to safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability.”

But Hong Kong commentator Stephen Shiu said the creation of the party shows Beijing is no longer satisfied with old pro-establishment forces and hopes a new party representing new immigrants from the mainland can help restrain “extremist forces” in the legislature.

Other analysts say that Beijing wants to put its own people into Hong Kong’s political arena.

They argue that to Beijing, even its closest ally, the New People’s Party, is still seen as a local party rather than one formed by its own people.

Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai has been arrested and charged with fraud.

The 73-year-old Lai appeared in a Hong Kong courtroom Thursday along with two other executives of his Next Digital company and was accused of violating terms of the company’s lease of its office space. He was denied bail and his case has been adjourned until next April.

Lai was arrested at his home in August and charged with suspicion of colluding with a foreign country under the city’s new national security law imposed by China. Hours after his arrest, more than 100 police officers raided the headquarters of Lai’s Next Digital company, which publishes the newspaper Apple Daily. The newspaper livestreamed the raid on its website, showing officers roaming the newsroom as they rummaged through reporters’ files, while Lai was led through the newsroom in handcuffs.

He was one of at least 10 people arrested that day, including at least one of Lai’s sons.

Lai is already in legal jeopardy for his pro-democracy activism. He was one of 15 activists arrested earlier this year and hit with seven charges, including organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies and inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.

Lai’s arrest Thursday comes a day after three young Hong Kong pro-democracy activists -- 24-year-old Joshua Wong, 23-year-old Agnes Chow and 26-year-old Ivan Lam -- received jail sentences between seven and 13 1/2 months in connection with a protest outside the city’s police headquarters in June 2019.

Lai is one of the highest-profile Hong Kongers targeted by the new security law since it went into effect in July. Under the law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.

The new law was imposed by Beijing in response to the massive and often violent pro-democracy demonstrations that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of last year, and is the cornerstone of its increasing grip on the city, which was granted an unusual amount of freedoms when Britain handed over control in 1997.

A court in Shanghai, China on Monday sentenced former lawyer and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for her reporting on the coronavirus outbreak, a harsh sentence that legal scholars say is aimed at having a chilling effect on Chinese rights activists.

Zhang, 37, was one of several citizen journalists who covered the initial outbreak in China’s central city of Wuhan. Their coverage painted a far more serious picture of conditions than the government’s official narrative of the spreading infection. Her reports included examples of the harassment of families of victims who were seeking accountability, according to human rights advocates.

Zhang was detained by authorities in May and accused of spreading false information, giving interviews to foreign media, disrupting public order and "maliciously manipulating" the outbreak. She went missing in Wuhan on May 14, according to media reports, and a day later turned up under arrest in Shanghai, more than 640 kilometers away. In court, she was formally charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” an accusation frequently used against Chinese activists.

Zhang’s lawyer, Zhang Keke, told VOA that Zhang Zhan has been on a hunger strike for nearly five months. She appeared in court in a wheelchair, all but refusing to speak — apparently using silence as a form of protest.

“The only thing she said is that citizens have the right to freedom of speech, and they have no right to question her,” Zhang Keke said.

According to the defense lawyer, the prosecutor during the trial accused Zhang of publishing so-called "problematic remarks" on China’s social media platforms including Weibo and WeChat. Yet the prosecution failed to provide any posts or videos as evidence.

“She didn’t fabricate any reports, nor has she created any harm to the society,” Zhang Keke said, adding that Zhang will likely appeal the verdict.

A Chinese human rights lawyer who asked to remain anonymous told VOA that the four-year sentence is extremely harsh. “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble usually leads to a fixed-term imprisonment of no more than five years. For first time offense, the sentence is usually one year,” he said, adding that Zhang’s harsh sentence was aimed at instilling fear among citizen journalists and civil rights lawyers.

Rights groups also condemned the ruling. Cédric Alviani, East Asia bureau head of the Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders, (RSF), called on the international community to increase pressure on the Chinese government until Beijing releases Zhang and other detained press freedom activists in China. “Zhang Zhan was only serving the public interest by reporting on the COVID-19 outbreak, so, she should never have been detained, not to mention, received a four-year prison sentence. This trial is actually a parody of justice,” Alviani told VOA.

The United Nations’ human rights office said in a tweet on Monday that it was troubled by the four-year sentence. “We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release,” the office said.

China has been accused of covering up the initial outbreak of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease and silencing whistleblowers, including the late Dr. Li Wenliang, and citizen journalists Fang Bing, Chen Qiushi, Li Zehua and Zhang Zhan, for exposing information that authorities did not approve for release. Dr. Li died of COVID-19 after Beijing silenced his attempts to warn the world about the coronavirus.

China has fiercely denied these accusations and said the country has been highly successful in containing the virus, compared to Western countries including the United States.

According to a survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists, China was the world’s leading jailer of journalists in 2020, with at least 47 people behind bars.

At 2 pm on November 26, political police officer Guo (last name) asked human rights activist Li Qiaochu to meet him in Beijing Haidian District. Instead of engaging in a typical, approximately hour-long session complying with a police officer’s request to meet to address a concern, officials detained Ms. Li overnight. The next day, November 27, however, authorities conditionally released Ms. Li to her parents.

For Ms. Li’s release and for her to avoid imprisonment at that time, police told her parents that they had to sign a guarantee Ms. Li would no longer communicate on the internet. Otherwise, authorities warned, they would imprison her. In addition, upon Ms. Li’s release, police confiscated her computer and cell phone.

Earlier this year, on February 2, police detained human rights defender Xu Zhiyong, On February 16, officials also detained 29-year-old Ms. Li, Mr. Xu’s girlfriend, one of the initiators of the New Citizens’ Movement. Authorities continued to detain Mr. Xu but released Ms. Li on bail soon after her arrest.

After her release, Ms. Li appealed for Mr. Xu‘s release. Her efforts, however, merited ongoing threats of detainment and obligatory meetings with Gua and other officers. In fall/winter 2017, Ms. Li, also a researcher of labor issues, had accompanied volunteers to gather information and share data with heavily affected communities following an incident where the “low-end population” of migrant workers in the Beijing district had been driven out. There, the group assisted workers who had lost their jobs and housing.

In 2018, Ms. Li actively participated in the “MeToo” movement against gender violence, supporting the movement on platforms such as Twitter. She often stood in solidarity with various prisoners of conscience and their families.

In June 2019, doctors diagnosed Ms. Li with depression and advised her that she needed long-term medication. Nevertheless, she continued to participate in activities as usual.

From the start of December 2019, authorities stationed public safety personnel at her house. They have also surveilled her routes to and from work.

In the past, due to Ms. Li’s human rights activism, police regularly harassed her, Now, also due to Ms. Li’s past human rights activism, police continue to monitor her, violating her privacy and civil rights.

Now, in addition to police harassing and monitoring Ms. Li and violating her rights, she lives with the threat officials will imprison her if she communicates online.

Sunday, November 30, Justice Bureau authorities phoned Beijing Lawyer Wang Yu informing her that the Chinese Government had revoked her license to practice law. Lawyer Wang had defended human rights activist Yu Wensheng, arrested in January 2018, currently imprisoned in Jiangsu, China. Since authorities sieged Mr. Yu, they have not only denied his wife’s visitation rights, they have revoked his rights to communicate with others, and have turned down requests for him to obtain dental treatment. Lawyer Wang has provided support and stood by Ms. Xu Yan, Mr. Yu’s wife, who has continued to fight for her husband’s rights during his detention.

On November 29, the day authorities revoked Lawyer Wang’s license, she and her husband, Lawyer Bao Longjun, joined with several other human rights lawyers, including Xie Yanyi, Wen Donghai, and Cheng Hai, to host a modest event to advocate for Mr. Yu. The support group petitioned the High People’s Court of Jiangsu to open trials on Mr. Yu’s case and allow his wife to visit him in prison.

As the first human rights lawyer arrested in the "709 incident,"* and because Lawyer Wang has helped Ms. Xu fight for Mr. Yu's rights, as well as helped many others defend their rights, she contravened the Chinese Communist Party CCP authorities’ taboo.

China typically resorts to implementing a series of suppressions toward human rights activists for example, lawyers face deliberate obstacles when representing human rights cases. In severe situations, they face the risk of police detaining them. If detained, the lawyer’s legal counsel also faces the risk of detainment for representing dissenting cases. Lawyer Wang’s case depicts this scenario.

In 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping initiated an action plan to weaken nascent human rights movements. CCP authorities apprehended Lawyer Wang in accordance with this plan. Authorities also arrested Lawyer Li Yuhan, Wang’s lawyer, currently serving her sentence in Liaoning, Shengyang. While defending Lawyer Li, Li Boguang, the lawyer who represented her, suddenly died in Jiangsu, Nanjing.

During the process of defending others, the four related lawyers suffered a series of persecutions. In January of 2016, authorities arrested Lawyer Wang, charging her for state subversion. After her imprisonment at a detention center in Tianjin, authorities released Lawyer Wang in July 2016.

As a lawyer’s livelihood depends on practicing law, revoking his or her license to practice law significantly impacts the survival of the individuals’ and his or her families’ survival. The CCP's current practice of revoking licenses of lawyers who defend human rights blatantly deprives them of their right to survive. CCP authorities also revoked the license to practice law for Lawyer Wang’s husband for representing human rights cases.

Human rights lawyer Chen Jiangang, exiled to America, said: “Both the husband and wife, have been deprived of their way out. Xi Jinping is the number one murderer, the chief CCP oppressor of human rights. Xi Jinping’s era does not allow for real lawyers.”

Lawyer Wang did not violate any laws or regulations during her time practicing law. Governing judicial organs forcibly revoked her license to practice law, against her own will. According to article 49 of “Lawyers’ Law of the People’s Republic of China,” the provincial judicial administration can revoke the lawyer’s license only if the circumstances of violation were severe.

For the first trial of a person accused of a crime, due process should define the Justice Bureau’s legitimacy and rationality. Only after confirmation can officials instruct the second deviation. Therefore, the punitive measures authorities imposed on Lawyer Wang violated her constitutional and legal rights, a serious crime.

The CCP perceives the human rights movement as a threat to its regime. Therefore, those like Lawyer Wang, who help wrongly accused and imprisoned rights defenders, as well as their defense lawyers, may also be wrongfully imprisoned. The authorities’ approach aims to put human rights activists in a situation where they’re isolated and without aid. Their ultimate goal? To shake the will of human rights workers.

In her work to help and defend human rights activists, as Lawyer Wang did not violate the law, the CCP’s punishment, revoking her license to practice law lacked justification. *Denotes the large-scale unified arrest in July of 2015 when CCP officials sieged more than 300 Chinese human rights defenders.

On 26 November 2020, the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau in Shandong province once again rejected the request of the lawyer of human rights defender Ding Jiaxi to meet his client. The Public Security Bureau said that, as Ding Jiaxi is facing national security charges, allowing him access to legal counsel would "impede the investigation" or result in the "leaking of State secrets".

Fears are growing over the health and well-being of rights lawyer Chang Weiping, who is currently in detention on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi, his family says after being allowed to visit him.

Shaanxi authorities allowed the Nov. 25 meeting after Chang's family and lawyers lodged official complaints about his incommunicado detention under "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)" following his description of his torture during an earlier period in detention.

Chang's visit with father Chang Shuanming took place at a police station in Shaanxi's Baoji city, a source close to the family told RFA on Wednesday.

During the 10-minute visit, Chang appeared significantly thinner than before, and spoke slowly, the source said. He was also concerned that his wife might give interviews.

"From his father's description, he was exhausted, ... his eyes were red, and he spoke as if he was reciting something by heart," the source said. "His reactions were also slow, suggesting that he has probably been tortured."

There were also signs that the second detention was taking a psychological toll. As his father left, Chang shouted out to him, saying he no longer wished to live, the source said.

"His father said that when they came to say goodbye, Chang shouted out with all his strength that he didn't want to live any more," the source said.

Family threatened by police

Baoji police had pursued Chang's wife all the way to her place of work in the southern city of Shenzhen to put pressure on her not to speak out about his case, the source said.

"His father is a veteran member of the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party, and [Chang's] wife works in Shenzhen," the source said. "They even went to Shenzhen to find his wife and her employer, to threaten her and stop her speaking up on behalf of her husband."

"They have done everything in their power to threaten the family, making it harder for them to talk to the outside world about their grievances," he said, adding that the visit was also likely allowed in a bid to limit negative publicity.

Sources said two lawyers previously hired to represent Chang have now dropped the case under intense police pressure.

Repeated calls to Chang Shuanming's cell phone rang unanswered on Wednesday.

Tortured in detention

Qi An, a researcher with the London-based rights group Amnesty International, said Chang had already made a video describing his torture at the hands of the authorities during an earlier 10-day period of RSDL in January 2020.

"In the video, he mentions that he was put in a tiger chair," Qi said. "Human rights experts including the United Nations have said that RSDL in itself is a violation of human rights."

"Suspects in RSDL aren't allowed to see family or a lawyer, making it hard to verify whether someone has been tortured," Qi said.

The aim of the torture appears to be to extract a "confession" and guilty plea from suspects, Qi said.

"Many people say after they are released from RSDL that the authorities wanted them to plead guilty or provide some information," Qi said. "Of course, we don't know what information the authorities may want from Chang Weiping, but there is an operation to crack down on any of the rights activists or lawyers who took part in the Xiamen gathering."

Chang was taken away from his home by police in Baoji city in China's northern province of Shaanxi, on Oct. 22, on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power."

The arrest came six days after he posted a video on YouTube sharing details of his torture.

Chang's January detention came after rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi and activists Zhang Zhongshun and Dai Zhenya were detained following a meeting with New Citizens' Movement founder Xu Zhiyong, who was himself later detained after publishing an open letter calling on CCP general secretary Xi Jinping to step down.

On November 10, 2020, Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court convicted activist Zhang Baocheng (张宝成) of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “promoting terrorism, extremism, and inciting execution of terrorist activities” and handed down a 3.5-year prison sentence; three years for the “picking quarrels” charge and 8 months for the terrorism charge. The sentencing hearing followed an August 18 trial. Zhang appealed against his conviction on November 16. The court convicted Zhang of using the Internet, especially Twitter, to send out or share videos and information that “smear and insult the country’s leadership, oppose the Communist Party, split the state, harm ethnic unity and insult judicial organs.” One type of post cited included Zhang raising awareness of the plight of imprisoned activist Huang Qi’s elderly mother Pu Wenqing. Zhang was convicted of sending 1 video about East Turkestan (Xinjiang) which authorities said touched on “violent terrorism and extremism.” Beijing police initially seized Zhang on May 28, 2019, ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. He was not granted access to his lawyers until October 2019. Zhang Baocheng is currently being detained at Beijing No. 3 Detention Center and is expected to be released in November 2022.

Activist Zhou Weilin (周维林) went on trial on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on November 20, 2020 in a closed-door hearing at Feidong County Court in Anhui Province. Guards blocked the entrance to the courthouse and lawyers Liang Xiaojun (梁小军) and Wu Li (吴莉) had to be escorted inside by the trial judge. The court refused to allow Zhou’s supporters inside to observe or testify in his defence. Zhou and his lawyers were allowed to speak during the trial. The hearing ended without a sentence being pronounced. The charges against Zhou are related to his comments on Twitter and for writing articles for the human rights website Rights Defence Network (维权网). Police initially detained Zhou on March 12, 2020 and he has been held at Feidong County Detention Center.

Wan Yiu-sing, an internet radio reporter and his wife were arrested this morning on suspicion of money laundering and financing of secessionist activities. The news was reported by the couple's lawyer and a note on Wan's Facebook page, familiarly called "Giggs". His secretary was also arrested for money laundering.

"Giggs" (in the photo) hosts a program on the D100 channel, in which he often addressed issues related to last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations. In February he also opened a fundraiser to help young people from Hong Kong who go to Taiwan to study.

Police believe this money is used to finance young people who fled Hong Kong because they are involved in secession activities, punishable under the new security law, wanted by Beijing for the territory. The law prohibits and punishes acts and activities of secession, subversion, terrorism and collaboration with foreign forces that endanger national security.

According to the special national security police, those arrested used part of these funds to send them to organizations engaged in secessionist activities.

Requested by various media to give more details, political commissioner Chris Tang said he could not reveal more details, given that the investigation is still ongoing.

Democracy activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam on Monday pleaded guilty to public order charges in a Hong Kong court hearing, before being held in police custody pending a sentencing hearing scheduled for Dec. 2.

Wong, 24, admitted organizing an illegal assembly, while Chow pleaded guilty to taking part in an illegal assembly, while all three pleaded guilty to inciting people to attend an illegal gathering, charges which carry maximum jail terms of three years.

"Hang in there, everyone, keep going!" Wong told the court, before being taken away by correctional service officers.

Lam raised his hand, palm and fingers splayed to signify the five demands of last year's protest movement, while Chow made no response to the decision to hold the three in custody pending sentencing.

Dozens of supporters chanted "Release Joshua Wong! Release Agnes Chow! Release Ivan Lam" outside the court building, as well as repeating the five demands of the protest movement, which include fully democratic elections and accountability for widespread police violence.

The three were formerly leaders of the political party Demosisto, which disbanded just before the ruling Chinese Communist Party imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong on July 1, banning peaceful criticism of the authorities.

Wong had earlier told reporters that he wouldn't be surprised if the three were placed behind bars following the hearing at West Kowloon Magistrate's Court.

He said 23 activists, journalist, and democratic politicians had been arrested as the crackdown on peaceful dissent gathered pace.

Many arrests and raids have come after their targets were denounced in the pro-China media or by Chinese officials.

Defense lawyers called on the court to take into account the youth of the defendants and the fact that Chow, who, unlike Wong and Lam has never served time in jail before, had no prior convictions.

Magistrate Lily Wong said she would rule out a community service sentence for Lam due to his previous convictions.

Expected to be jailed

Joshua Wong, who was out on bail before the hearing, had earlier told reporters the trio had decided to plead guilty to avoid interrogation and investigation.

"But it also means that the three of us could be remanded in custody immediately," he said, calling on Hongkongers to support each other.

"We will want to call on the people of Hong Kong at this difficult time of white terror and persecution under the national security law ... to support each other through this low point in the pro-democracy movement," he said.

Chow said she felt "uneasy" at the thought of going to jail for the first time.

"It's entirely likely that I may be in jail for the first time in my life, and I have a lot of anxiety about what the future will bring," she said.

"But never forget that there are brothers, sisters, and friends who have suffered far worse than us," she said, calling for greater public pressure on China over the 12 Hongkongers currently detained by Chinese police after trying to flee to democratic Taiwan by speedboat.

Lam said he had made mental preparation for being remanded in police custody pending sentencing.

"Our case ... shows that the legitimacy of the Hong Kong police force has been blown to smithereens," Lam said. "Was the siege of police headquarters a crime, or was it necessary to achieve justice and fight for democracy?"

"I believe that the people of Hong Kong know the answer to that already," he said. "We have no regrets, and we will keep up the struggle."

The case against Wong relied on public comments he made on June 21, 2019, ahead of a mass protest over police violence that resulted in the siege of police headquarters in Wanchai, as well as a message on his phone detailing the timing and arrangements for the protest.

On the day in question, crowds of mostly young people wearing black converged on immigration and tax headquarters in Wanchai, sparking temporary shutdowns of the offices, before gathering in their thousands outside police headquarters to call for the release of those already arrested, and to demand an apology for police violence against unarmed protesters the previous week.

Some activists barricaded a vehicle gate in the barbed-wire wall of the fortress-like compound, prevented police vans from getting in or out, and taped up CCTV cameras to avoid being identified. Others blocked nearby highways with makeshift walls, cones, and traffic barriers, taking over several major traffic routes.

Police in uniform lined up inside the glass atrium of their own headquarters, with officers watching warily as the crowd chanted "Release them! Release them!" and "Apologize! Apologize!" on the street outside, where someone had taped a large poster to the building that read "Struggle to the bitter end."

The crowd also chanted: "Retract the designation of rioting! Stop arresting citizens!"

London-based rights group Amnesty International had earlier condemned police violence during protests on June 12 as violating international law, after evaluating video footage of the clashes.

Wong joined the June 21 protest just three days after his release from an earlier jail sentence related to the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement.

'Poisoned judicial system'

The U.S.-based Hong Kong Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) condemned the decision to remand Wong, Chow, and Lam in custody pending sentencing.

“We condemn Magistrate Lily Wong’s decision today to jail Wong, Chow, and Lam while awaiting sentencing for exercising their rights to protest," the group's managing director Samuel Chu said in a statement.

"Make no mistake, when they pled guilty in court today, it was not a judgment on them, but rather a judgment against a poisoned Hong Kong judiciary system no longer independent or capable of rendering justice," Chu said.

Since the beginning of November, Hong Kong authorities have arrested a public radio show producer, pro-democracy lawmakers, a primary school teacher, owners of small businesses who have expressed support for the protest, [among others], the HKDC said, calling for the trio to be released immediately.

"We cannot remain silent or surrender to the terror," it said.

Police in Hong Kong arrested a producer Tuesday who made a documentary for government broadcaster RTHK about a July 21, 2019, mob attack on train passengers in Yuen Long.

Bao Choy, who worked on an investigative documentary showing how police were present as baton-wielding men in white T-shirts began to gather in Yuen Long ahead of the bloody attack on passengers and passers-by, was arrested at her home, RTHK reported.

Police carried out a search of Choy's home in Mei Foo, and she was taken away by officers at about 3.30 p.m., the report said.

She was arrested on suspicion of road traffic violations relating to vehicle registration searches used in the program. Her arrest has prompted fears that she is being targeted for political reasons. She was released on bail after about six hours of questioning, RTHK reported.

The Hong Kong Connection TV documentary titled “7.21 Who Owns the Truth?” showed clips from surveillance cameras at shops in Yuen Long and interviewed people who were identified in the footage.

Its airing forced police to admit they already had a presence in the town but did nothing to prevent the attack following initial denials.

Thirty-nine minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls to the final arrival of police at the Yuen Long MTR station, where dozens of people already were injured and many needed hospital treatment.

RTHK’s director of broadcasting Leung Ka-wing said the station was "afraid" and "worried" by Choy’s arrest, but would not alter its editorial policies.

“We are afraid. We are worried ... we better say we are worried, whether we can continue the way we produce accurate news as before,” Leung told reporters.

“We always stick to our principles. It’s very clear in the charter, as well as the producer guidelines,” he said.

'Extreme shock and outrage'

At least eight media organizations, including the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and the RTHK staff union issued a joint statement Tuesday expressing “extreme shock and outrage” at Choy’s arrest.

The groups called on the police to make public the details of the case and justification for the arrest, and to release Choy immediately and unconditionally.

“We think this is unreasonable and a complete blow to freedom of the press,” HKJA chairperson Chris Yeung said. “There will be an immediate chilling effect, because the reporter has been working with many media, including media of different backgrounds.”

He said even the pro-China Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po newspapers had conducted such investigations.

“If you are facing a prosecution because of a (car registration search) you may not dare to continue, and you may need to wait for legal issues to be clarified before proceeding,” he said.

Council Front lawmaker and former journalist Claudia Mo said it is extremely common practice for Hong Kong journalists to use car registration searches as part of their investigations.

"This is obviously a blow to freedom of the press,” Mo told RFA. “I myself have made just such a license plate query for H.K. $45 … after someone followed me in a car.”

“This is directed at RTHK, one hundred percent,” she said.

Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung agreed.

“If this isn’t retaliation, then what is?” he told journalists.

Assault on press freedom

In a statement, Britain-based rights group Hong Kong Watch strongly condemned Choy’s arrest.

The group’s policy director, Johnny Patterson, said Choy’s arrest was “nothing less than an outright assault on press freedom.”

“The police have failed to hold the perpetrators of the Yuen Long attack to account. For the victims, there has still been no justice,” he said. “Instead, they have chosen to arrest a journalist whose only crime is reminding the world of that fact.”

Democratic Party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, who was injured in the Yuen Long attack, praised Choy’s professionalism, saying she had "asked all the right questions.”

"I do think that the police operation will inevitably create a chilling effect that those journalists who dare to report any wrongdoings of the government officials or the pro-establishment camp have been facing great pressure, and I urge them to stand firm and report the truth ... without fear or favor,” Lam said in comments quoted by RTHK.

Pro-government lawmaker Junius Ho, who was filmed shaking hands with white-clad men in Yuen Long on the night of the attack, July 21, last year, said journalists should not break the law while doing their jobs.

On October 27, Lin Qilei, attorney for Li Yuhan, a female human rights lawyer in her 60’s, announced that the supreme people’s court has rescheduled Li’s case for November 30. Li, who has been detained for more than three years at Shengyang No. 1 Detention Center, suffers multiple health concerns, including hypothyroidism, ischemic heart disease, and stomach problems, requiring daily medications. After a fall in 2018 which led to spinal damages, Li now has to walk with a crutch.

Authorities initially indicted Li for provoking troubles and picking quarrels, but later, added fraud to her charges. As evidence regarding her case has not proved to be sufficient, however, the court has repeatedly delayed hearing her case, blocking her release. After authorities transferred Li’s case to Shengyang Municipal Heping People’s Court on April 8, 2018, the court decided to host the trial on June 8, 2019, now scheduled for November 30. With no verdict after more than three years, supporters suspect officials have targeted and repressed her “simple" case.

During Li’s detention, police have hired the female cell head and other prisoners to torture daily her. Tactics include:

    Forcing her to take cold showers.

    Rationing her food to half of portions other prisoners receive.

    Placing her vegetable/s and fruit on the restroom floor to prevent her from eating it.

    Giving her the previous day’s vegetable/s and fruit after other prisoners intentionally urinated on them;

    Prohibiting her family members from depositing money into her prison account. 

After his last meeting with Li, Attorney Lin also announced that court officials have not addressed his nor Li’s application for bail and compulsory change. Li believes that authorities fabricated charges against her to persecute and suppress her previous work safeguarding other people’s rights.

The judicial department asked Li to write the “confession and acceptance of penalty” letter in exchange for her release, but she refused to compromise her stance. Attorney Lin relayed greetings and concerns from others to Li Yuhan, hoping that she can remain upbeat and able to confront conceivable challenges.

The Observatory has been informed by the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) about the arbitrary and incommunicado detention of Mr. Chang Weiping, a prominent human rights lawyer known for taking on sensitive human rights cases and filling lawsuits against companies for discrimination in the workplace against women, LGBTQ+ persons, and individuals affected by HIV/AIDs.

According to the information received, on October 22, 2020, Mr. Chang Weiping was arrested at his home in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province, by police officers from Baoji City. Later the same day, Mr. Chang Weiping’s wife received a phone call from a police officer who informed her that her husband had been placed under “residential surveillance in a designated location” (RSDL), a form of enforced disappearance[1].

On October 26, 2020, the Baoji City Public Security Bureau denied two separate requests presented by Mr. Chang Weiping’s lawyers to meet with their client. Furthermore, one of the lawyers was informed that Mr. Chang Weiping was suspected of “subversion of State power” and that the case involved “State secrets”. At the time of publication of this Urgent Appeal, Mr. Chang Weiping had not been formally charged and his whereabouts remained unknown.

Six days before his arrest, on October 16, 2020, Mr. Chang Weiping published a video statement on social media denouncing the physical and psychological torture he had been subjected to while in detention in January 2020, including being tied to a “tiger chair”[2].

On January 12, 2020, Mr. Chang Weiping, was arbitrarily arrested by Shaanxi police and placed under RSDL in an unknown location on charges of “subversion of State power” (Article 105(1) of China’s Criminal Law), in connection to a private meeting organised by academics, human rights lawyers and activists in December 2019 in Xiamen, Fujian Province, to discuss the situation of the rule of law and human rights in China.

On January 13, Mr. Chang Weiping’s license to practice law was cancelled. Previously, in October 2018, the Baoji City Judicial Bureau had suspended his law license in retaliation for his human rights work.

On January 21, Mr. Chang Weiping was released on bail pending trial. Nonetheless, he was requested to leave his city of residence and was confined to his family home in Baoji, where he remained under strict police scrutiny, including daily phone calls and weekly meetings with the police. Furthermore, he was prevented from being reunited with his family.

The Observatory expresses its utmost concern over the arbitrary arrest and detention of Mr. Chang Weiping as it seems to be only aimed at punishing him for his legitimate human rights activities and urges the Chinese authorities to immediately disclose his whereabouts and unconditionally release him and all other human rights defenders, including labour rights defenders, arbitrarily detained in the country.

A teenage Hong Kong activist was charged on Thursday with secession, the first public political figure to be prosecuted under a sweeping new national security law Beijing imposed on the city.

Tony Chung, 19, appeared in court charged with secession, money laundering and conspiring to publish seditious content, two days after he was arrested in a Hong Kong coffee shop opposite the US consulate.

Chung is a former member of Student Localism, a small group that advocated Hong Kong's independence from China.

The group disbanded its Hong Kong network shortly before Beijing blanketed the city in its new security law in late June but it has kept its international chapters going.

The legislation outlawed a host of new crimes, including expressing political views such as advocating independence or greater autonomy for Hong Kong.

Chung and three other members of Student Localism were first arrested by a newly created national security police unit in July on suspicion of inciting secession via social media posts.

However, Chung was arrested again on Tuesday morning by plainclothes police just metres away from the US consulate.

A little-known group calling itself Friends of Hong Kong put out a statement shortly afterwards saying it had been trying to arrange for Chung to enter the US consulate that day and apply for asylum.

Chung was held by police until his appearance in court on Thursday morning. He was denied bail.

Chinese authorities in the northern region of Inner Mongolia have arrested a human rights lawyer after he refused to send his child to school amid regionwide protests against plans to end Mongolian-medium education.

Police in Inner Mongolia's Tongliao city are have formally arrested Hu Baolong on charges of "leaking state secrets overseas," ethnic Mongolian scholar Khubis, who currently lives in Japan, told RFA on Wednesday.

He said he last had contact with Hu on Sept. 4.

"Hu Baolong protested because his kid was starting primary school this year," Khubis said. "As a father, he was protesting against [the ruling Chinese Communist Party's] 'bilingual education' policy."

"I was told that he was arrested for giving information to foreigners," he said. "But all his messages were on WeChat and were about regular stuff that most people know about."

Khubis said that, last time they spoke, he and Hu had avoided talking about the massive political resistance to plans to end Mongolian-medium education in the region's schools.

"We talked about everyday life; there was nothing secret or sensitive," Khubis said. "I think they are targeting him for taking part in the resistance movement among parents in Tongliao."

Class boycotts and street protests

Nomin, an ethnic Mongolian and former colleague of Hu's now living in the U.S., said she had tried to contact Hu's sister.

"I asked [his sister] if he had been detained and she said yes, he had," she said.

"The Tongliao authorities told some local parents that they detained [Hu] to encourage the local parents to settle down," Nomin said. "This was a couple of weeks ago."

"I learned via a group chat that Hu is being prosecuted and has been formally arrested."

Plans to end the use of the Mongolian language in the region's ethnic Mongolian schools have sparked weeks of class boycotts, street protests, and a region-wide crackdown by riot squads and state security police in the region, in a process described by ethnic Mongolians as "cultural genocide."

Since the start of the new semester, schools that previously offered Mongolian-medium teaching will start using Mandarin Chinese instead, phasing out any Mongolian-language teaching materials, according to local residents and overseas activists who spoke to RFA.

As well as Hu, the authorities have detained a further eight people on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," in connection with the schools protests.

Nine deaths so far

According to the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), at least nine people have died and thousands have been detained as the authorities launched a region-wide crackdown on the protest movement, which organized region-wide class boycotts and street protests in response to the policy change.

An estimated 300,000 students have boycotted class across Inner Mongolia since the end of August, with the authorities claiming the policy is a move towards "bilingual education."

Ethnic Mongolians in the region say it is a form of cultural genocide aimed at cutting off their remaining connection to their culture and heritage.

In several areas, the authorities dispatched SWAT teams, plainclothes state security police, and volunteers to strong-arm families into sending their children back to school, SMHRIC reported.

Parents who failed to enroll their children in school were threatened with having them expelled, while hundreds of ethnic Mongolians were forced to resign from public office after they resisted the changes to the curriculum, which were kept under wraps until the start of the new semester at the end of August.

Hu Baolong is the the founder of Tongliao's Menggali law firm, which mostly provides legal services for ethnic Mongolians, especially members of traditional herding communities.

The authorities had earlier imposed a travel ban on him after he represented a client in a politically sensitive legal case, and Hu was prevented from crossing the border into the neighboring country of Mongolia by border guards at Erenhot in 2010, on the grounds that his leaving would "endanger national security."

According to ethnic Mongolian Tara, Hu was also a veteran of the 1989 pro-democracy movement in China.

"He took part in the student movement in 1989, then went on to found his own law firm in Tongliao," Tara said. "He is a dissident, and advocate for freedom, and has been targeted all along; this time he explained the bilingual education policy to everyone in a WeChat group."

Activist Meng Xiaodong (孟晓东) stood trial at Sui County Court in Shangqiu City on charges of “picking quarrels ” and “obstruction of credit card management” on October 1. The prosecution also accused him of “insulting others” on Twitter for his comments about former state leader Mao Zedong. He pled not guilty and his lawyers defended his innocence. No members of the public were allowed into the courthouse. The hearing ended without a verdict being pronounced. Since 2010, Meng has been active in defending local farmers’ land rights. On September 6, 2019, police from Sui County took Meng away from his home, first detaining him on suspicion of “picking quarrels” and later adding the allegations of “obstruction of credit card management” and “insulting others” on Twitter.

Zhongwei City police in Ningxia arrested several volunteers at a wildlife conservation group on numerous charges on September 29. Police announced Li Genshan (李根山), Zhang Baoqi (张保其), Niu Haobao (牛海波) and 8 unnamed individuals of the Zhongwei Mongolian Gazelle Patrol Team had been arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, “extortion and bribery” & “illegal hunting.” The group used to chase poachers in the desert at night and shortly before being detained, had reportedly accused local forest police of sheltering poachers. Police seized Li, Zhang and Niu on September 9, 2020 and criminally detained them the next day for “picking quarrels,” “extortion and blackmail,” and “robbery.” On September 11, 2020, the police announced on its Weibo account that they arrested 6 more individuals but did not disclose any details. According to other volunteers of their group, three of the six detainees were from the group. By the end of September, 12 individuals remain in custody and two had been released on bail. Zhang’s son Zhang Hai applied for bail but the police rejected the application. In 2019, Li Genshan exposed that a paper manufacturer had been illegally discharging sewage in the Tengger Desert in Inner Mongolia for years, resulting in an investigation from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

An ongoing investigation into a hard-hitting journalist with Hong Kong's government broadcaster RTHK will have a "chilling effect" on the city's news organizations, the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) warned on Monday.

The RTHK Programme Staff Union said on Sunday it had received news that the station management will reopen a probe into the work performance of TV presenter Nabela Qoser, whose questions of chief executive Carrie Lam in the wake of a July 31 attack by armed thugs on train passengers in Yuen Long prompted Lam and other top officials to walk out of a news conference.

The union described the broadcaster’s decisions to reopen the investigation into complaints against Qoser and extend her probationary period by 120 days as "political persecution," RTHK reported.

Qoser, a Hong Kong-born journalist of Pakistani descent, asked Lam where she was on the night of the attack, which went on for nearly 40 minutes before police showed up at the scene, demanding: "How could you sleep last night?"

"The Hong Kong Journalists Association is concerned about [the reopening of the investigation ], and worries that journalists who raise pointed questions will be subjected to suppression in their workplaces," the HKJA said in a statement on its Facebook page.

"[This] will eventually create a chilling effect," it said.

RTHK staff, as civil servants, are required to submit to at least performance appraisals over a three-year probationary period, but the process doesn't include public complaints.

Qoser's probationary period had been due to end, but has been extended pending the renewed investigation, the staff union said on its Facebook page.

"The sudden re-opening of the investigation and the extension of the probationary period are not only unfair to Qoser; they also undermine the entire civil service appraisal system," the HKJA said.

"If journalists are subjected to criticism, suppression, or political censorship just for doing their jobs ... they will no longer be able to speak up against injustice," the group said.

RTHK union members staged a protest outside the station's headquarters on Monday as a new advisory board convened in the wake of complaints of anti-government bias against the organization met.

'A form of political suppression'

Union president Chiu Sin-yan said the reinvestigation of Qoser seemed to be politically motivated.

"We tend to believe that this is a form of political suppression," Chiu said. "This investigation was previously closed ... so if it can be reopened indefinitely, we think the intention behind this is self-evident."

Chiu said the reasons given by RTHK director of broadcasting Leung Ka-wing during a meeting on were insufficient.

HKJA chairman Chris Yeung said the move will likely have a further chilling effect on the city's journalists.

"It is worrying because if news organizations cave in to political pressure from the authorities and put pressure on journalists, even if they dress it up as non-renewal of a contract or ... sacking for other reasons, this ... will have a chilling effect on the whole industry," Yeung said.

A warning to others

Bruce Lui, senior journalism lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University said the singling out of Qoser is intended as a warning to all journalists.

"Is this to be the fate of journalists or media organizations seen as less obedient by the government?" Lui said. "I'm sure many will be wondering if they should be less outspoken ... and not do anything wrong."

As China imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong on June 30, Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of Beijing's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, and Lam both hit out at some media organizations for "smearing" the authorities in their criticisms of government and police.

The law stipulates that the media should be "subject to better supervision, management, publicity, and education," Lui said.

"So it is not surprising that the authorities have targeted the media with various actions," he said.

Democratic Party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting wrote to RTHK on Monday saying that there was no new information that would justify a reinvestigation of Qoser's performance.

He told its reporters: "I strongly urge the senior management of RTHK to uphold the freedom of expression, freedom of the press and editorial autonomy, and to try to defend their professional reporters and journalists and let them to perform their duties professionally and independently."

But Lam Tai-fai, chairman of the RTHK advisory board, declined to comment on the move when asked by journalists on Monday.

"I am not in a good position to comment (on) the employment situation," Lam said. "Whether it’s fair or not fair, it’s not my job and also I cannot make a comment with my limited knowledge in this area."

No support for police, government

The reinvestigation into Qoser's work comes after broadcasting regulator the Communications Authority issued a warning to RTHK following public complaints that its TV show Pentaprism hadn't upheld a wide enough range of views, namely those in support of police and government.

Qoser, a Hong Kong Baptist University graduate, has previously worked at TVB and Ming Pao, and has been subjected to online racist abuse, according to Hong Kong's Equal Opportunities Commission.

RTHK is a fully funded department of the Hong Kong government, but has been criticized by pro-China politicians and officials for alleged anti-government bias.

In May 2020, it axed a top satirical show that poked fun at police denials of violence against pro-democracy protesters, and apologized, after the Communications Authority issued a warning to the station for "denigrating and insulting" the police in a February episode of the show.

The decision to reinvestigate Qoser's performance comes after the city's police force said it would no longer recognize credentials issued by the HKJA, as was previously the case, saying it would now decide which media organizations were legitimate.

A court in Shanghai recently handed down a secret sentence of three years' imprisonment to detained rights activist Chen Jianfang, a Chinese rights website reported.

"We learned on Oct. 2, 2020 that Shanghai human rights defender Chen Jianfang has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment for incitement to subvert state power," the Weiquanwang rights website reported, citing lawyer Liu Shihui.

"Chen Jianfang is currently being held in the Shanghai Detention Center. The authorities have so far not allowed her to meet with a defense attorney," the report said.

The sentence will run until Feb. 18, 2022, it said.

Chen, 49, a Shanghai-based housing activist was recently named as a recipient of the 4th Cao Shunli Memorial Award for Human Rights Defenders by Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch, Human Rights Campaign in China, and the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network.

The news of her secret sentencing came after her indictment by the state prosecutor on Aug. 30, and the transfer of her case to the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.

Chen's appointed defense lawyer Wu Li told RFA on Monday that she had been repeatedly denied permission to meet with her client.

"After she instructed us, she applied to the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court, but it didn't approve her request, so we were never able to read the case files," Wu said. "Later, we requested information from the court about where she was being held, but they didn't tell us."

"I later learned that she is in the Shanghai No. 1 Detention Center, so I made an appointment, but they canceled it," Wu said. "The reason they gave was ridiculous: that only one meeting was permitted for each stage in the case."

Wu said unconfirmed reports suggest that Chen's family may have been forced to revoke her lawyer's instruction under pressure from the authorities.

Cao Shunli as model

Gu Guoping, a friend of Chen's, said her detention came after she penned an essay paying tribute rights activist Cao Shunli on the fifth anniversary of her death in police custody on March 14, 2014.

Gu said the charges could also be linked to the way in which the news of the Cao Shunli award was made public.

"She inadvertently disclosed the contact details of the chairman of the U.N. Human Rights Council to petitioners, and they also inadvertently leaked the news [of her award]," Gu said. "Then the authorities stopped her from going to Switzerland [to receive the award]."

Chen has been held incommunicado for more than six months on subversion charges, putting her at high risk of torture and other ill-treatment, rights groups say.

Chen was detained on March 20 alongside her husband, and the couple 'disappeared' for several months. Chen was formally arrested on suspicion of "subversion of state power" on May 22, while her husband was released on bail on April 3.

Her incommunicado detention was the subject of an appeal from four United Nations human rights experts to the Chinese government in August.

Chen, 49, who hails from a rural community, began defending land and housing rights after her family lost land to government-backed developers.

Her work has highlighted the widespread mass evictions behind Shanghai's skyscrapers and high-speed railways, key elements in China's development showcase that mask widespread abuses of residents' rights.

She has referred to Cao Shunli as "my spiritual teacher, from whom I learned some of the highest ideals."

"My own rights defense work is indivisible from what she taught me," Chen wrote to RFA at the time of the award.

Chen's sentencing comes at a time of worsening rights abuses under President Xi Jinping, who now looks set to rule indefinitely.

Cao was detained on Sept. 14, 2013, as she was boarding a flight to Geneva, where she was to attend a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, where she hoped to participate in drafting China’s human rights action plans and reports for its U.N. human rights reviews.

A court in Hong Kong on Wednesday extended a travel ban on pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong in connection with an "illegal" protest last year, and for defying a government ban on mask-wearing in public.

The Eastern Magistrate's Court granted bail applications from Wong and co-defendant Koo Sze-yiu, who face charges of "taking part in an illegal assembly" on Oct. 5, 2019, before adjourning until Dec. 18.

But while it lifted a travel ban linked to bail for Koo, it extended the ban on Wong leaving Hong Kong.

Protesters and supporters gathered outside the courtroom, chanting: "Go Joshua Wong!" as dozens of uniformed police officers stood by, while a pro-China group showed up to shout insults and call for Wong's bail application to be denied.

Koo, who has stage IV cancer requiring chemotherapy and multiple surgeries, said public rallies don't need to seek the approval of the authorities before going ahead.

Wong, who faces a number of protest-related charges in separate cases, said he had no intention of giving up his activism.He said the extended travel ban was likely aimed at ensuring he can't promote the cause of the Hong Kong protesters overseas, as fellow activist Nathan Law has done.

"The prosecution once more applied for me to be prevented from leaving Hong Kong," he said. "The government wants to create a chilling effect under the guise of a criminal trial."

"By bringing case after case against me, they have succeeded in preventing me from leaving Hong Kong, to make it much harder for me to talk about Hong Kong's resistance movement to the rest of the world," he said.

"But what I have to put up with is nothing compared to the charges [faced by many others] of rioting, assault and conspiracy, not to mention the 12 Hongkongers [detained] in Shenzhen," Wong said.

He called on Hongkongers to remember the 12 detainees in Hong Kong, whose speedboat was seized by the China Coast Guard as they tried to flee to the democratic island of Taiwan.

March application turned down

Hong Kong police last week turned down an application to hold a protest march on China's Oct. 1 National Day public holiday, to call for the release of the 12 detainees.

"I believe that Hongkongers will use different methods, today, tomorrow, and in the future, to express their concern for them," Wong said.

Wong, 23, was arrested on Sept. 24 as he reported to Central Police Station in connection with another ongoing protest-related case.

He has already served several months' of prison time in connection with last year's anti-extradition and pro-democracy protests and the 2014 Occupy Central movement.

He continues to face six charges in three separate cases, including "inciting others to participate in an illegal assembly," "organizing an illegal assembly," and violating an emergency law banning masks in public.

Chinese authorities should immediately quash the 18-year sentence against a property tycoon and outspoken critic of President Xi Jinping, Human Rights Watch said today.

On September 22, 2020, a Beijing court announced on its website that Ren Zhiqiang had been convicted of taking bribes and embezzling public funds. He was also fined 4.2 million yuan (US$620,000).

“The corruption charges against Ren Zhiqiang are a thin cover for President Xi Jinping’s intolerance of dissent,” said Yaqiu Wang, China researcher. “The 18-year sentence handed down to a Communist Party member and member of the economic elite shows the grim environment for speech in China.”

Ren, 69, is the former chairman of Huayuan, a state-owned real estate group. He was born into a political family – his father was a deputy commerce minister. He rose to public prominence after garnering 38 million followers on the Chinese social media site Weibo. Known as “The Cannon,” Ren often used the platform to express views critical of authorities, and to urge the Communist Party to improve its governance of the country.

In March, the Beijing police detained Ren after he criticized the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. In an online essay, Ren wrote that “People’s lives are harmed by both the virus and the serious ills of the system.” While he did not mention Xi by name, he suggested Xi was a “clown stripped naked who insisted on continuing being emperor.”

In July, the Beijing Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Chinese Communist Party’s abusive internal investigation agency, announced that Ren had been expelled from the Party and would be prosecuted on corruption charges. The commission did not make public where Ren was being held, and it is unclear what, if any, access he had to family members or lawyers of his choice.

The case highlights serious due process concerns and the absence of credible, publicly available information to substantiate the charges against Ren. The trial, held on September 9 at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court, was secret. Neither the court nor Chinese state media released any information regarding the proceedings. Ren’s friends said that he was represented by a government-appointed lawyer, but it is unclear whether he had requested his own lawyer. The court said Ren had confessed to all charges and would not appeal.

The authorities’ treatment of Ren in detention is unknown, but as Human Rights Watch documented in a 2016 report, abuses against detainees in corruption cases are common. They include prolonged sleep deprivation, being forced into stress positions for extended periods, deprivation of water and food, and severe beatings. Detainees are also subject to solitary and incommunicado detention in unofficial detention facilities. After “confessing” to corruption, suspects are typically brought into the criminal justice system, convicted, and sentenced to often lengthy prison terms.

In February 2016, Ren was banished from social media in China after he criticized Xi for calling on the Chinese media to “serve the Party” in a speech. The authorities publicly censured Ren and put him on a one-year probation from the Party.

“Ren’s sham trial may put him in prison for the rest of his life,” Wang said. “A failure to immediately release Ren would show the world that China’s legal system is a tool for settling political scores, not delivering justice.”

Hong Kong police arrested prominent democracy activist Joshua Wong on Thursday for participating in an unauthorised assembly in October 2019 and violating the city's anti-mask law, according to a post on his official Twitter account.

Wong's latest arrest adds to several unlawful assembly charges or suspected offences he and other activists are facing related to last year's pro-democracy protests, which prompted Beijing to impose a sweeping national security law on June 30.

Hong Kong police confirmed they arrested two men, aged 23 and 74, on Thursday for illegal assembly on Oct 5, 2019.

The arrest of Wong, aged 23, comes around 6 weeks after media tycoon Jimmy Lai was detained on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces.

Wong had been a frequent visitor to Washington where he appealed to the U.S. Congress to support Hong Kong's democracy movement and counter Beijing's tightening grip over the global financial hub. His visits drew the wrath of Beijing, which says he is a "black hand" of foreign forces.

Wong disbanded his pro-democracy group Demosisto in June, just hours after China's parliament passed national security law for Hong Kong, bypassing the city's local legislature, a move widely criticised by Western governments.

His long-time colleague, Agnes Chow, and two other activists were also among 10 people police arrested in August on suspicion of violating the new law.

The new law punishes anything China considers as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with up to life in prison.

Wong was just 17 years old when he became the face of the 2014 student-led Umbrella Movement democracy protests, but he was not a leading figure of the often violent unrest that shook the semi-autonomous former British colony last year.

An anti-mask law was introduced last year in a bid to help police identify the protesters they suspected of committing crimes and it is facing a challenge in court. In the meantime, the Hong Kong government has made face masks mandatory in most circumstances due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The European Union on Thursday criticised the arrest of the prominent activist, saying it was "troubling" and undermined trust in China.

"The arrest of Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong on 24 September is the latest in a troubling series of arrests of pro-democracy activists since the summer," an EU spokesperson said, calling for "very careful scrutiny" by the judiciary.

"Developments in Hong Kong call into question China's will to uphold its international commitments, undermine trust and impact EU-China relations."

The EU has repeatedly voiced concern at the new Hong Kong security law, which critics say erodes important freedoms in the city.

Last week senior EU leaders pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping over the situation in Hong Kong at a video summit, saying democratic rights in the city must be preserved.

Beijing police seized publisher Geng Xiaonan (耿潇男) and her husband Qin Zhen (秦真) on September 9. Both have been criminally detained on suspicion of “illegal business activity” and are being held at Haidian District Detention Center. Geng had alerted the world to the July detention of then-Tsinghua University professor and outspoken critic of Xi Jinping, Xu Zhangrun (许章润). Geng had organized the trip which Xu attended and which police later accused him of “soliciting prostitutes” while on. She has also tried to raise awareness of the ongoing enforced disappearance of citizen journalist Chen Qiushi (陈秋实), who reported from Wuhan during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been missing in police custody since February 6. Authorities recently began an investigation into her and her husband’s publishing company, Ruiya Books (北京瑞雅文化传播有限公司), in what appears to be retaliation for her speaking out.

Hubei activist and blogger Liu Yanli (刘艳丽), 45, lost her appeal against the 4-year prison sentence handed down in violation of her right to freedom of expression. Jingmen City Intermediate People’s Court upheld the original conviction and sentence on August 26, 2020. Liu had been convicted and sentenced on April 24, 2020 by Dongbao District Court in Jingmen City for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. Liu Yanli was formerly an employee at a bank in Jingmen City, Hubei province and a blogger. In recent years, she has repeatedly posted comments online calling for support for the army veterans who fought during the Anti-Japan (Second World) War. She also called for disclosure of officials’ assets. She established over 160 WeChat groups to raise awareness about social justice issues.

On June 5, 2020, the People’s Court of Heshigten Banner of Southern (Inner) Mongolia tried two Mongolian activists, Mr. Tsogjil and Mr. Haschuluu, who organized local Mongolian herders to protest the government’s illegal appropriation of their grazing land. Jail sentences of eight months and four months were handed down to Tsogjil and Haschuluu respectively for “rallying the public to petition the government, obstructing official business, videotaping and posting untrue stories, and transferring edited video footage to foreign organizations.”

“Defendant Tsogjil, male, born on March 4, 1979” and “defendant Haschuluu, male, born on October 23, 1978” were sentenced for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” according to the criminal verdict issued by the Heshigten Banner People’s Court.

“Criminal tools used: one long banner and one cellular phone that were already confiscated,” the verdict added.

“They are totally innocent,” Mr. O. Sechenbaatar, who himself was released from a year of house arrest recently after being detained for two weeks for supporting the protest in the neighboring Ongniuud Banner, said in an audio statement. “What they did was nothing but to legally file complaints about the local government’s illegal land grab and stage protests to urge the local Public Security Bureau to release detained herders and activists including myself.”

Under the Chinese authorities’ “bail pending trial” for over a year, the two activists were deprived of their basic rights to mobility and communication after being released from their initial detention last year.

“The trial was carried out pretty much behind a closed door,” O. Sechenbaatar told the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. “The crimes they were accused of committing were rallying people to demand the release of detained herders; inviting Ms. Yanjindulam (also knowns as Naranhuaar), a herder's leader, to join the protest; posting protest video footage on WeChat and sending information to foreign hostile forces.”

Tsogjil, a native of Heshigten Banner, had actively been advocating Southern Mongolians’ rights to use their native language; access their land, water, and other resources; and maintain national identity. He founded and managed at least five discussion groups with a total membership of nearly 2,500 Mongolian herders and grassroots activists on China’s only available social media outlet WeChat.

Before his arrest in April 2019, Tsogjil rallied the Mongolian herders for the release of the detained writer O. Sechenbaatar in one of his WeChat discussion groups called “Language, Livestock, and National Boundary.” “I ask our fellow herders from each and every village to gather in front of the banner government tomorrow to demand the immediate release of O. Sechenbaatar,” he wrote.

“O. Sechenbaatar went to jail for defending our land and rights. We all must wake up and take up the fight to protect our homeland,” Tsogjil said in the discussion group. “The authorities can arrest one of us, a few of us, but cannot arrest all of us.”

“Haschuluu was accused of committing similar crimes, including his involvement in last year’s public protest in front of the banner government and demanding my release,” O. Sechenbaatar said.

“What is truly revealing is the family members of the two were told by the court that the decision was handed down from the above. This means the government is above the law, and the law is a tool for the government officials to punish those who protest the government’s abuse of power,” O. Sechenbaatar added.

According to online discussions posted by local herders from Heshigten Banner, Haschuluu lived with his 80-year-old mother who is left without anyone's care after his trial despite her poor health.

An opposition activist was arrested in Hong Kong on Sunday (Sep 6) by a new police squad for "uttering seditious words", hours before a rally against a controversial security law.

The arrest of Tam Tak-chi, vice president of radical democratic party People Power, is the latest detention of a high profile democracy supporter in the financial hub and came on the morning Hongkongers had been due to vote in a general election, delayed because of the coronavirus.

An unauthorised protest in opposition to a new law that gives authorities sweeping powers - as well as the poll's postponement and a Beijing-backed COVID-19 testing programme - had more than 10,000 online subscribers.

Tam, a former radio presenter known "Fast Beat", was arrested at his home in north east Hong Kong by police officers from the national security squad, although he was not detained under the new law, police said.

"The gentleman we arrested this morning was arrested for uttering seditious words under the Crimes Ordinance's section ten," senior superintendent Li Kwai-wah said, referring to legislation enacted in the British colonial era to clamp down anti-government expressions.

According to Li, Tam was held for using words that "brought into hatred and contempt of the government and raised discontent and disaffection among Hong Kong people" in speeches made across Hong Kong this summer.

Li said the national security police was leading the arrest because at the initial stage of investigation the force suspected Tam of committing "incitement to secession" in article 21 of the national security law.

"But after collection of evidence and consulting the Department of Justice, we decided that it is more suitable to use the Crimes Ordinance," Li said.

Since the national security law was passed in Beijing and implemented in Hong Kong on Jun 30, 21 people, including pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai and prominent activist Agnes Chow, have been arrested for allegations of "incitement to secession", "collusion with foreign forces" and "terrorism acts".

Hong Kong's administration insists the law has not impinged on the rights to freedom of speech and assembly guaranteed to the territory when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Yet certain opinions and expressions in previously free-wheeling Hong Kong have become illegal, and activists have spoken of a deep chilling effect that has seen books yanked from libraries and publishers rush to amend their titles.

Chongqing City suffered the biggest flood in 40 years. On August 20, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang inspected the disaster-stricken area in Chongqing. It was reported that at least 11 Chongqing activists had been arrested, with their personal freedom restricted.

As of the morning of Aug 21st, many activists had been missing. At noon on August 20, Chongqing human rights activists Chen Mingyu, Tan Junrong, Liu Gaosheng, He Chaozheng, Zhao Liang, Cai Bangying, and He Yan were stopped by a group of people on Huangzhu Road in Liangjiang New District.

They were forced to be escorted into a car and taken to the Dazhulin Police Station of the Public Security Bureau in Liangjiang New District. They were shortly picked up and detained by the police from their resident districts. Chen Mingyu said that he was still under surveillance after returning home, and someone followed him when he went out.

A Tibetan community leader and his nephew were arrested this weekend in Qinghai’s Tridu county after defying Chinese authorities by advising local Tibetans not to sign away their rights to grazing land, Tibetan sources said.

Bu Dokyab, 63, and his nephew Gyaltsen, 43, were taken into custody on Aug. 21 by Chinese police while eating at a restaurant in Yushu prefecture’s Tridu county and were taken to the county’s Detention Center 683, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

Authorities did not release a statement regarding the arrests of the two men, residents of Chakchok village in neighboring Chumarleb county’s Chigdril township, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“But Tibetans living in the area suspect it had to do with their open defiance of a government order,” RFA’s source said.

“Recently, Chinese authorities held a meeting in Chumarleb to talk about confiscating the land, and Bu Dokyab during the meeting advised the people there not to give up their ownership of the land, saying that this would destroy their livelihood,” the source said.

“He said that surrendering their deeds to the land would prevent them from ever passing anything down to future generations.”

Also speaking to RFA, a second source said that Bu Dokyab had “spoken strongly” against nomads giving up their rights to their land, reminding his listeners that anyone surrendering their deed to government authorities would lose their way to make a living.

“Dokyab is a unit leader in his village and is a very generous man who often gives his help to poor nomads who are in need,” the second source said. “He even petitions the government when local government assistance to the poor does not reach them in time.”

“Because of his interventions to secure local families’ government subsidies, he has already been detained twice by the Chinese police,” the source said.

Land deeds revoked

Several counties in Qinghai have called public meetings this year regarding land rights, with officials issuing advisories and distributing documents canceling people’s ownership of their land, the source said.

“Before this, the Chinese promised that the land belonged to the local people, and that no one could interfere with their rights for 50 years.”

“But beginning this year, the land deeds have been revoked, and this has left the local Tibetans very concerned,” he said.

Development projects in Tibetan areas have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms and local officials of pilfering money, improperly seizing land, and disrupting the lives of local people.

Many result in violent suppression and intense pressure on the local population to comply with the government’s wishes, with protest leaders frequently detained and charged under cover of a Chinese campaign against so-called “underworld criminal gangs” in Tibetan areas.

One of Hong Kong�s most strident pro-democracy figures has been arrested and the offices of the newspaper he owns searched by police in a stark escalation by authorities enforcing a new national security law brought in by Beijing.

The raid on Apple Daily, Hong Kong�s largest pro-democracy daily paper, and arrest of Jimmy Lai and other senior executives were condemned by activists and journalists, who said they marked �the day press freedom officially died�.

Apple Daily�s publisher, Next Digital Media, said it was �furious� about the raid and arrests. It warned that press freedom was �hanging by a thread� but said its staff remained committed to defending it.

Lai, a 71-year-old media tycoon and outspoken supporter of Hong Kong�s pro-democracy movement, was arrested alongside six others including his son on Monday morning on suspicion of �collusion with foreign forces� and conspiracy to commit fraud.

In a separate incident the pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow was also arrested under the new law, her fellow activist Nathan Law said.

Hong Kong police said nine men and one woman, aged between 23 and 72, had been arrested.

Hundreds of police descended on the Apple Daily building in an unprecedented hours-long raid, which was live-streamed by dozens of the paper�s staff.

�Tell your colleagues to keep their hands off until our lawyers check the warrant,� the editor-in-chief, Ryan Law Wai-kwong, told police. Staff were ordered to produce ID. Midway through the raid a handcuffed Lai was marched through the newsroom.

Thousands watched the streams, which appeared to contradict police claims that �news materials� would not be targeted, as officers casually rifled through papers on journalists� desks. Boxes of documents were confiscated.

Later, police barred news organisations including Reuters, Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press and the public broadcaster RTHK from attending a press conference about the search.

The Hong Kong journalist association head, Chris Yeung, said the raid was �horrendous�. �I think in some third-world countries there has been this kind of press freedom suppression, I just didn�t expect it to be in Hong Kong,� he told media.

Next Digital accused police of abusing their power and authorities of �breaching press freedom through intimidation and creating an atmosphere of white fear�.

The arrest of Lai, while not unexpected, has alarmed the city, which has been on edge after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law outlawing sedition and secessionist activities, and foreign collusion.

Lai, who also holds UK citizenship, is the most high-profile figure detained under the law. If charged and convicted, he could face potential sentences of three to 10 years in prison � or up to life for an offence �of a grave nature�.

In 2019 state media labelled him one of a new �Gang of Four� conspiring against Beijing. He is already facing several charges over involvement in last year�s pro-democracy protests, and he was one of 25 people charged on Friday over attending a Tiananmen Square massacre vigil in June. Hong Kong�s security laws: what are they and why are they so controversial? Read more

A report in hawkish Chinese state media mouthpiece the Global Times labelled Lai a �modern-day traitor� and suggested he was unlikely to receive bail and would face �heavy penalties�.

Hong Kong journalists have repeatedly warned that the law would have a chilling affect on local media.

The activist and legislator Eddie Chu Hoi-dick accused the Chinese Communist party of wanting to close Apple Daily, and said Lai�s arrest was �the first step of [a] HK media blackout�.

Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy legislator and a former journalist, said she was more surprised by the raid than the arrest. �This is just so drastic and blatant,� she told the Guardian.

Keith Richburg, a veteran correspondent and now head of Hong Kong University�s media school, said the raid and arrests were outrageous. �I think you can say that is the day press freedom officially died, and it didn�t die a natural death. It was killed by Beijing and it was killed by Carrie Lam and Hong Kong police,� he said.

The police operation marked the first time the law has been used against media in Hong Kong, which has historically had a high level of press freedom. Last month the New York Times announced it was moving part of its Hong Kong bureau to South Korea.

Several outlets have complained of foreign journalist visas not being renewed. On Monday the Standard news website reported that the immigration department had established a national security unit to vet �sensitive� visa applications, including from journalists.

Chinese and Hong Kong officials had promised the security law would not impinge on the city�s civil freedoms, including its independent press. �Today�s police action upends those assurances,� the Foreign Correspondents� Club of Hong Kong said in a statement.

Benedict Rogers, a co-founder and the chair of Hong Kong Watch, said: �To arrest one of the most moderate, peaceful and internationally respected voices for democracy in Hong Kong � sends the message that no one is safe in Hong Kong unless they stay completely silent and do exactly as Xi Jinping�s brutal regime says.�

There was some speculation that the arrests were retaliation for US sanctions against senior Hong Kong officials, including Lam. The accusations against Lai have been at least partly driven by his meetings with and support from senior US figures including the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

In response to the US sanctions, China�s foreign ministry on Monday said that it would be placing sanctions on 11 US officials and lawmakers. A foreign ministry spokesman condemned the US for its �blatant interference� in China�s internal affairs.

On Monday afternoon the stock price of Next Digital, which is owned by Lai, rose more than 300% after some analysts reportedly said they would buy in protest against his arrest.

Two dozen people in Hong Kong, including pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, have been charged with participating in an illegal assembly at a vigil on June 4 commemorating the crackdown on protesters in and around Beijing's Tiananmen square in 1989.

It was the first time the vigil had been banned in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, with police citing coronavirus restrictions on group gatherings in refusing permission for it to take place. Still, tens of thousands lit candles across the city in what was largely a peaceful event, bar a brief skirmish with riot police in one neighbourhood.

The anniversary struck an especially sensitive nerve in the former British colony this year, falling just as China prepared to introduce national security legislation later that month in response to last year's often violent pro-democracy demonstrations.

Pro-democracy activists see the new legislation as the latest attempt by Beijing to encroach on Hong Kong's freedoms.

Police said in a statement on Thursday that 24 people, including 19 men and five women, aged 23-69, had been charged with holding and knowingly taking part in an unauthorised assembly. Such a charge existed before the new security law came into force on June 30.

Wong, and at least six other activists said on their Facebook pages that they were among those charged.

"Clearly, the regime plans to stage another crackdown on the city's activists by all means," Wong said.

Wong made a court appearance on Wednesday on similar charges related to a protest last year. The verdict is expected later this year.

The new security law, which punishes anything China sees as subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison, has drawn strong criticism from Western countries for putting Hong Kong on a more authoritarian path.

Its supporters say it will bring stability after a year of unrest.

June 4 commemorations are banned in mainland China, but Hong Kong, which was promised certain freedoms when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997, such as that of expression and assembly, traditionally held the largest vigils globally every year.

China has never provided a full account of the 1989 violence. The death toll given by officials days later was about 300, most of them soldiers, but rights groups and witnesses say thousands of people may have perished.

Hong Kong authorities have disqualified 12 pro-democracy candidates from upcoming elections, deepening political tensions in the Chinese territory.

Opposition legislators had hoped to obtain a majority in the Legislative Council (LegCo) in September's poll after Beijing's imposition of a highly controversial national security law.

Among those barred are high-profile activists Joshua Wong and Lester Shum.

The government said the candidates were not fit to run for office.

It said they could not be considered to be abiding by the constitutional duty required of lawmakers if they:

advocated for, or promoted, Hong Kong's independence
solicited intervention by foreign governments in Hong Kong's affairs
expressed "an objection in principle" to the imposition of the national security law by central authorities in Beijing
expressed "an intention to exercise the functions of a LegCo Member by indiscriminately voting down" any legislative proposals introduced by the Hong Kong government, "so as to force the government to accede to certain political demands"

In its statement announcing the disqualifications, the government said the decision was taken in line with Hong Kong's mini-constitution - the Basic Law.

"There is no question of any political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech or deprivation of the right to stand for elections as alleged by some members of the community," it said, adding that more disqualifications could not be ruled out.

Joshua Wong, who rose to prominence as a teenage activist during protests in 2014, said the decision showed "a total disregard for the will of Hongkongers" and "tramples upon the city's last pillar of vanishing autonomy".

The new national security law has been highly controversial in Hong Kong, a former British colony which is now part of China but was given unique freedoms in an agreement before the transfer of sovereignty.

The law was widely condemned by Western governments, but China says it is necessary to restore stability in the territory, which was hit by months of pro-democracy protests last year which often turned violent.

The opposition candidates disqualified on Thursday include four incumbent lawmakers, four district councillors - including Mr Shum - and activists Ventus Lau Wing-hong, Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam and Alvin Cheng Kam-mun, in addition to Mr Wong.

The Civic Party, one of the city's pro-democracy parties that had members among those barred, said the disqualifications "exploited the right of Hong Kong people to vote", Reuters news agency reports.

Its four disqualified members were Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and Cheng Tat-hung.

The University of Hong Kong�s governing body voted on Tuesday to fire an associate law professor who was convicted last year of charges related to his leading role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests and has remained a key figure in the city�s pro-democracy movement.

The legal scholar, Benny Tai, was convicted of public nuisance charges last year and sentenced to 16 months in prison, but he was released and remains on bail while his case is under appeal.

The university had faced widespread calls from members of the pro-Beijing establishment to dismiss Mr. Tai. But his supporters argued that dismissing him would undermine academic freedom that has already been imperiled by a new national security law imposed by Beijing.

The decision �marks the end of academic freedom in Hong Kong,� Mr. Tai said in a Facebook post. �Academic staff in education institutions in Hong Kong are no longer free to make controversial statements to the general public about politically or socially controversial matters.�

Last year the university began an investigation into Mr. Tai that led to Tuesday�s decision by the school�s council, a body dominated by members from outside the university. Arthur Li, its chair, is also an adviser to Carrie Lam, Hong Kong�s chief executive.

The university�s senate, which is comprised largely of academic staff, found earlier this month that Mr. Tai�s conduct did not warrant his removal. The council rejected that recommendation, a move that Mr. Tai�s supporters called politically motivated.

�Arthur Li has completed his political mission, and Benny Tai has become a martyr to civil disobedience,� said Joseph Chan, a political science professor at the university. �The University of Hong Kong has sacrificed its reputation and it will not be able to hold its head high in the international academic community. This day will become a major stain in the history of the University of Hong Kong that cannot be washed away.�

Lei Tsz Shing, an undergraduate representative of the university�s council, said in an opinion article on Tuesday that Mr. Tai�s termination would contradict messages that academic freedom would be maintained under the national security law.

�If the university at this moment ignores the senate�s recommendations and fires Benny Tai, it would be equivalent to declaring that academic freedom is being repressed,� he wrote on Tuesday in The Stand News, an online outlet.

The Hong Kong University Students� Union had argued that Mr. Tai should not be dismissed, calling him a model scholar who was willing to put his knowledge into action.

�He has impressed on generations of students the responsibility of a public intellectual, with his genuine care of society and unwavering pursuit of universal suffrage,� the group wrote in a statement on Facebook.

Mr. Tai was a central figure in the 2014 Umbrella Movement, calling for a protest to push for more direct democracy in Hong Kong. What he had envisioned as a sit-in of a few days was pre-empted by student demonstrators who occupied a square near government headquarters.

Thousands took to the streets after police used pepper spray and tear gas on the protesters. They occupied major roadways in the city for 79 days, but ultimately failed to change how Hong Kong chooses its leaders.

He was convicted last year of conspiracy to commit public nuisance and incitement to commit public nuisance. The judge rejected the argument made on behalf of Mr. Tai and eight other defendants that the protests were an appropriate exercise of free speech.

Shiu Ka-chun, a Legislative Council member who was one of the eight other activists convicted along with Mr. Tai last year, said he was told Monday that Hong Kong Baptist University was not renewing his contract to teach social work.

After his conviction, Mr. Tai has remained active in politics, and this year helped organize a primary vote among the pro-democracy camp to choose candidates for a legislative election in September. More than 600,000 people participated, despite government warnings the exercise might be illegal under the new national security law. The turnout was an early indication of broad support for the opposition camp.

The primary was denounced both by Hong Kong government and Beijing�s representatives in the city, who singled out Mr. Tai for vehement criticism.

�Facts have proven that Benny Tai and his like are the chief culprits for creating the chaotic situation in Hong Kong, bringing disaster to Hong Kong and harming its people,� Beijing�s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office said after the primary earlier this month.

Four young activists who belonged to a disbanded pro-independence group have been arrested on secessionist charges in Hong Kong�s first crackdown on political figures after the enactment July 1 of a sweeping national security law.

Senior Superintendent Li Kwai-wah, with Hong Kong police�s newly formed National Security Department, told reporters late Wednesday that four students between the ages of 16 and 21 had been arrested under the new national security law for �organizing and inciting secession� by their advocacy of independence.

He declined to name them and their group, but the group Studentlocalism announced on social media that its former convenor, Tony Chung, 19, had been arrested Wednesday night for �inciting secession.� Activists said at least two other former group members also had been arrested about the same time.

The arrests were the most high-profile crackdown on political figures since the introduction of the new security law. Ten protesters were arrested that day on national security charges.

'Hong Kong nation'

Li accused the group of announcing online the establishment of a new group to advocate for the establishment of a �Hong Kong nation,� as well as its declaration that it would use all means to achieve this end. He also alleged that the group was trying to �unite all pro-independence groups in Hong Kong� and �incite others to join them.�

Li said mobile phones, computers and documents had been seized from the arrested activists� homes. He said the police could take DNA samples from them if necessary.

Citing clauses 36 to 38 of the national security law, Li emphasized that people also could be charged with criminal enterprises for �national security crimes� committed elsewhere in the world.

�We have jurisdiction even if the propaganda takes place abroad,� he said.

Studentlocalism announced its closure on the eve of the enactment of the national security law on July 1, but it also announced 10 days ago the establishment of its U.S. division. On its Twitter account, the group called on its supporters to join in, and it posted an online recruitment form.

Manifesto

Its manifesto on Twitter says one of its missions is to �establish a Hong Kong republic with independent sovereignty� and �awaken the will of Hong Kong�s national independence.�

Li said the arrestees were suspected of violating both Article 20 and 21 of the national security law, which criminalizes secessionist acts and incitement of others to commit such offenses.

In a video footage posted online, a plainclothes police officer, purportedly from the national security department, can be seen escorting Chung, who has his hands tied behind his back, to a vehicle.

Local media said it was the first time that officers from the police force's new national security department had made an arrest under the security legislation.

As the group disbanded June 30, Chung vowed on Twitter, �We won�t give up, we refuse to forget, one day we will witness the Hong Kong national flag on our land.�

Chung was arrested in May 2019 for damaging the national flag at the protest zone outside the legislature, before the anti-government protest movement began.

Ahead of the police briefing Wednesday night, officers expelled several journalists, saying they had not been registered with the government � even though no such restrictions had been put in place previously.

Commenting on the arrests, pro-democracy lawmaker Eddie Chu said the activists were not arrested for their actions but rather for their rhetoric on social media. �The maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Typical CCP [Chinese Communist Party] speech crime,� he said on Twitter.

Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang said the arrests were �a significant escalation on the part of the Hong Kong government, criminalizing those who organize political parties, and it's likely [to be] just the beginning before it moves onto pan-democratic parties.�

Police arrested an anti-government protester on suspicion of violating Hong Kong�s new national security law on Tuesday and dispersed dozens more who had gathered at a shopping mall to mark one year since a mob attacked protesters and passengers at a train station in Yuen Long.

Three other people were arrested on suspicion of obstructing police in the execution of their duties, while a fourth was detained for violating a court-imposed curfew.

Officers also fined 79 people for social-distancing violations in Yuen Long, and some others in Central, where another small rally took place earlier. Activists were voicing anger over a lack of progress in investigating the attack.

The anti-government protester was handcuffed and taken away from the Yoho mall in the evening after being accused of displaying a placard reading: �Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times.�

In a statement, police said he allegedly incited or abetted others to commit secession, in breach of the new law.

The government maintains the slogan amounts to a separatist call, although lawyers have cast doubt over the assertion and say the courts should decide.

Police also led away Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung, who told reporters officers accused him of being uncooperative as they tried to search his belongings.

A small group of people inside the mall chanted protest slogans, including the controversial one, and officers briefly raised a purple flag warning they could be arrested for violating the new law.

Officers rounded up dozens of journalists outside and demanded they turn off their cameras as they were searched and their press credentials were checked. The force took to social media earlier in the day to warn demonstrators of legal action if they participated in the rally, amid a worsening third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic . The attack on July 21 last year was widely caught on video. Clips show the white-clad mob armed with metal poles and rattan sticks entering the train station and begin to beat anti-government protesters and passengers seemingly at random, leaving 45 people injured .

Some activists have accused police of colluding with the attackers as officers failed to show up promptly after being alerted to the incident, although the force maintains the delay was caused by a staffing crunch.

The attack is widely regarded as a turning point in the year-long social unrest triggered by a now-withdrawn extradition bill, which pitted police and protesters against each other.

Dozens of arrests have been made over the violence, but the force�s watchdog has noted it lacks the authority to investigate the allegation officers were involved.

Police were out in force in Yuen Long in the afternoon, with officers issuing tickets to three Democratic Party lawmakers, among others, outside the MTR station for failing to observe the ban on public gatherings of more than four people.

The three lawmakers were party chairman Wu Chi-wai, vice-chairman Andrew Wan Siu-kin and Lam Cheuk-ting, who afterwards accused officers of abusing their power.

�We came in groups of four,� said Lam, a victim himself. �But when we arrived, the police ushered us together and then claimed we had breached the social-gathering regulations. If police had deployed one-tenth of the manpower last year to handle the July 21 attack, the attack might not have taken place.�

Victim Calvin So said he was returning home after a shift working as a chef that night when the mob descended upon him, leaving him with injuries to his leg and back.

�I was invited by police to give a statement once last August and then police called me two or three times later in October for some follow-up questions,� So said. �Since then, I have not heard anything from police. I can�t help thinking they are not actually serious in investigating the case.�

Earlier in the day, a handful of protesters were handed fines during a gathering at a mall in Hong Kong�s Central district to mark the anniversary.

A police spokesman said officers fined four men and two women, aged between 14 and 55, for violating social-distancing rules. Last week the government tightened the ban on public gatherings from 50 people to four in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19 infections.

One young protester, in tears after being fined, said: �I was crying not because I was fined � But where were all these officers on July 21 last year? Now, why are there so many of them here to slap fines on young people?�

The force said it understood public concern over the violence at Yuen Long MTR station last year and stressed their New Territories North regional crime unit spared no effort in bringing the criminals to justice.

So far, 37 people, aged between 18 and 61, have been arrested over the attack, seven of whom have been charged with rioting. Police refused to comment further on the investigation, saying it was ongoing.

A Chinese law professor who has written essays critical of President Xi Jinping�s governance has reportedly been detained in Beijing.

Friends of Xu Zhangrun say the writer and academic was taken from his home early Monday morning by more than a dozen police officers. The New York Times, quoting his friend Geng Xiaonan, says a computer and papers were also taken from the home.

Geng says she learned from Xu�s wife that police told her Xu was accused of soliciting prostitutes during a recent visit to the southwestern city of Chengdu.

Xu Zhangrun taught law at Beijing�s prestigious Tsinghua University for several years until 2019, when he was banned from teaching and researching after publishing an essay condemning President Xi�s tightening grip on power. He had recently been placed under house arrest.

An essay he published in February blamed the culture of secrecy and deception for the spread of the novel coronavirus in China, which was first detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan before evolving into a pandemic that has sickened over 11.4 million people around the globe, killing more than 534,000.

Xu is the latest prominent figure to have been arrested this year for criticizing Xi over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Millionaire property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang was detained in April.

The arrests are part of President Xi�s increasing crackdown on dissenting voices in China, highlighted by the new national security law for Hong Kong that has criminalized open protest.

Hong Kong police arrested hundreds of people amid defiant protests on the anniversary of the city's handover to Chinese rule, and on the first day of a draconian new security law that was already having an impact on freedom of speech.

"Police arrested over 300 persons, including 10 people for suspected violation of the National Security Law," the city's police force said in a statement.

"The remaining arrestees were arrested for suspected unlawful assembly, disorder in public places, furious driving and possession of offensive weapon," it said.

A senior Chinese official said anyone arrested by the mainland�s new national security office in Hong Kong on charges of violating the new national security law for the city would be tried in the mainland, although it was unclear whether Wednesday's arrests were made by that office.

Zhang Xiaoming, executive deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said China�s national security office in the city abides by Chinese law and that Hong Kong�s legal system cannot be expected to implement those laws.

The arrests came after crowds gathered in the shopping and entertainment districts of Wanchai and Causeway Bay in defiance of a police ban on the traditional annual protest march, and of the new ban on any expression of pro-independence sentiment.

Chanting: "Five demands, not one less! Fight for our freedom!" and "Hong Kong independence, the only solution!" the crowds faced down hundreds of police in full riot gear who were drafted into the area during the afternoon.

Police fired at individuals, one of whom was a journalist sent flying onto the pavement in footage captured by several social media accounts, with a water cannon truck that patrolled the streets of Wanchai and Causeway Bay as police raised flags declaring the gathering "illegal."

'Rule of law is dead'

A protester surnamed Loh said she had attended the protest to display a placard which read: "Loving Hong Kong is not a crime."

"The rule of law is dead, starting from today," Loh told RFA. "Now we daren't say anything."

"I grew up here, and it is already not the same place today that it was yesterday," she said. "I don't want the Hong Kong I knew to die, and there is no crime in my loving it."

A protester surnamed Leung said the national security law, which contains sweeping and vaguely worded bans on speech as well as action, including speech critical of the authorities or promoting independence, showed that the ruling Chinese Communist Party had abandoned all pretense over Hong Kong's promised freedoms and was taking over.

"They're not even bothering with one country, two systems any more; they are showing their true colors," Leung said. "They are imposing mainland Chinese law enforcement on Hong Kong. It's instant mainlandification."

"What does mainlandification mean? It means the loss of reasonable government, because it's the mainland we're dealing with now," he said. "The Chinese Communist Party isn't a rational entity; it's an organization of utmost evil, and it wants to make Hong Kong in its own image."

Civic Party politician Kwok Ka-ki said the law would likely also have a huge impact on the city's economy.

"Taiwanese people are already saying they will avoid Hong Kong at all costs," Kwok said. "Because someone from Taiwan would totally be targeted if they were to utter a single word against the Chinese or Hong Kong authorities, or if they were to refer to Taiwan as an independent entity."

Pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said journalists could also soon find themselves in "dire trouble" under the new law.

"Anyone giving or disseminating any [sensitive] material or information to a journalist, and this journalist publishes information obtained in such a manner, could be in dire trouble. Both of them," said Mo, who is a former journalist herself.

"This is not the rule of law. These is not even rule by law. This is rule by decree. Free press could just be announced dead in Hong Kong," she said.

U.K. offers route to immigration

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted that the feared arrests are "already happening" under the new law, which he called a "violation of commitments that it made to the Hong Kong people and to the United Kingdom, in a UN-registered treaty � and in contravention of Hong Kongers� human rights and fundamental freedoms."

"Security forces are already rounding up Hong Kongers for daring to speak and think freely. The rule of law has been eviscerated. And as always, the Chinese Communist Party fears its own people more than anything else," he said at a news briefing Wednesday.

"The United States is deeply concerned about the law�s sweeping provisions and the safety of everyone living in the territory, including Americans," added Pompeo, who has recently unveiled visa restrictions and military trade restrictions in response to the Chinese policies in Hong Kong.

The U.K. said it would offer all those in Hong Kong with British National Overseas (BNO) status a "bespoke" immigration route, foreign minister Dominic Raab said in a statement after the security law took effect.

"The prime minister and the government are crystal clear: the United Kingdom will keep its word, we will live up to our responsibilities to the people of Hong Kong," Raab told parliament.

"I can now confirm we will proceed to honor our commitment to change the arrangements for those holding BNO status," he said, adding that those with such status would be granted five years of limited leave in Britain to work or study.

After that, they could apply for settled status and after a further 12 months with settled status, they would be able to apply for citizenship. There will be no cap on the numbers who may apply.

After releasing Liu Xianbin, authorities still watched him.

On June 27, Liu completed a 10-year prison sentence. His family received a phone call at 10:00 a.m., saying he would return home soon. Yet, he did not arrive home until 8:00 p.m. because he had to take a COVID-19 test.

State security officers and pandemic prevention personnel picked him up at 4:00 p.m. and took him home. His family had been waiting for the whole day. They were very mentally and physically exhausted.

The next day, the family saw a police vehicle outside of their apartment complex. A few state security officers sat in the car. The family thought it was odd for the officers to be monitoring the area.

A month before, government officials installed surveillance cameras around his home. They also placed cameras at the entry of the complex.

An insider said, �State security officers stay at the entry of his building and have been there the whole day. I have no clue whether Liu Xianbin is under house arrest or residential surveillance.... The practice is not normal, and it seems that Liu Xianbin is being tightly controlled.�

Liu is a supporter of democracy and human rights. He participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He has also defended prisoners of conscience.

Since 1991, Liu has spent more than 20 years in prison on various charges. His first charge was �counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement." He received this charge for his participation in the Tiananmen Square protests. He was released in 1993.

In 1998, he formed a democratic party, so he received a 13-year sentence, but he was released early in 2008.

Two years later, he was arrested on a charge of inciting subversion of state power. A local court sentenced him to 10 years in prison on March 25, 2011. They also stripped him of political rights for two years and four months.

Police used pepper spray and arrested at least 14 people in a Hong Kong mall during a �shopping protest� on Thursday against Beijing�s impending national security law .

The suspects, nine males and five females, aged 14 to 55, were arrested for illegal assembly, police said, after protesters marched around the Yoho Mall shopping centre in Yuen Long chanting slogans, which caused customers to flee and stores to close on what was a public holiday.

Trouble flared again in the evening after two protesters who were waving a colonial flag and chanting slogans in the mall�s atrium were taken away by plain-clothes officers, sparking the anger of a small group of demonstrators nearby.

The officers then fired pepper spray to keep the group at bay. Riot police quickly arrived to provide back up and also used pepper spray.

Beijing is drafting legislation for Hong Kong, which will ban secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign and external influences to threaten national security. The controversial law, of which only a broad outline has been revealed, could be passed as early as June 30.

Among those hit with pepper spray was opposition district councillor Lam Chun. First aiders helped four people sprayed with the chemical.

The Yuen Long councillor said he was just trying to find out why the pair were taken away. �One was just chanting slogans. There were no more than 50 people [as permitted by coronavirus social-distancing rules]. We don�t even know why they were arrested,� Lam said.

�We couldn�t even ask police why they were arrested, they responded with pepper spray. That�s the situation Hongkongers are facing now.� Thursday is a public holiday in Hong Kong to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival . The demonstration started at about 1.30pm, when a man in the mall chanted slogans and displayed a banner that read �Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time�, a popular mantra at the height of last year�s anti-government protests , which were sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill .

Others watched from upper floors, and some joined in with shouts of their own. They then marched through the mall chanting slogans.

�Give me back my justice,� they yelled. �Hong Kong independence, the only way.�

Police in riot gear arrived at the mall at 2pm to break up the crowd and left soon after. But protesters later regrouped and continued with their routine.

Shortly after 3pm, plain-clothes police officers revealed their identities and stopped more than a dozen people. Some were taken away after police reinforcements arrived.

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan have secretly indicted the "Changsha Three" non-governmental organization (NGO) workers, family members and rights groups said.

Cheng Yuan, Liu Dazhi, and Wuge Jianxiong were indicted in secret for "subversion of state power" by prosecutors in Hunan's provincial capital, Changsha, on June 24.

The three were detained last year, as they worked for a non-government group called Changsha Funeng.

Cheng Yuan's wife Shi Minglei learned of the charges only after calling the Changsha Procuratorate for an update on July 10, the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said in an e-mail.

Shi was informed that the indictments had been issued and the case transferred to the Changsha Intermediate People's Court to await trial, it said.

The move came after the firing of six defense attorneys and the three Changsha Funeng staff in March.

"[Cheng, Liu and Wuge] have not received a single visit from their family-hired attorneys since being taken into custody on July 22, 2019 nor allowed any communication with their families," CHRD said.

They are being currently being held at the Kaifu District Detention Center in Changsha, it said.

Shi told RFA on Friday that the case against her husband and his co-defendants had been marked by procedural violations, and was akin to an extrajudicial procedure.

"This case hasn't gone through the system in the usual way at all," she said. "It is dithering about outside of the system."

"We have tried to get in touch with the judge, Zhao Zhe, and we have called his office number, but nobody ever picks up," Shi said. "When we went to the detention center, we unexpectedly ran into a government-appointed defense attorney."

Pressure to 'confess'

Authorities in China have repeatedly put pressure on political prisoners to accept government-appointed lawyers, and to achieve a more lenient sentence by "confessing" to the charges against them.

In some cases, they have issued letters "firing" the defense attorneys hired by their families.

"So I called the government-appointed lawyer, and they said that the pretrial meeting had already happened," Shi said. "I think this means that they're going to go ahead with a secret trial very soon, maybe next week."

"The so-called government lawyer had no independence to speak of," she said, adding that non-government lawyers had been reluctant to take on the case. "So I really don't expect a proper defense."

Human rights and political cases can lead to trouble for law firms and the suspension of lawyers' licenses to practice.

Changsha Funeng founder Yang Zhanqing, who is now in the U.S., said the Changsha Three were detained as part of a general crackdown on the organization.

"Cheng, Liu, and Wuge had been very low profile, and very rarely made any kind of public comment on their work," Yang said. "They even tried to minimize police harassment by doing all of their legal advocacy work in an individual capacity."

"They never spoke on behalf of Changsha Funeng."

Yang said the main reason the authorities had targeted the three men was the fact that their rights work had received overseas funding, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party regards as "collusion with hostile foreign forces," and a threat to its national security.

Human rights lawyer Chen Jiahong (???) (aka Chen Wendan, ???), was put on trial in a closed-door hearing on �inciting subversion� charges at the Yulin City Intermediate Court, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on June 24. It�s unclear whether Mr. Chen had legal representation during the trial, as he had been pressured to fire the lawyers of his choice in March after telling one he had been mistreated in detention. The trial came more than one year after he was taken into custody. The charges against him have been linked to his online speech critical of the government, his condemnation of the abolition of presidential term limits, as well as his pro-democracy views. Mr. Chen had been held at the Yulin City Detention Center.

The Suzhou Intermediate Court in Jiangsu Province sentenced human rights defender Ge Jueping (???) to 4.5 years in jail on �inciting subversion of state power� charges on June 24. Mr. Ge has already been subjected to a 3-year and 8-month prolonged pre-trial detention, including being put under �residential surveillance in a designated location.� His trial took place more than a year ago on May 13, 2019. Mr. Ge, who suffers from serious illnesses, including hypertension, heart palpitations, parotid gland cancer, has not received proper medical treatment at the detention center.

China's state security police have formally arrested dissident Xu Zhiyong for subversion after he called publicly on President Xi Jinping to resign.

Xu, who has already served jail time for his spearheading of the New Citizens' Movement anti-corruption campaign, penned an open letter to Xi while in hiding following a gathering of pro-democracy activists and lawyers in December 2019, calling on him to step down.

He is currently being held incommunicado in "residential surveillance at a designated location" (RSDL) pending the completion of the investigation.

RSDL allows police to hold anyone they say is suspected of crimes linked to national security without contact with family or a lawyer for up to six months.

Xu is currently being investigated for "incitement to subvert state power by a team of state security police based in the eastern province of Shandong that has been pursuing a number of participants in December's gathering in the southeastern port city of Xiamen.

Human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi is a co-defendant in the same case, RFA has learned.

Xu Zhiyong's sister was notified by the Shandong police on June 20 that Xu had been formally arrested, but his location remains unknown.

Xu Zhiyong's friend and independent documentary director Hua Ze meanwhile said the "meeting" was merely a gathering of friends.

"The police are treating this as if it is a big case, and claiming that there is an organization at work, but actually it was just a group of friends getting together," Hua said.

"They were just talking about how to help some of the current [detained activists'] cases, and follow up on them," she said.

Liu Jiacai, a rights activist from the Yangtze river city of Yichang who is often targeted by state security police, said he is currently safe at home after being taken out of town for the sensitive June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

"Xu had written a lot of articles since the start of the coronavirus pandemic," Liu said. "Anyone who attended the Xiamen gathering is now being suppressed by the authorities, and many people no longer dare to speak out."

"But Xu kept insisting on speaking up ... I feel bad that he was detained, as his friend and fellow activist," he said.

Liu said the Xiamen gathering was a meeting of like-minded friends who discussed social phenomena and China's future.

"We did not violate the Constitution or the current laws of China, but the authorities have persecuted us anyway," he said.

Fears over possible torture

Ding Jiaxi�s wife Luo Shengchun says she fears her husband, who is also being held under RDSL detention, may be being tortured.

"My sense is that he is being subjected to torture," Luo told RFA. "The people who came out [after being interrogated as part of the investigation] wouldn't talk about it; they had been silenced."

"This is clearly about framing Ding Jiaxi; they haven't been able to find any evidence of criminal behavior, but they will keep on finding excuses to keep him in detention because he refuses to plead guilty," she said.

Luo said she is certain that Ding Jiaxi will never cave in to police pressure to "confess" to the charges against him.

"This is a red line for him, because he is innocent," Luo said. "They came before to try to persuade him, and he told them they should be trying to persuade the bad guys not to do bad things, not trying to persuade the good guys not to do good things."

Writers' group PEN America, which recently honored Xu with the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, on Monday condemned Xu's formal arrest.

"Xu Zhiyong is under arrest for criticizing the government, plain and simple," PEN CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. "By proceeding with these meritless charges of �subversion,� the government is using the law as a tool to legitimize its suppression of dissidents. But criticisms are not crimes, no matter how much Beijing insists otherwise."

She added: "We have zero confidence that Xu will receive a fair trial. We insist that the government drop these absurd and abusive criminal charges against him, and acknowledge his right to express his ideas and opinions without fear of a jail cell."

Critical flaws in proposed resolution

The news of Xu's formal arrest emerged as the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) held a brief debate in Geneva on June 22 over a draft resolution presented by China, raising "serious concerns" about the future of the Human Rights Council and, more broadly, the multilateral UN human rights system, rights groups said.

The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said there were "critical flaws" in the resolution, which would limit the council's ability to hold member states to account for human rights violations.

"The draft resolution, once put into effect, would codify language directly taken from Chinese Communist Party propaganda � namely, China�s promotion for a �shared community of future� modeled on its authoritarian governance at home � and its attempt to silence criticisms of rights abuses in the Human Rights Council platforms," the group said in a statement.

Xu had also penned a New Year's message to China's citizens in 2020, calling on them to think about whether they want to carry on with an authoritarian government or movement towards democratic constitutionalism, an idea that President Xi has said has no place in his vision for China.

Dozens of people linked in some way to the New Citizens' Movement group have been detained and jailed in recent years.

Xu was handed a four-year jail term in January 2014 on public order charges after staging a street protest calling for greater transparency from the country's richest and most powerful people.

Ding Jiaxi, who has previously served jail time for calling on top officials of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to reveal details of their wealth, was stopped by police at Beijing International Airport in May 2018, as he tried to board a plane to visit his wife and daughter in the U.S.

He was also among more than 300 rights attorneys, law firm staff, and associated activists detained, questioned, and subjected to surveillance and travel bans amid a nationwide crackdown since 2015.

Ding was earlier detained in April 2013 and handed a three-and-a-half year jail term a year later by Beijing's Haidian District People's Court for �gathering a crowd to disrupt public order,� after he called publicly on Chinese officials to reveal details of their wealth, as part of the New Citizens� Movement.

Authorities in Shanghai have formally arrested a lawyer-turned-citizen journalist who reported on the emerging coronavirus epidemic in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Zhang Zhan, who lives in Shanghai but who traveled to Wuhan in early February, was taken away from Wuhan's Caiguang Hotel near Hankou railway station on the night of May 14.

She was held by police near her home in Shanghai's Pudong district on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Zhang was then formally arrested on that charge on June 19 on the orders of the Pudong state prosecutor, RFA has learned. She is currently being held in the Pudong Detention Center.

Repeated calls to Zhang's mother rang unanswered on Monday.

But a friend of Zhang's surnamed Zhu said she had denied the charges when she met with her defense attorney two weeks earlier.

"Zhang Zhan has been formally arrested for picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," Zhu said. "Shortly after Zhang Zhan was detained, a lawyer went to Pudong Detention Center to meet with her, and she told him she was pleading not guilty."

Zhu said Zhang's mother had received a notification of her daughter's arrest, but was too frightened to talk to journalists following heavy pressure from state security police, and hadn't publicized the arrest details.

Zhu said her friend had traveled to Wuhan after lockdown began purely to report on the situation there.

"She found a way to get into Wuhan after the city was locked down," Zhu said. "That was such a big risk to take; she has an extraordinary spirit not available to most people, to the extent that she was willing to risk arrest, and even her life."

'She is very strong-minded'

An overseas-based friend of Zhang's surnamed Lang said he was sad to learn of her arrest.

"I had been expecting it, though, because this isn't her first rodeo," he said. "She was previously detained for supporting the anti-extradition movement [in Hong Kong]."

"I am worried about her, because she is a practicing Christian with a strong tendency towards martyrdom," he said. "She is very strong-minded."

Zhang, 40, was detained by police in Shanghai in September 2019 for holding up an umbrella in solidarity with the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement on the streets of Shanghai, and demanding an end to Communist Party rule.

She was released after 65 days in detention, during which time she went on hunger strike twice.

Zhang moved to Shanghai from the northern province of Shaanxi in 2010, and formerly worked as a lawyer before official retaliation took away her license to practice.

In Zhang's last YouTube video posted on May 13, she had reported on the impact of a huge fall in passenger numbers on the livelihoods of Wuhan's taxi drivers, as well as loss of employment in the wake of the lockdown among the city's residents.

She also spoke out against the intimidation of local people by the urban management police, or chengguan, and about a sense of despair at life in China.

Thousands targeted for speaking out

The Chinese government has targeted thousands of people for speaking out about the coronavirus epidemic in the country since it began in late December in the central city of Wuhan.

After President Xi Jinping said he would lead "a people's war" on the epidemic on Jan. 20, police handled 5,111 cases of "fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information," according to a Feb. 21 statement from the ministry of public security.

Between Jan. 1 and March 26, nearly 900 internet users were penalized by police for their online speech or info-sharing about the coronavirus epidemic, across almost every province, region, and municipality in China.

Charges used to question, detain, and arrest people included "rumor-mongering," "fabricating false information," �sowing panic,� �disturbing public order,� and "breach of privacy."

Cases in which people were accused of "spreading misinformation" or "disrupting public order" accounted for more than 96 percent of cases, according to the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network.

CHRD said on Monday it has documented "a dozen cases" of detainees or prisoners of conscience being denied access to their lawyers and families, including virtual meetings, on coronavirus grounds.

The group called on the government to stop using the pandemic as a pretext to restrict people's rights.

"In some instances, Chinese officials have stated that the suspensions are �indefinite� or until the pandemic is over, even if lockdown restrictions elsewhere have already begun to be lifted and authorities have declared that public health milestones have been met," CHRD said in a statement on its website.

Among those affected are ailing citizen journalist and rights activist Huang Qi, veteran dissident Qin Yongmin, Tibetan activist and businessman Tashi Wangchuk, and activist Chen Jianfang.

Detained lawyers Hao Jinsong and Li Yuhan have also been denied meetings with their defense lawyers, as have detained activists Liu Jinxing, Shen Liangqing, Xie Wenfei, Xu Kun, and Zhang Baocheng, CHRD said.

A Chinese court has secretly convicted and handed down a four-year jail sentence to one of China�s most outspoken human rights lawyers, Yu Wensheng, on the charge of �inciting subversion of state power�, according to his wife.

Yu�s wife, Xu Yan, told the Guardian that she was informed by phone by the prosecutor�s office in Xuzhou city in the eastern province of Jiangsu that her husband�s term was ordered in a closed door sentencing on Wednesday morning. The Xuzhou city intermediate people�s court also deprived Yu of his political rights, meaning he is barred from serving in public positions, publishing and speaking publicly, for three years.

His sentencing comes after his secret trial in May 2019, which took place without the knowledge of his family.

During Yu�s more than two years in detention, he was barred from meeting his family and the lawyers they hired, and there were widespread fears that he was tortured in custody. In April last year, the UN working group on arbitrary detention said Yu should be released.

His wife said Yu was �in a very isolated situation� as none of his relatives, including herself, or lawyers appointed by the family were present at the trial.

�He can�t accept this outcome. He would appeal,� his wife said. �I demand his unconditional release.�

As one of the staunchest government critics in the country, Yu had repeatedly weighed in on politically sensitive issues despite intensifying efforts to stifle dissent under China�s leader Xi Jinping.

Yu, 52, was picked up by police near his home in Beijing on 19 January 2018 as he walked his son to school and later charged with inciting subversion of state power. The day before, he published an online post calling for the removal of Xi and for reforms in the legal and political systems. Three months earlier, Yu also demanded Xi�s resignation in an open letter, accusing China under his rule as �marching backwards�. Yu�s legal licence was revoked shortly before he was taken away.

Yu had long been seen as a thorn in the side of the authorities. He had tried to sue authorities for failing to shield Chinese citizens from pollution and represented activists and dissidents, including Wang Quanzhang, a fellow attorney who vanished into detention in the summer of 2015 and was later sentenced to four-and-a-half-years in jail for subversion. Wang was released in early April this year but was barred from being reunited with his family for weeks.

Yu had also been detained for more than three months in 2014 after voicing his support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and was tortured in detention.

Amnesty International�s Asia-Pacific regional director, Nicholas Bequelin, said Yu�s sentencing is �nothing but political persecution dressed up as legal process�.

�The secret sentencing of yet another human rights lawyer marks a new low for what is left of the rule of law in China,� he said.

US-based rights group Chinese Human Rights Defenders said Yu joined �a long list of Chinese human rights lawyers, activists, dissidents, and journalists� convicted on national security charges for exercising and defending human rights.

�China is in the process of imposing a national security law on Hong Kong to further the suppression of free expression and assembly in the territory,� it said.

The Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group and 17 other international rights groups and individuals issued a joint statement to condemn Yu�s sentencing and urged his immediate release.

Responding to today�s targeting of nine more activists in connection with Hong Kong�s June Fourth Tiananmen vigil, in addition to four arrests carried out yesterday, Director of Amnesty International Hong Kong Man-Kei Tam said:

�The targeting of is the latest assault on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in the city. With China's Orwellian national security law coming, the Hong Kong authorities appear emboldened to ramp up repression of critical voices.

�The June Fourth vigil is a moment for people in Hong Kong to remember those killed in the Tiananmen crackdown 31 years ago, and for the authorities to use this peaceful event as a means of targeting critics is sickening.

�A year to the day after Hong Kong Police infamously targeted protesters with excessive force during mass demonstrations, the crackdown on Hong Kong�s freedoms is unrelenting.

�But as shown by those who peacefully took to the streets today to mark the 12 June anniversary, people will continue to peacefully advocate for those freedoms and will not be cowed by repression.�

Background

Between 11 and 12 June, police informed 13 individuals that they will receive a summons to appear in court in late June for �inciting� others to take part in unauthorized assemblies on 4 June.

Ten of those targeted are members of the HK Alliance, which has organized the annual vigil in Hong Kong�s Victoria Park to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown.

Last week, Hong Kong police banned the vigil for the first time in 30 years, citing COVID-19 measures. The ban did not stop thousands from convening in the park, and even more holding smaller events elsewhere.

The 13 people targeted include the chairperson of Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China (HK Alliance) Lee Cheuk-yan; vice-chairpersons Albert Ho Chun-yan and Chow Hang-tung; secretary Richard Tsoi; core members Cheung Man-kwong, Mak Hoi-wah, Andrew Wan Siu-kin, Chiu Yan-loi, Leung Yiu-chung and Leung Kam-wai; vice president of the Labour Party Steven Kwok Wing-kin; vice convenor of the NGO Civil Human Rights Front Figo Chan Ho-wun; and founder of media group Next Digital Jimmy Lai.

On the evening of 3�4 June, 1989 in Beijing�s Tiananmen Square, hundreds � possibly thousands � of people were killed when troops opened fire on students and workers who had been peacefully calling for political and economic reforms as well as an end to corruption. No one knows the exact number of fatalities since the Chinese authorities have stifled and censored discussion of the crackdown for the past three decades.

On June 10th, almost a year after the brief occupation of the Legislative Council building (LegCo) during a pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong, two journalists at the scene have been slammed with new charges of rioting which in the law carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence, but is in this case is limited to seven years due to the fact it is judged by the District Court in Hong Kong.

Ma Kai-chung, a reporter from the online media Passion Times and Wong Ka-ho, the deputy chief-editor of the City University of Hong Kong�s student journal, will both be tried in August alongside 10 protestors and were initially only charged with �illegally entering and remaining in the Legislative Council chamber�, an offense which carries a maximum 3-month prison sentence.

�These two journalists were only performing their professional duty by documenting the occupation of the Legislative Council building and should never be indicted, and especially not charged with a crime that carries a 10-year jail term�, says C�dric Alviani, Reporters Without Borders� (RSF) East Asia bureau head, who calls on the Hong Kong Secretary for Justice to �immediately drop the absurd rioting charge.�

On the night of July 1st 2019, a date that marked the 22nd anniversary of the former British colony�s handover to China, a small group of protesters stormed the Legislative Council building, whilst over half a million Hong Kong residents took to the streets protesting against a now withdrawn bill that would have allowed extradition to the mainland.

According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), Hong Kong�s press freedom dropped to a record low in 2019, largely as a result of police violence. RSF has raised the issue of violence against journalists in a letter last July addressed to Carrie Lam, head of the Hong Kong executive, but received only a canned response.

The Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong has fallen from 18th place in 2002 to 80th place in this year�s RSF Press Freedom Index. The People's Republic of China stagnates at the bottom of the index in 177th place out of a total of 180 countries.

Pro-democracy Xiao Yuhui was taken away by Guangdong police after forwarding a petition addressed to President Trump.

On May 27, police in China took Xiao into custody shortly after he had passed the petition on to his friends. At least one other person was arrested after spreading the petition, but she was released on bail on May 30.

Xiao was released on May 31.

This is not the first time Xiao has been in custody. In October 2016, police detained him for owing more than 18,000 yuan in credit card fees. In June 2017, he received a nine-month sentence for suspected credit card fraud.

He also has taken part in a variety of activist activities. He attended an anti-national education rally in Hong Kong in 2012. On March 8, he planned to distribute voting cards at a subway station and was interviewed by state security. He has followed China�s family planning policy for a long time and has been forbidden from leaving the country.

The petition, titled, �One Person, One Letter to Save Hong Kong,� was first started by Hong Kong�s Apple Daily. It urged Trump to intervene on behalf of Hong Kong after Beijing pushed forward a national security law for the region.

Agreements reached between China and Britain as Hong Kong transitioned into Chinese control in 1997 required Hong Kong maintain its own judicial, legislative, and economic systems. Hong Kong also follows a partially-democratic model, in which residents are allowed to elect some of their officials. These elements permitted Hong Kong residents more freedom than people in mainland China, making it relatively safe for activists and religious people.

However, the new national security law has furthered concerns that those freedoms are being eroded. A version of the law implemented in mainland China is often used to target religious people and dissidents.

As of May 30, the , �One Person, One Letter to Save Hong Kong� petition had more than 110,000 signatures.

American policymakers have taken action on behalf of Hong Kong�s rights in the past few weeks. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Hong Kong no longer autonomous from China, a significant move that could have trade ramifications. On May 29, Trump gave a speech, saying:

�Several of the most significant actions we are taking pertained to deeply troubling situations unfolding in Hong Kong. This week China unilaterally imposed control over Hong Kong�s security. This was a plain violation of Beijing's treaty obligations, with the United Kingdom, in the declaration of 1984 and explicit provisions of Hong Kong's Basic Law. It has 27 years to go.

The Chinese government's move against Hong Kong is the latest in a series of measures that are diminishing the city's long-standing and very proud status.

This is a tragedy for the people of Hong Kong, the people of China, and indeed the people of the world.

China claims it is protecting national security. But the truth is that Hong Kong was secure and prosperous as a free society. Beijing's decision reverses all of that. It extends the reach of China's evasive state security apparatus into what was formerly a bastion of liberty.

China's latest incursion, along with other recent developments that degraded the territory�s freedoms, makes clear that Hong Kong is no longer sufficiently autonomous to warrant the special treatment that we have afforded the territory since the hand of it.

China has replaced its promise formula of �one country, two systems� with �one country, one system.� Therefore, I am directing my administration to begin the process of eliminating policy exemptions that give Hong Kong different and special treatment.

My announcement today will affect the full range of agreements we have with Hong Kong, from our extradition treaty to our export controls on dual-use technologies and more with few exceptions.

We will be revising the State Department's travel advisory for Hong Kong to reflect the increased danger of surveillance and punishment by the Chinese state security apparatus.

We will take action to revoke Hong Kong's preferential treatment as a separate customs and travel territory from the rest of China.

The United States will also take necessary steps to sanction PRC and Hong Kong officials directly or indirectly involved in eroding Hong Kong's autonomy and so just if you take a look, smothering absolutely smothering Hong Kong's freedom.

Our actions will be strong. Our actions will be meaningful.

More than two decades ago, on a rainy night in 1997, British soldiers lowered the Union Flag and Chinese soldiers raised the Chinese flag in Hong Kong. The people of Hong Kong felt simultaneously proud of their Chinese heritage and their unique Hong Kong identity.

The people of Hong Kong hoped that in the years and decades to come, China would increasingly come to resemble its most radiant and dynamic city. The rest of the world was electrified by a sense of optimism that Hong Kong was a glimpse into China's future. Not that, Hong Kong would grow into a reflection of China's past.�

Police in Hong Kong have fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters rallying against China's plans to impose a new security law on the territory.

Thousands of demonstrators have been marching through the city centre. Police say 120 have been arrested.

Earlier, 200 senior politicians from around the world issued a joint statement criticising China's plan.

But China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the legislation should be brought in "without the slightest delay".

China is seeking to pass a law that would ban "treason, secession, sedition and subversion" in the territory.

Activists fear it is an attempt to limit freedoms and silence Beijing's opponents.

Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam, who is seen as part of the pro-Beijing political establishment, has pledged full support for the proposed law and said the city's rights would remain unchanged.

China has dismissed concerns the legislation would harm foreign investors in Hong Kong, an important financial centre, and lashed out at "meddling" countries. How are the latest demonstrations unfolding?

Protesters gathered in the busy Causeway Bay and Wan Chai districts of the city on Sunday, chanting slogans against the government and waving banners.

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators, who were wearing face masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus.

The rally comes despite earlier warnings from authorities against unauthorised assembly and a ban on large public gatherings to enforce social distancing.

Some protesters threw objects such as umbrellas and water bottles at officers, and used bins and other debris to set up road blocks.

Reports say Sunday's protest followed a similar pattern to many of last year's demonstrations, many of which turned violent.

More than 8,400 people have been arrested in Hong Kong since pro-democracy protests erupted last year.

The "draft decision" - as it is known before approval by China's National People's Congress - includes an article that says Hong Kong "must improve" national security.

It adds: "When needed, relevant national security organs of the Central People's Government will set up agencies in Hong Kong to fulfil relevant duties to safeguard national security in accordance with the law."

That means China could potentially have its own law enforcement agencies in Hong Kong, alongside the city's own.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the plans, which he described as a "death knell" for the city's freedoms. The UK, Australia and Canada have also expressed their "deep concern".

Relations between Washington and Beijing are already strained over trade disputes and the coronavirus pandemic.

The US is currently considering whether to extend Hong Kong's preferential trading and investment privileges. President Trump has also weighed in, saying the US would react strongly if the law went through - without giving details.

Speaking on Sunday, Mr Wang accused countries said "some political forces in the US" were pushing the two countries "to the brink of a new Cold War".

The Chinese government argues the law is necessary to "prevent, stop and punish" protests such as those that rocked Hong Kong last year. They were sparked by a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.

The statement was drafted by former Hong Kong Governor Christopher Patten and former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, and signed by 186 policy makers and politicians from 23 countries.

It describes Beijing's plans as a "flagrant breach" of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

"If the international community cannot trust Beijing to keep its word when it comes to Hong Kong, people will be reluctant to take its word on other matters," the signatories wrote.

They include 17 members of the US Congress, and 44 UK MPs.

The NPC is expected to vote on the draft law at the end of its annual session, on 28 May. It will then be forwarded to the NPC's Standing Committee, China's top legislature, which is expected to finalise and enact the law by the end of June.

Human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong was harassed ahead of the convening of two of China�s governing bodies this week.

Yesterday, some of China�s top politicians met, including Premier Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping. Afterward, the National People�s Congress convened. These two sets of meetings comprise one of China�s most major annual political events.

Before the meetings took place, officials harassed and monitored Jiang Tianyong, a human rights attorney. Jiang�s family said national security officers constructed tents so they could monitor Jiang continuously. Cameras were installed at the front door and at the intersection of roads. On Wednesday, an officer approached the door, punched it, shook the fence, and peeped inside the house.

It is not unusual for China to harass activists ahead of major events.

Jiang has previously served prison time for his work defending those targeted by the Chinese government. Even now that he has been released, officials watch him closely and have surrounded him when he has tried to go to restaurants.

He suffers from swollen legs and pain in his waist, but the officials will not let him seek medical treatment in Beijing.

Wei Zhongping, an activist, has been closely monitored in the past six months since he was released and was warned by authorities about his online speech. On Thursday, May 14, he was summoned by police on the charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble and was still detained at dusk.

Wei had dropped off meals at the home of Liu Ping, another activist, on Thursday morning and was subsequently taken to the Ludong police station in Xinyu by auxiliary police. A police officer showed the summons paper, claiming it is due to his involvement in picking quarrels and provoking trouble. He was detained until that night. The neighborhood committee had also called Wei on the phone the day of his arrest, reminding him that he should report where he goes. Liu estimated that these two occurrences are related.

Liu said, �If he was released, he would contact us immediately. We hope that it can draw others� attention because we are vulnerable. We have been closely monitored since being released, and we can not send anything we want via our cell phones. The neighborhood committee checked in on us multiple times on the excuse of caring for us, asking where we will go.�

She also said that Xinyu�s state security officers with police and leaders of the neighborhood committee came to Wei�s home a couple of weeks ago, warning him, but she didn�t know details. Earlier on, state security officers and police came to Liu�s place as well, warning her not to post anything sensitive, and her WeChat account is often blocked. Liu posted something about the coronavirus on WeChat, and as a result, she received a warning.

Wei was beaten during his last detention, leading to a broken nose and ribs. He filed complaints but never received an explanation. As a result of the abuse, he has poor health and no money for doctor appointments.

On April 28, 2013, Wei, Liu, and fellow activist Li Sihua were arrested because they held banners at the entry of the complex where Liu lives, calling for the release of detained citizens. The three became known as the �Three Xinyu Gentlemen.� On May 7, they were criminally detained by the Xinyu police on the charge of inciting subversion of state power. Later, the charge was changed to �picking quarrels and provoking trouble,� �assembling a crowd to disturb public order,� and �utilizing a cult to obstruct law enforcement.� On June 18, 2014, Wei and Liu were both sentenced to six-and-a-half years and Li to three years. Wei and Liu were released on Oct. 27, 2019.

Wei, a 57-year-old originally from Xiaogan, Hubei, used to work for a steel company in Jiangxi province. He, as an independent candidate, participated in the election of deputies to the National People�s Congress in 2006. In 2009, he met Liu during a labor dispute lawsuit and sued the Xinyu Municipal Labor Supervisory Department for administrative violation on her behalf. He also worked to repeal his steel company�s retirement system.

Chinese authorities must immediately release journalist Zhang Zhan, drop any charges against her, and ensure that the media can cover the coronavirus pandemic without fear of arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Zhang, an independent video journalist who had been posting reports from Wuhan on Twitter and YouTube since early February, went missing in the city on May 14, one day after she published a video critical of the government�s countermeasures to contain the virus, according to news reports.

On May 15, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau issued a notice stating that Zhang had been arrested and detained for �picking quarrels and provoking trouble,� and was being held at the Pudong Xinqu Detention Center, according to those reports.

If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison, according to the Chinese criminal code.

�China professes pride in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but appears deathly afraid of allowing independent journalists like Zhang Zhan to freely tell the story of what is happening,� said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler, in Washington, D.C. �Chinese authorities should free Zhang immediately and allow her to continue the important work of documenting the impact of the disease.�

Since arriving in Wuhan in early February, Zhang posted videos including interviews with local business owners who were severely impacted by the pandemic, and with workers who struggled to find work in the city.

CPJ called the Wuhan Public Security Bureau for comment, but no one answered. An officer at the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau told CPJ to call the Pudong Xinqu Detention Center for information about Zhang�s arrest. CPJ called the center, but no one answered.

Video journalist Chen Quishi, who traveled to Wuhan to report on the pandemic in late January, went missing after telling his family that he planned to visit a temporary hospital on February 6, as CPJ documented at the time.

Freelance journalist Li Zehua, who also went missing in the city after posting two live-stream videos claiming that state security agents were pursuing him on February 26, reappeared two months later claiming that he was quarantined by police because he had been to �sensitive epidemic areas,� according to news reports.

Hong Kong police arrested more than 250 people in Mong Kok on Sunday night following a day of anti-government protests across the city.

A source said about 200 of those were detained on suspicion of unlawful assembly. Earlier in the day, hundreds of protesters gathered in at least 10 shopping malls to chant slogans and sing Glory to Hong Kong, the anthem of the anti-government movement .

Police said they arrested one man who had materials capable of making petrol bombs.

In the evening, a small group of protesters in the busy Mong Kok shopping district attempted to block roads by setting trash and rubbish bins on fire but were quickly dispersed by police.

Officers in riot gear then took up guard on the street, firing pepper spray on a number of occasions, including twice at reporters, and taking away several people.

Democratic Party legislator Roy Kwong Chun-yu, who turned up in Mong Kok to negotiate with police, was subdued by several officers as he crossed a street, with one pressing his knee onto the politician�s head. The party wrote on its Facebook page that Kwong was to be charged with disorderly behaviour and brought to Hung Hom Police Station. Earlier, protesters circulated messages online, urging people to gather in malls by 3pm. The shopping centres included Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui, Cityplaza in Taikoo Shing and Moko Mall in Mong Kok. Since April 26, when hundreds gathered in Cityplaza to chant slogans, Hong Kong has seen a revival of protests, which had died down because of the Covid-19 pandemic .

The protesters had earlier planned a march from Tsim Sha Tsui to Mong Kok demanding the resignation of Hong Kong�s embattled leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. But the event was postponed indefinitely after police objected on the grounds of restrictions on public gatherings to curb the spread of the virus.

In Tsim Sha Tsui, dozens of officers had been on patrol from the early afternoon. At least a dozen people were searched and two were taken to police vehicles. At about 3pm, a crowd of people, including some with placards, gathered on the steps leading to Harbour City. The crowd retreated into the mall after officers marched towards the building, but police did not initially enter the mall and protesters continued to chant slogans.

Shortly after 4pm, police entered the shopping centre, saying there was a public gathering of more than eight people inside. A few people were stopped inside as police cordoned off parts of the mall.

Among those taken away was a 12-year-old boy who claimed to be a student reporter. He was later released after police warned his mother against allowing him to take part in �illegal child labour�.

The boy said: �Police asked me twice if I was working as an illegal child worker, but I explained I was only a volunteer.�

The boy said he was volunteering for Student Depth Media, a student-run news organisation set up this February. The group also issued a statement on its Facebook page and said the boy was working for it on a voluntary basis, and labour laws did not apply. It also said a 16-year-old girl who worked for the group had been taken away by police too.

In Mong Kok, police armed with non-lethal guns also entered Moko Mall in the afternoon, and fired what was believed to be a pepper ball to disperse protesters.

One man was arrested after officers seized items including petrol, towels and several lighters after intercepting a group of protesters, the force later said on its Facebook page.

Police said they did not rule out the possibility the materials, purportedly for making petrol bombs, would be used, seriously endangering public safety.

Officers also entered other malls and told people to leave.

Earlier in the day, police asked media personnel to disperse from Tsim Sha Tsui, warning that they might be violating the ban on public gatherings of more than eight people, a restriction put in place to help halt the spread of Covid-19. A Post reporter was searched despite showing his press card.

During the search, an officer told him: �Don�t play with your phone, smartphones are fragile these days.�

Another officer filmed the journalist after he was asked to remove his mask. He was later let go.

Among the crowd at Harbour City was a family of four celebrating Mother�s Day.

The mother said she was not aware a protest was planned but it did not affect her. �I explained to my daughters what [the protesters] were trying to say,� she said.

A 19-year-old student, who did not want to be named, said he expected protests to become more frequent as the coronavirus came under control locally.

�With or without the ban, people will come out, and those who are out are prepared to be arrested,� he said.

Some shops at Harbour City closed early, but others served customers with shutters closed.

In a statement, a police spokesman said protesters had gathered in various shopping malls across the city, holding banners, shouting slogans and undermining public order.

�Police received reports from the public and entered the malls to enforce the law,� he added, noting that gatherings of more than eight people in public places were prohibited. Protests first broke out in June last year, sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill. The demonstrations later evolved into a wider anti-government movement, with clashes between radical protesters and police turning increasingly violent. With the onset of the coronavirus crisis, the campaign began losing momentum.

Human rights lawyer Zhang Xuezhong was "taken away" by authorities on Sunday after writing an open letter criticising the Chinese government's Covid-19 response, the South China Morning Post reported, citing multiple sources.

According to SCMP, the 43-year-old constitutional scholar was forcibly removed from his Shanghai home on Sunday night after posting the letter on popular social media platform WeChat. The letter was addressed to deputies of China's National People's Congress and called out the country for its lack of a modern constitution and for its stifling of social freedoms, highlighted by the pandemic.

In his letter, seen by SCMP, Zhang said that the handling of the coronavirus pandemic was emblematic of deep-rooted issues within the country's leadership.

"The outbreak and spread of the Covid-19 epidemic is a good illustration of the problem," he wrote.

"Since January 3, 2020, the [Chinese] foreign ministry had been regularly notifying the US government about the epidemic, but the disease control department was not notifying the people of [China] at the same time. Such an irresponsible attitude towards their people's safety is rare," he continued.

"There were few independent professional media to investigate and report on the outbreak, nor did medical professionals provide independent advice to the public � It only shows that the government's long-term tight control of society and people has almost completely destroyed the organisation and self-help capabilities of Chinese society."

Zhang also admonished China's treatment of Li Wenliang, a doctor and coronavirus whistleblower who tried to warn his colleagues about a potential coronavirus outbreak in December. Li was forced by Chinese authorities to sign a letter acknowledging that he was "making false comments"; he later died from the coronavirus.

"Twenty-two days before [the country's first major lockdown] in the city, Wuhan was still investigating and punishing citizens who had disclosed the epidemic, including Dr. Li Wenliang � showing how tight and arbitrary the government's suppression of society is," Zhang said.

Zhang acknowledged that his letter would spark controversy, but encouraged others to speak out.

"The best way to fight for freedom of expression is for everyone to speak as if we already have freedom of speech," he wrote in his WeChat post alongside his letter.

According to SCMP, Zhang was removed from his teaching position at East China University of Political Science and Law in 2013 because of critical statements he made about the Chinese constitution. SCMP said calls to Zhang's mobile phone and messages sent to his WeChat account went unanswered on Monday.

China is known for censoring criticism of its policies, and dissenters have been jailed or disappeared after making complaints. Chinese government censors are working in overdrive to protect the party narrative its been drilling down on the country's response to the novel coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan before spreading worldwide.

Last week, The New York Times reported that the Chinese government was silencing coronavirus survivors who want answers on what went wrong with the country's early coronavirus response.

The international community has also increased pressure on China for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, as well as the country's response to the outbreak early on. The European Commission, Sweden, Australia, and others have been calling on China for more transparency in recent weeks.

Hong Kong police used pepper spray on Friday to disperse over a hundred protesters in a shopping mall who were singing and chanting pro-democracy slogans.

The demonstrators sang the protest anthem "Glory to Hong Kong" and chanted "Glory to Hong Kong, revolution of our times" in the New Town Plaza mall in Hong Kong's New Territories.

As protesters gathered in the mall, riot police stopped and searched some and later told them to leave, saying they were violating social-distancing rules. The police then sprayed tear gas to disperse the crowd before cordoning off the atrium of the mall.

The protest was one of several that went ahead on May 1, Labor Day, despite rules that forbid public gatherings of more than four people.

Small groups of protesters also gathered near Kowloon's Mong Kok and Kwun Tong subway stations.

Organizers initially planned citywide protests but many were canceled, with the organizers urging people to support pro-democracy restaurants instead.

Friday's protests were the latest in a string of demonstrations over the past week in which protesters gathered in shopping malls. They follow the arrest of 15 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers last Saturday.

The demonstrations are a continuation of a movement that began last June to protest an extradition bill that would have allowed detainees in Hong Kong to be transferred to mainland China. Although the bill was later withdrawn, the demonstrations continued for months before a lull starting in January as the coronavirus pandemic broke out.

Chinese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Chen Jieren and his family members and associates, who have been prosecuted over Chen�s exercise of his right to free expression. A Chinese court handed down a 15-year prison sentence on April 30, 2020 to Chen Jieren (???) apparently to punish him for his political speech on WeChat and other social media platforms. After being sacked from various state newspapers including Southern Weekend, China Youth Daily, Beijing Daily, and People�s Daily, Chen published online commentaries and investigative reports on social media, including WeChat and Weibo channels called �Jieren Observation Viewpoint� and �Jieren Observation Heights.�

Guiyang County Court in Hunan Province convicted Chen Jieren of �picking quarrels and provoking trouble,� �extortion and blackmail,� �illegal business activity,� and �bribes� and handed down a 15-year prison sentence and 7.01 million RMB (990,000 USD) fine. The court also convicted his brother Chen Weiren (???) of �picking quarrels� and �extortion and blackmail� charges and sentenced him to four years in prison and a fine of 10,000 RMB (1,400 USD). An associate, Liu Min (??), was exempted from criminal penalties after being convicted of �picking quarrels.�

The Court statement said that Chen �used the information network to publish false or negative information, maliciously exaggerate certain mass incidents, attack and vilify the [Chinese Communist] Party and the government, judicial organs and their staff, instigate troubles, and extort public and private property.�

Hunan authorities violated Chen Jieren�s right to a fair trial. Chen and several of his family members and associates disappeared a few days after he disclosed on his social media channels alleged corruption by local CCP officials in late June-early July 2018. His detention was only confirmed on July 7. On July 16, 2018, Chenzhou City Supervisory Commission told Chen�s lawyers that Chen and his brother were under investigation by the Supervisory Commission and being held in �residential surveillance at a designated location� (RSDL). The brothers� lawyers were denied visits during the RSDL period. On November 12, 2018, Chen Jieren was criminally detained and formally arrested on November 20.

In August 2018, Chinese state media launched a smear campaign, accusing Chen of various crimes and quoted police as saying that his online speech �sabotaged the reputation of the Party and the government and damaged the government�s credibility.� State media published Chen�s �confession� while he was incommunicado in a secret detention facility under RSDL.

Chen graduated from Tsinghua University Law School and previously worked as a reporter for Chinese state newspapers. Chen was fired from China Youth Daily in 2003 for uncovering a prostitution ring involving students at Wuhan University which caused a scandal; he was demoted as editor-in-chief of China Philanthropy Times for criticising a government portal in 2006; and in 2011, sacked from his position in at People�s Daily Online�s Jiangsu Window for �too much criticism of the government.�

Chen�s heavy punishment sends a chilling signal to online independent commentators and citizen jounalists. In 2018, China�s Cyberspace Administration launched a crackdown on �self-media� and ordered hundreds of thousands of social media accounts to be deleted for spreading �politically harmful information� or �vulgar� content. Individual accounts on social media are widely used to post news stories or comments in China. Such publication venues are not registered with the government, though heavily censored, have allowed some independent reporting for at least a short period of time.

China is one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom. It was ranked #177th out of 180 on Reporters Without Border�s 2020 �World Press Freedom Index.� According to a 2019 report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, China is the 5th most censored country in the world. Both press freedom watchdogs have called for Chen Jieren�s release.

Hong Kong independence activist Edward Leung Tin-kei has lost an appeal against his six-year jail sentence for rioting in one of the city�s busiest districts four years ago.

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday also ruled against Lo Kin-man and Wong Ka-kui, who were jailed for seven years and 3� years respectively for rioting on the same night of February 8, 2016, in Mong Kok.

In rejecting the applications, Mr Justice Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor said the trial judge was entitled to pass punitive and deterrent sentences on the trio, whose rioting offences had an immediate and extremely serious impact on the rule of law.

�Sentencing for the offence of riot must reflect the law�s determination to maintain public order, and send a clear message to society and the public that the law does not condone the breach of public order by means of violence,� Poon said, adding that one�s personal belief could not be a mitigating factor.

Poon, chief judge of the High Court, said the offences Leung, 28, committed were extremely serious as he had witnessed how the events unfolded but chose to remain at the scene despite the escalating violence.

He said that, while the trial judge did err in assessing Leung�s liability in the unrest, his overall jail term was not manifestly excessive given the severity of the offence.

The court also dismissed the appeals by Lo and Wong against their sentences, and Lo�s separate appeal against his conviction.

Leung�s lawyers said they would study the appeal court�s judgment before determining whether to lodge a final appeal at the top court. He was expected to serve out his sentence in January 2022.

Leung was the poster boy for the city�s pro-independence movement and the former convenor of the group Hong Kong Indigenous.

He rose to prominence while running in the 2016 Legislative Council elections, but was subsequently banned from taking part for advocating Hong Kong independence, and was jailed in 2018 for his role in the riot.

Leung and Lo were both convicted of rioting during the Mong Kok unrest, which erupted on the first night of the Lunar New Year. Leung and Wong also pleaded guilty respectively to assaulting a police officer and rioting.

During the trial at the Court of First Instance, prosecutors said the riot started out as a scuffle between hawker control officers and street vendors, but quickly descended into violence, during which some 500 protesters set fires on the streets and threw bricks and other objects at police.

A jury found Leung guilty of taking part in a riot on Argyle Street, where he also attacked a traffic officer with a wooden board. The jury also found Lo guilty of rioting on Portland Street at an earlier time.

Madam Justice Anthea Pang Po-kam, who jailed the trio, said the mass unrest was �organised violence� which could not be mitigated by a person�s political aspirations.

At the appeal court, lawyers for the trio argued their sentences were excessive.

Leung�s lawyers said Pang had wrongfully taken into account various aggravating factors in her sentencing consideration, including Leung�s presence in the riot on Portland Street although he was not convicted of taking part.

But the contention was rejected by Poon and appeal justices Carlye Chu Fun-ling and Derek Pang Wai-cheong.

The judges observed that, having witnessed how protesters clashed with police on Portland Street, it was only reasonable for Leung to infer that protesters on Argyle Street would launch similar attacks on officers there, but he still chose to take part.

While accepting that the trial judge was wrong in making Leung liable to an arson incident near the scene despite his lack of involvement, the judges said Leung�s sentence was justified given he had joined a group attack against officers for no reason.

�Even if [Leung�s] motive was to protect local traditions and culture, this could not lessen his culpability for rioting and unjustified use of serious violence on a police officer,� Poon said as he explained the ruling on behalf of the court.

The disturbance in Mong Kok saw 91 people, aged 14 to 70, arrested for rioting, taking part in an unlawful assembly, assaulting police officers or other offences. Of those, 64 were charged and 33 convicted.

Leung still had some supporters while in prison. Last year, he made an emotional appeal from behind bars, urging Hong Kong protesters �not to be dominated by hatred� amid the escalating unrest triggered by the now-withdrawn extradition bill.

Meanwhile, police detained activist Xie Wenfei on April 29 on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble."

Xie is a veteran rights activist in China's Hunan province. He recently has criticized the detention of three young volunteers who archived censored information about COVID-19 online, and questioned the disappearance in Wuhan of citizen journalists Chen Qiushi and Fang Bing. He also signed an online petition to honor the COVID-19 whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang.

"This is not the first arrest," his brother Xie Qiufeng told VOA. "The police didn't tell me anything specific. I think it's about what he had posted on WeChat again."

Born in 1977, Xie Yunfei is a veteran activist who has been detained many times for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly over the years. He previously served a 4.5-year prison sentence for supporting the 2014 Occupy Central protests in Hong Kong.

Xie's friend Ou Biaofeng, who is also an activist, told VOA that he's not surprised about Xie's arrest.

Ou said that in recent years, the government has severely reduced the space for civil liberties by rounding up rights lawyers, labor activists and citizen journalists. He added that anyone who expresses a slightly different opinion online will have their account blocked immediately.

"The pro-democracy movement in China has entered a freezing winter because of the crackdown," he said. "The pressure is just enormous. Also, for the past year or two, there's been less and less support of civil movements. It's quite sad."

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders ranked China near the bottom of its 2020 press freedom index. The group said President Xi is tightening control over news and information and trying to export the country's oppressive surveillance systems.

The Chengdu City Lawyers� Association, a state-run agency, handed out a �professional reprimand� to discipline human rights lawyer Lu Siwei (???) on April 24, 2020. The Discipline Oversight Committee of the Association said in a written document that lawyer Lu violated the rules by representing another human rights lawyer, Chen Jiahong, based in Guangxi region, who has been detained and charged with �inciting subversion of state power.� The written reprimand will stay on lawyer Lu�s record, which may affect him during the annual review of his qualifications for keeping his lawyer�s license.

Lawyer Chen Jiahong was detained in April 2019, soon after he had posted a video on social media in which he criticized the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping, and called for China to move towards a more democratic and constitutional government. His lawyer Lu Siwei had tried to visit him but was blocked until a meeting was finally granted in December 2019. During the meeting, Chen disclosed that he had been subjected to deprivation of sleep, poor quality food, and other forms of mistreatment for refusing to admit guilt under coercion. On March 12, 2020, a Guangxi court notified lawyer Lu that Chen had �dismissed� him. Detaining outspoken lawyers and administratively penalizing these lawyers� lawyers have become routine practice in China. It violates international human rights standard on the right to a fair trial and interferes in the independence of lawyers.

On April 22, 2020, Dongbao District Court in Jingmen City convicted activist Liu Yanli (???) of �picking quarrels and provoking trouble� and sentenced her to four years in prison. Hubei police had criminally detained the activist on the �picking quarrels� charges on November 22, 2018 for �insulting and attacking the Chinese Communist Party� by criticizing former and current state leaders, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Xi Jinping. She was tried on January 31, 2019 and sentenced over a year later on April 22, 2020. She is currently detained at Jingmen City Detention Center. Liu, 44, has been active on her Qzone and WeChat account making comments on democracy and politics since September 2009. Police repeatedly harassed her for her online speech. On September 26, 2016, she was criminally detained for eight months on suspicion of �libel� after she posted and reposted over 10 messages about Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Xi Jinping on her WeChat Moments. On May 25, 2018, she was placed under �residential surveillance� for six months for �libel�.

Family members of Huang Qi, a human rights activist who was re-sentenced to prison for leaking state secrets last year, have been blocked from visiting him on the grounds of the epidemic. Huang�s mother, Pu Wenqing, was also denied a phone call with her son by prison officials.

A friend of Huang Qi's mother, Pu Wenqing, said on Wednesday, April 22 that yesterday, Pu Wenqing called the prison section chief Mr. Yang of Bazhong prison and was told that Huang Qi was serving a sentence in Area Four of the prison, which is for the old, weak and disabled. Due to the epidemic situation, no visit is allowed now. In addition, Pu Wenqing asked for a phone call with his son, but the prison authority said it would have to wait for the leader's approval, and didn't tell her about Huang Qi�s health. He is seriously ill and his family is very worried about his condition.

The friend said, "Pu Wenqing is worried about her son. She hopes she can go to see Huang Qi, or he can make a phone call. And only after speaking with her son on the phone will she stop worrying and feel relieved. She is worried about her son."

Considering Pu is over 80 years old and in poor health, she should be allowed to talk on the phone with her son. After the epidemic is over, visitation should also be permitted.

On July 29, 2019, Huang Qi was sentenced by the Mianyang Intermediate Court to 12 years for intentionally disclosing state secrets and illegally providing state secrets abroad, with four years of deprivation of political rights. He was held in detention for more than two years before being sentenced, during which he was tortured and forced to confess.

Before the latest arrest, Huang Qi, who set up the website "6.4 net" in 1999, has been jailed two times for his speech. In May 2003, he was sentenced by the Chengdu Intermediate Court for five years for inciting subversion of the state power. He was also sentenced by the Wuhou District Court of Chengdu City for three years for the crime of �illegally holding state secrets� in November 2009.

Hong Kong police have arrested 15 high-profile democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly.

The arrests took place just hours after China�s top representative office in the semi-autonomous city declared it is not bound by Hong Kong�s constitutional restrictions that bar Chinese government from interfering in local affairs.

Police arrested prominent figures, including the media tycoon Jimmy Lai and 81-year-old Martin Lee, the founder of the Democratic party and a senior barrister, in the biggest crackdown on the pro-democracy movement since the sometimes violent anti-government protests that have rocked the former British colony since June last year.

The 15 people arrested allegedly organised and took part in unlawful assemblies and police do not rule out that more will be arrested, Supt Lam Wing-Ho said.

Also among the detained were the barrister Margaret Ng, lawyer Albert Ho, labour rights activist Lee Cheuk-yan, former legislators Leung Kwok-hung and Au Nok-hin, and younger activists such as Figo Chan, the vice-convener of the Civil Human Rights Front, which organised several mass protests approved by police last year.

The 15 were accused of joining three unapproved protests on 18 August, 1 October and 20 October last year, local media reported.

Pro-democracy lawmakers say the arrests are an attempt to silence the movement after Chinese officials told Hong Kong to enact national security legislation. Claudia Mo said Beijing was also trying to �terrorise Hong Kong opposition� ahead of the legislative council election in September.

The veteran China watcher, Johnny Lau, said Beijing is trying to hit hard at Hong Kong while the world is busy dealing with Covid-19.

�In Xi Jinping�s eyes this is an opportunity to shuffle the cards and to assert its narrative,� he said. �If the foreign countries turn a blind eye and fail to rein in [China�s power], they would also suffer.�

The arrests came just hours after China�s liaison office asserted in a strongly-worded statement that it and the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) � China�s top bodies overseeing the city�s affairs � are �authorised by the central authorities to handle Hong Kong affairs.�

Earlier this week, the liason office�s chief, Luo Huining, called for controversial national security laws to be urgently passed as accusations of overreach by Beijing into the city�s legislative council and judiciary escalate.

Hong Kong was promised a �high degree of autonomy� for at least 50 years after China resumed control in 1997, under the Sino-British joint declaration. The city�s post-handover mini-constitution, the Basic Law, bars the mainland Chinese government from interfering in Hong Kong affairs, and article 22 states that no department under the Chinese central and local governments �may interfere in the affairs which the Hong Kong special administrative region administers on its own in accordance with this law.�

But the liaison office statement, published late on Friday, asserts that �a high degree of autonomy is not complete autonomy.� It stresses that Hong Kong�s right to self-rule is �authorised by the central government.�

The statement argues that the liaison office and the HKMAO �are not what is referred to in article 22 of the Basic Law, or what is commonly understood to be �departments under the central people�s government�.� It adds that the offices derive their authority both from China�s constitution and the Basic Law.

This week, pro-democracy lawmakers accused the Chinese government of �blatant intervention� and violation of article 22 of the Basic Law after the HKMAO said some lawmakers were guilty of misconduct in public office for delaying bills, failing to appoint a House committee chairman and paralysing the legislature by filibustering.

The liaison office statement said people who made such allegations were distorting the Basic Law and misleading public opinion, adding that �loyalty to the country is a necessary requirement� for lawmakers.

China law expert Prof Jerome Cohen at the New York University descibed China�s statement is �astounding and incendiary�. Test and trace: lessons from Hong Kong on avoiding a coronavirus lockdown Read more

�If taken seriously, it collapses the whole one country, two systems edifice that was constructed over so many years since the joint declaration,� he said.

Prof Michael Davis, a global fellow at the Wilson Center and former law professor at the University of Hong Kong, said China�s aggressive language would �result in further pushback� from Hong Kong society, which has already experienced its most severe political crisis.

�The danger is that Hong Kong�s autonomy will be squandered and this has implications for all countries that have relied on the promises made to Hong Kong,� he said. �This fear that Hong Kong�s autonomy will be lost, along with it the rule of law, is what has driven the many protests in Hong Kong and international concern.�

Alvin Cheung, a legal scholar specialising in Hong Kong issues at New York University, said: �[The fact that] Beijing is not even pretending to keep up appearances heralds a dark new stage in Hong Kong�s post-1997 development � It suggests repression will intensify further.�

A Foreign & Commonwealth Office spokesperson said in a statement that the UK government was concerned about the arrests and stressed that the right to peaceful protest was �protected in both the joint declaration and the Basic Law�.

�It is essential that any protests are conducted peacefully, and that the authorities avoid actions that inflame tensions. The authorities should focus on rebuilding trust through a process of meaningful political dialogue,� the statement said.

Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, said while the world�s attention is focused on the covid-19 epidemic, Beijing has taken �yet another step towards burying one-country, two-system� and the arrests show that �Beijing is determined to throttle Hong Kong�.

He said the liaison office�s claim that it is not bound by the basic law is �a reckless argument which shows that Xi Jinping is determined to abandon the policies pursued by his predecessors, even at the cost of destroying Hong Kong�s way of life�.

�It should be rejected immediately by all those governments and parliaments around the world who know the importance of safe-guarding the high degree of autonomy which is guaranteed by the Basic Law.�

Lee, often dubbed the �Father of Democracy� in Hong Kong and a drafter of the Basic Law, said after he was released on bail that he had �no regrets� and felt �proud to walk the road of democracy with the outstanding youths in Hong Kong�.

On 17 April 2020, the Cangshan District Court in Fuzhou city, Fujian province found human rightsdefenders Lin Lanying (???), Lin Yingqiang (???), and Tang Zhaoxing (???) guilty of�picking quarrel and provoking trouble�. Lin Yingqiang and Tang Zhaoxing were both sentenced tothree years in prison whilst Lin Lanying was sentenced to one year and ten months. He Zongwang(???), a human rights defender who was detained along with the three in September 2018, wastried separately and sentenced in August 2019.Lin Lanying is a long time petitioner and woman human rights defender in Fuxhou, focusingprimarily on actions to support prosecuted or imprisoned human rights defenders. Lin Yingqiang isa petitioner and land rights defender in Fuzhou. Since 2004, he has initiated and participated inadvocacy and public protests to support local farmers who have had their land appropriated by theauthorities without adequate compensation. Tan Zhaoxing is a petitioner and human rightsdefender in Fuzhou and has participated in advocacy and public actions to support and raiseawareness about the persecution of local political activists and human rights defenders. HeZongwang is a petitioner and human rights defender in Fuqing city, Fujian province. Heparticipated in advocacy and public protests, including those aimed at raising awareness of socialinjustice and persecution of human rights defenders. Both Lin Yingqiang and He Zongwang havebeen previously detained for their works as human rights defenders. On the morning of 12 September 2018, a group of more than 30 local human rights defendersgathered in front of the Fuzhou No. 1 Detention Centre to welcome the release of imprisonedhuman rights defender Yan Xingsheng (???). They gave flowers to him, took group photos, andset off firecrackers which is a traditional practice aimed at warding off negative energy and oftenused for the occasion of prison release. As the group of defenders began to disperse, they werecorralled and detained by police officers waiting nearby. Over the course of a month, most of thedetained human rights defenders were released, except for Lin Lanying, Lin Yingqian, TangZhaoxing and He Zongwang.Lin Lanying, Lin Yingqiang and Tang Zhaoxing were initially criminally detained on the charge of�gathering a crowd to disrupt public order� and later formally arrested on the charge of �pickingquarrel and provoking trouble�, a vague public order offence often used to prosecute human rightsdefenders and peaceful protesters in recent years. They were tried on 22 November 2019. HeZongwang was prosecuted separately and tried by a different court in Fuzhou for �picking quarreland provoking trouble� and �fabricating and intentionally disseminating false information�. He wassentenced on 30 August 2019 to four years in prison.In the official verdict issued on 17 April 2020, the Cangshan Court wrote that the three defenders,joined by other petitioners, had engaged in seven public assemblies in 2018 in front of courts,detention centres, and convention centres while international conferences were being held. Duringthe trial in November 2019, the lawyers defending the three defenders argued that the prosecutor�sassertion that these actions had �stirred up disturbances� and �seriously disturbed public order�was not backed up by the �evidence� they presented, including video footage of some of theprotests in question. The defence lawyers argued that the prosecution of their clients was a reprisalagainst their peaceful activism. Front Line Defenders condemns the court verdicts given on 30 August 2019 and 17 April 2020,and the sentencing of Lin Lanying, Lin Yingqiang, Tang Zhaoxing and He Zongwang to prison, as itbelieves that they are a direct reprisal against their legitimate human rights work, and the exerciseof their freedom of assembly and of expression, which are guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution.

Three Chinese volunteers who helped to publish censored Covid-19 articles on Github, the world�s largest open-source website, have been detained by police at an unknown location, according to a source close to them.

The trio � Cai Wei, his girlfriend, a woman surnamed Tang, and Chen Mei � were contributors to a crowd-sourced project known as Terminus2049 that began in 2018 and collected articles that had been removed from mainstream media outlets and social media.

Microsoft-owned Github lets programmers collaborate on code, but has increasingly become a haven for Chinese activists who want to circumvent the Great Firewall to publish censored content.

There are other archives on GitHub that collect coronavirus-related articles and personal accounts found on mainstream and social media, and some of these projects say they hope to keep a record to help people better �understand the epidemic and the people affected by it�.

Terminus2049 appeared to be blocked in mainland China on Saturday.

The three Beijing-based volunteers went missing on April 19, the source, who declined to give her name for fear of retaliation, told the South China Morning Post. Their families and friends then called the police, who initially denied knowledge of their whereabouts.

�About five days later, the families of Cai and Tang received official notices from the Chaoyang district bureau of the Beijing police,� the source said. �During the first few days they did not admit they took them.�

According to the notices, Cai and Tang were being kept under police surveillance at an unnamed location for �picking quarrels and provoking trouble�.

Chen�s family has not yet received any notification from the police.

�They had regular contact with their families and friends. Now that they have been taken, their families and friends are distraught beyond imagination,� the source said.

The Chaoyang police bureau could not be reached for comment.

Among the articles and personal accounts published by the project, one of the most well known is an interview with Ai Fen, a whistle-blower doctor at the Wuhan Central Hospital. The article was published by China�s People magazine in early March but was removed within hours.

Ai, who said she had been muzzled by the authorities for raising the alarm without permission at the start of the outbreak, posted an image of a diagnostic report on social network WeChat on December 30, showing that a patient had a pneumonia infection caused by a Sars-like coronavirus.

Some of the information she released was also shared by Li Wenliang, the doctor who was detained by the authorities and who later died from Covid-19.

After the removal of Ai�s article, angry members of the public published dozens of different versions on social media, using emojis, code words and different languages � even invented ones such as Elvish and Klingon � to bypass the censors.

Earlier this week, citizen journalist Li Zehua re-emerged after going missing for two weeks. He said he had been held in a quarantine centre in Wuhan before being sent to isolation in his hometown.

But the whereabouts of Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin, two other citizen journalists who disappeared in Wuhan in early February, remain unknown.

Chen, a lawyer and citizen journalist, arrived in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in China, on the last train before the lockdown.

He also attended a protest in Hong Kong last year and posted videos of pro-democracy rallies, after which the authorities shut down his Chinese social media accounts and ordered him to return to the mainland.

Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who was jailed for four and a half years for subversion, has been released from prison but barred from reuniting with his wife and son in Beijing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

His wife, Li Wenzu, fears that the authorities are using the pandemic as an excuse to hold him under de facto house arrest indefinitely. She said Wang has been released from prison but authorities had sent him to his home town, Jinan, in the north-eastern province of Shandong (400km south of Beijing) for quarantine.

Chinese authorities have been using compulsory quarantine as a pretext to detain or restrict the movements of government critics.

�The government is continuing to restrict his personal freedoms and forcing us to be separated,� Li told the Guardian. �This behaviour is shameless, I�m absolutely opposed to this and am very angry.

�I fear the government is using the pandemic as an excuse to detain him. Would it be just 14 days as they say? I can�t trust them. So long as my husband has no freedom, I�ll continue to fight until he comes back.� Chinese human rights lawyer �totally changed man� after being jailed Read more

Wang called his wife from the prison yesterday telling her to refrain from going to meet him in prison. In a recording she posted on Twitter, Wang said he had to be quarantined �for some time� due to the pandemic. When Li, who has been frequently harassed by the authorities, angrily asked whether he was prompted to say that under duress, he said: �We�ll be back together, but there�ll be a process.�

�The Linyi prison� forced Quanzhang to �persuade� me into accepting the arrangement of sending him to Jinan. I absolutely oppose it,� Li said on Twitter: �Wang Quanzhang needs real freedom, our family needs to be reunited.�

In a practice dubbed �non-release release� by respected China law expert Jerome Cohen at the New York University, Chinese rights activists are often released from prison into de facto house arrest or enforced restriction to their native village, where they remain for years.

�What will Wang Quanzhang�s �release� on April 5 amount to?� asked Cohen in his blog.

Wang, a lawyer who had taken on politically sensitive cases and defended activists and members of the banned religious group Falun Gong, was sentenced to jail in January 2019 on the blanket charge of �subversion of state power�.

He was one of more than 300 lawyers and activists detained in a wave of crackdowns that started in July 2015. He was the last lawyer of the group to be convicted, with his trial taking place three-and-a-half years after he was taken away by the authorities.

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hubei have formally arrested a woman on public order charges after she organized local people to protest against price-gouging on essential goods during the coronavirus lockdown.

Police in Hubei's Yingcheng city formally arrested Zeng Chunzhi on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" on April 17, an overseas rights group reported.

Zeng had organized a protest in which hundreds of residents in a housing compound in Haishan district took part, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said in a statement on its website.

Local residents shouted slogans calling for the local neighborhood committee to be fired in the March 12 protest, after it charged them higher prices on essential goods they couldn't easily get elsewhere.

Zeng was placed under administrative detention on March 27, then held under criminal detention on April 9.

She is currently being held at Yingcheng Detention Center, CHRD said.

"The residents� protest came as small business owners in Wuhan reportedly protested outside a shopping mall on April 10 for rent relief on their shops which have been shut down due to coronavirus restrictions," it said.

Social and political tensions rose throughout the lockdowns imposed in Hubei and its provincial capital Wuhan, which were first to be hit by the coronavirus epidemic after its emergence in Wuhan.

Food prices skyrocketed as hundreds of millions were prevented from traveling or accessing supplies without official passes and permits, while aid and food donations were being commandeered or left to rot owing to corruption or a lack of delivery infrastructure, residents told RFA at the time.

In early March, residents of a housing project in Wuhan heckled vice premier Sun Chunlan with shouts of "Fake!" after being told to stay home during the official visit.

Residents complained that the neighborhood committee had failed to ensure a supply of fresh food to residents, contrary to the claims they made to Sun.

On March 5, police in Beijing detained Chen, a filmmaker who recently shot a documentary on Chinese activist and scholar Xu Zhiyong, according to an open letter written by his wife and shared on Facebook by the Southern Idiot Observation Group, a human rights group, on April 12.

Beijings Haidian Public Security Bureau is holding Chen under residential surveillance at a designated location,a form of extrajudicial detention, and he was charged with subversion of state power, according to the letter.

Detaining Chen Jiaping for filming a documentary on a subject the Chinese government doesnt like is absurd, said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJs program director, in New York. Chinese authorities should drop all charges against Chen Jiaping, release him immediately, and allow him to continue his work.

Authorities repeatedly denied Chens wifes requests to see the filmmaker and pressured her to keep quiet about the arrest, according to the letter. She published the letter on Chen�s 50th birthday on April 12, signed with �your love.� It does not include her name.

Police confiscated Chens unreleased documentary materials about Xu, who was arrested on February 15 in Guangzhou for attending a human rights activists gathering in late 2019, and told Chens wife that they worried the documentarian would continue to make mistakes,according to the letter and news reports.

When CPJ called the Haidian Public Security Bureau for comment, an officer said he was not familiar with Chens case, but said that the bureau complied with the law. He said if Chen broke the law, he would be a target for arrest.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a nonprofit advocating for press freedom, has urged Beijing to free journalists and political commentators and stop censoring information about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China.

RSF pointed out that two citizen journalists, Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin, and two political commentators, Guo Quan and Xu Zhiyong, were arrested in early February in connection with their social media posts about the outbreak, in a statement published on Feb. 24.

“Censorship is clearly counter-productive in the fight against an epidemic and can only aggravate it or even help turn it into a pandemic,” said Cédric Alviani, the head of RSF’s East Asia bureau, in the statement.

“Only complete transparency will enable China to minimize the spread of false rumors and convince the population to follow the health and safety instructions recommended for curbing the epidemic.”

Guo, a human rights activist and a former assistant professor at Nanjing Normal University, was arrested on Jan. 31 after he posted about the coronavirus. He was then held at a detention center in Nanjing, the capital of eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, according to Radio Free Asia.

Over the past month, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has marshalled the country’s public security apparatus to track down and detain known activists and ordinary citizens who have shared information about the coronavirus outbreak, provided on-the-ground updates from the epicenter, or reflected upon the epidemic’s implications for China’s governance model.

But parts of the regime have also gone on the offensive against its political enemies more broadly, raising new questions about where party leaders’ priorities lie during a public health crisis and how far they will go to maintain their hold on power.

Muzzling Sources of Independent Information

The disappearance of three Chinese citizen journalists who had been live-streaming updates from Wuhan has drawn international attention. The three men — businessman Fang Bin, lawyer Chen Qiushi, and former journalist Li Zehua — had separately recorded and disseminated video reports from inside the locked-down city, its hospitals, and its quarantine centers. Over the past month, all three have vanished into some form of custody, detained by police or possibly quarantined despite their reported good health.

While these cases are widely known, in part due to the men’s international contacts and the potency of their videos, there are many more like them. Media reports, updates from human rights groups, and posts on local government websites from the past month indicate that similar measures are being taken by authorities far from Wuhan. Tan Zuoren, an online activist and former political prisoner in Sichuan province, received multiple visits by police and had his account on the WeChat social media platform frozen.

The number of citizen journalists to disappear in China in the last month after reporting on COVID-19 has risen to at least three, with reports that former journalist Li Zehua was arrested on February 26. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said the disappearances are a grave concern for the international media community and urges China’s authorities to provide transparent information on their whereabouts and grant their immediate release. It also reminded of the vital need to respect the international community’s right to information.

Li Zehua, a citizen journalist in Wuhan who had been reporting about the reality of life inside Wuhan since its lockdown, had uploaded a video of being chased and arrested on February 26. He has not been heard from since then.

Li, who previously worked at China’s state broadcaster CCTV, came to Wuhan independently and uploaded a video on YouTube of him being chased. Wearing a face mask underneath a baseball cap, he recorded the video while driving. He is recorded as saying: “I’m on the road and someone, I don’t know, state security, has started chasing me. I’m driving very fast. Help me.” The final part of the video shows two men in plain clothes entering an apartment and then cuts out. According to news reports, the live stream was posted on Weibo, but later deleted. It is now posted on YouTube.

Three Chinese citizen journalists, who had live-streamed updates from the locked-down city of Wuhan, its hospitals and quarantine centres, disappeared over the past month. The IFJ issued a statement on the disappearances of businessman Fang Bin and lawyer Chen Qiushi on February 11. Freedom House said today that “all three have vanished into some form of custody, detained by police or possibly quarantined despite their reported good health”. Other than the disappearances and possible arrests of citizen journalists, the IFJ has documented reports of online media being censored, including We Tencent’s website and WeChat account which disappeared after publication of an article entitled “The 50 days of Wuhan pneumonia: Chinese people are all paying the price of the death of media”.

Taking effect from March 1, China’s authorities stated ‘content should be mainly positive, uplifting and devoid of rumours’. According to reports, the regulations also list examples of what is unacceptable – content “harming national honour and interests”, “spreading rumours, disrupting economic and social order”, “content that embodies sexual innuendo … horror and brutality, vulgarity” and “inappropriate commentary on natural disasters and major accidents”. The authorities will also hold service providers, content producers and service users accountable for such content.

Media reports, updates from human rights groups, and posts on local government websites indicate that similar measures are being taken by authorities far from Wuhan, according to Freedom House. It noted the cases In Shandong Province of prodemocracy activist Ren Ziyuan, who was sent to 15 days of administrative detention for criticizing the government’s management of the epidemic online

Li Zehua's apparent detention comes amid reports of a comprehensive cover-up of early research into the COVID-19 coronavirus.

State Broadcaster-Turned-Citizen Journalist Incommunicado in Virus-Hit Wuhan

A former news anchor with China's state broadcaster CCTV who quit his job to report from the front line of the coronavirus epidemic in the central province of Hubei is incommunicado, believed detained.

Li Zehua, who had quit his state-approved job at the behemoth broadcaster to dedicate himself to telling the truth about the epidemic via YouTube, went suddenly off air for the last time on Wednesday after reporting being followed.

"I'm suddenly being chased down by the state security police. The car they're driving isn't a police car," Li tells the camera after being hassled and obstructed for days by local officials and security guards as he traveled around Wuhan reporting on the epidemic, including the round-the-clock operation of crematoriums in the city.

"They're chasing me, so I can't livestream any more. I will just have to leave you with this clip," Li says. "I'm in Wuhan right now. I'm driving really fast because they're chasing me."

"I'm sure that they want to hold me in isolation. Please help me!" he says.

Later, Li returned to where he was staying, but there was a knock at the door, and he eventually allowed the people outside to come in, and the camera was abruptly turned off. He had earlier claimed that the source of the virus was the P4 laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Li saw himself as the willing successor of previous citizen journalists who have since disappeared from Wuhan after reporting on the harsh reality of the epidemic for millions of the city's residents.

Citizen journalist Fang Bin has stopped reporting since he was detained by police, while Chen Qiushi is incommunicado, believed detained.

In one of Li's early videos, he says: "If one Chen Qiushi falls, 10 million more Chen Qiushi's will stand up to take his place."

A veteran journalist surnamed Zhang said Li is 25 years old, and likely has yet to become disillusioned by journalism in China.

"He may be young ... but he has a very clear head," Zhang said. But he said he wasn't optimistic about the outcome for Li.

"Zhao Kezhi, minister for public security, has just made a speech saying that political stability must be prioritized above everything else, so I don't think that bodes well for his situation there in Wuhan," he said.

Li, a recent graduate of the Jiaotong University, resigned his job as on-air talent on CCTV-7, and starting reporting from Wuhan on Feb. 16.

Report on cover-up

A recent report by cutting-edge news organization Caixin showed that officials ordered that samples and papers linked to the discovery of COVID-19 be destroyed, citing a Wuhan Health Commission directive dated Jan. 1.

The existence and characteristics of the virus were shared with a number of public health bodies and health commissions at regional and national level.

It said Hubei hospitals, health officials, disease control centers (CDCs), and district governments all directly participated in the cover-up, ensuring that earlier findings didn't make their way into the hands of a task-force of health experts sent by the ruling Chinese Communist Party's central leadership in Beijing.

Members of the expert group told Caixin that it was the lack of precisely this lack of information that led them to conclude that the virus wasn't being transmitted from person to person.

Two reports were published on the cover-up by Caixin and sister-site Caijing, but have since been deleted.

A former Communist Party official surnamed Cao told RFA that the order to suppress the information must have come from the highest echelons of leadership for it to be so uniformly suppressed by so many departments.

President Xi Jinping has previously said that he personally directed the response to the coronavirus epidemic from its early stages.

Chen Qiushi, an outspoken Chinese lawyer and citizen journalist, has been missing since February 7, after telling family he planned to visit Wuhan’s hospitals. The IFJ urges Chinese authorities to immediately disclose the location of Chen and ensure journalists freedom of movement and safety from intimidation when reporting.

Chen Qiushi is an influential citizen journalist with more than 400,000 followers on YouTube, 250,000 followers on Twitter and 740,000 on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. The journalist travelled from Beijing to Wuhan on January 24 where he filmed and reported about the situation in Wuhan, covering the lack of resources to deal with the epidemic, the lack of capacity at hospitals, the rising death tolls and the misconduct of civil servants. Chen livestreamed interviews with patients through Weibo, allowing them to speak out about the coronavirus. Since Chen’s disappearance his Weibo account has been taken down.

Chen’s mother said her family lost contact with Chen on February 7. At 6pm that day, he told his family he would visit Feng Cang hospital in Wuhan to talk to patients with the coronavirus. Authorities are reported to have since told Chen’s family that he is being forcibly quarantined in an undisclosed location.

As a citizen journalist, Chen is known for closely following a number of cases, including the detention of citizen journalist Fang Bin and the interrogation of activist Hu Jia by Chinese authorities. Chen also travelled from Bejing to Hong Kong in August 2019 to report on the anti-government protests. Chen was quoted in Hong Kong as saying that authorities ‘advised’ him to return to China.

The IFJ said: “We are incredibly concerned by the disappearance of Chen Qiushi. Journalists, including citizen journalists, are critically needed during national emergencies in imparting stories from everyday people and providing insights that may greatly assist the public’s right to information and inform response efforts in times of crisis. The IFJ calls on Chinese authorities to immediately disclose the location of Chen, allow him contact with his family and to provide guarantees for his safety.”

Chinese authorities should immediately and unconditionally release a well-known anti-corruption activist who had eluded arrest after a new government crackdown on rights activists, Human Rights Watch said today. On February 15, 2020, authorities in Guangzhou apprehended Xu Zhiyong at a friend’s home where he had gone after authorities in December detained participants of a gathering on human rights in Fujian province.

Xu, 46, is one of China’s most prominent activists and human rights advocates. He was a co-founder of the now-banned legal aid center Open Constitution Initiative and the New Citizens’ Movement, a nongovernmental group advocating for civil rights.

“President Xi Jinping claims the government is ‘open’ and ‘transparent,’ but the authorities have without basis detained one of the country’s best-known anti-corruption advocates,” said Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of arbitrarily detaining Xu Zhiyong and other human rights activists, the Chinse government should listen to what they have to say.”

In late December 2019, police across the country began to detain participants of a December 7 and 8 gathering in Xiamen, Fujian province, where they discussed human rights and China’s political future. On December 26, in what has become known as the 12.26 crackdown, authorities detained prominent human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, scholar Zhang Zhongshun, and activists Dai Zhenya and Li Yingjun. Since then, Xu had been traveling to different cities, updating his Twitter account, and criticizing the government’s authoritarian rule and its mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak.

It is unclear what charges authorities might bring against Xu. Police had accused the four men detained in December of “inciting subversion” – a crime that carries up to 15 years in prison – and placed them under “residential surveillance in a designated location,” a form of enforced disappearance in which police can hold individuals in undisclosed locations for up to six months. This places them outside the formal detention system, denying them access to legal counsel and family members, and increasing the risk of torture and ill-treatment.

Hours after the police took Xu away, his girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a Beijing-based women’s rights and labor rights activist, also went missing. In January 2020, Beijing police searched Xu’s home, detained Li for 24 hours, and denied her adequate medicine in the detention center.

Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal activist, went silent over the weekend. His girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a social activist, has gone missing.

He portrayed China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as hungry for power. He accused Mr. Xi of trying to cover up the coronavirus outbreak in central China. In one of his most daring writings, he urged Mr. Xi to resign, saying, “You’re just not smart enough.”

Then, over the weekend, Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal activist, went silent. The authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou detained him on Saturday, according to Mr. Xu’s friends, after he spent nearly two months in hiding. His girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a social activist, went missing on Sunday, Mr. Xu’s friends said.

The activist is the latest critic to be caught up in Mr. Xi’s far-reaching efforts to limit dissent in China. The crackdown, which has ensnared scores of activists, lawyers, journalists and intellectuals, is likely to intensify as the ruling Communist Party comes under broad attack for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, one of its biggest political challenges in years.

Mr. Xu, a 46-year-old former university lecturer, has long railed against government corruption and social injustice in China. He went into hiding in December as the police began rounding up human rights activists who met with him in the eastern city of Xiamen.

While in hiding, Mr. Xu continued to publish blunt critiques of Mr. Xi on social media, accusing him of leading a dictatorship.

He also criticized Mr. Xi’s handling of the outbreak in the central province of Hubei that has killed at least 1,770 people in China and sickened more than 70,000. In one of his last writings before he was detained, Mr. Xu mourned the death of a doctor in Wuhan whom the police had silenced after he warned about the virus.

“In their hearts,” Mr. Xu said of party leaders, “there is no right and wrong, no conscience, no bottom line, no humanity.”

Mr. Xu, a firebrand who has spent decades pushing for political reforms, has long clashed with the Chinese government.

He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 for “gathering a crowd to disturb public order,” a charge that stemmed from his role organizing the New Citizens Movement, a grass-roots effort against corruption and social injustice in Chinese society.

It is unclear what charges the authorities might bring against Mr. Xu. The circumstances of the disappearance of his girlfriend, Ms. Li, were also ambiguous. The police in Guangzhou did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Xu’s friends defended his actions.

“It is within the scope of freedom of speech under the Chinese Constitution,” said Hua Ze, an activist based in New Jersey and a friend of Mr. Xu who confirmed his detention.

Faced with growing public anger over the coronavirus outbreak, China’s leader has cited a need to “strengthen the guidance of public opinion,” a term that often refers to blocking independent news reporting and censoring critical comments on Chinese social media.

Many free-speech activists worry that the party, which is concerned about maintaining its control, is tightening the reins of public discourse despite a growing perception that the silencing of doctors and others who tried to raise alarms has enabled the virus to spread more widely.

Two video bloggers who attracted wide attention for their dispatches from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, have gone missing.

Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization, said the detention of Mr. Xu showed that the authorities had no intention of loosening restrictions on speech.

“The Chinese government persists in its old ways: silencing its critics rather than listening to people who promote rights-respecting policies that actually solve problems,” she said.

In response to today’s arrest of media tycoon Jimmy Lai and two other pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong on charges of “unlawful assembly” for their participation in largely peaceful mass protests on 31 August 2019, Director of Amnesty International Hong Kong Man-Kei Tam said:

“These unjustifiable arrests are a shameless attempt to harass and silence those in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. It continues the pattern of the authorities using politically motivated charges to suppress opposition voices.

“The vast majority of people taking part in the 31 August protests were exercising their right to peaceful assembly. Peaceful protests do not require authorization and are therefore not ‘unlawful’, as the Hong Kong authorities claim.

“With the six-month anniversary of the 31 August protests due to be marked by activists this weekend, this merely appears to be the police’s way of intimidating anyone planning to take part.

“This continued assault on freedom of expression and assembly in Hong Kong only underlines the urgent need for an independent inquiry into the heavy-handed tactics used by police against protesters since last year.”

Background

On Friday police arrested founder of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily Jimmy Lai and opposition politicians Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum for “unlawful assembly”.

The Hong Kong Police had banned the protests on 31 August 2019, but hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters took to the street defying the ban.

As the protest went on, some protesters threw bricks and petrol bombs at police. The police for the first time deployed blue dye in water cannons in response – to indiscriminately mark people for identification later. On the same evening, riot police stormed into train carriages at Prince Edward metro station and beat up passengers. Two live warning shots were also fired by the police near Causeway Bay.

The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly expressed concern that the application of “unlawful assembly” against Hong Kong protesters risks violating their human rights. According to police figures, from June to December 2019 the Hong Kong police banned 47 out of 537 applications for public processions or meetings.

Police in eastern China told the lawyer of a civil rights activist on Friday that his client was being investigated for alleged incitement of subversion as part of a government crackdown on dissent that started late last year.

Lawyer Peng Jian, who represented Ding Jiaxi, said he was told by police in Yantai, Shandong province, that the 53-year-old activist was officially under investigation and that his request to meet Ding had been rejected.

Ding is being held under “residential surveillance” – a form of secretive detention – and is barred from contacting his family or lawyer. According to Peng, if Ding is finally charged and convicted, he could face a jail term of up to 15 years since it was his second run-in with the law in five years. The activist was sentenced to 3½ years in prison in 2014 for disrupting public order and was released in October 2016.

“He is now held for the second time in five years,” Peng said. “If he is convicted again, he may face a stiff sentence.”

Calls to Yantai police for comment were not answered.

Ding was among a number of dissidents – including Zhang Zhongshun, Dai Zhenya and Li Yingjun – who were taken away by the authorities in the last week of December after attending a private dinner for about 20 people in Xiamen, Fujian province. After the detentions, police searched the flat of Xu Zhiyong, a Beijing-based civil rights activist , and interrogated his girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, prompting him to go into hiding, Xu wrote on Twitter.

Ding was a lawyer specialising in human rights cases before he was jailed and stripped of his licence in 2014. He was also a key figure in the New Citizens’ Movement, a group that advocates working within the system for political change, including urging officials to publicly disclose their wealth.

According to Ding’s wife, Luo Shengchun, her husband has continued his activism to raise public awareness of civil rights since his release in 2016.

Luo, who lives in the United States with the couple’s two daughters, said the rejection of Peng’s request to meet his client had raised concerns that Ding might have been tortured in custody.

“He believes that democracy and freedom are the fundamental human rights of a person,” Luo said.

“I can’t understand – how can a man of such moderate ideas be accused of inciting subversion?” she said. “This shows how fragile the authority is as it cannot tolerate even the mildest, most rational and peaceful expression of civil rights.”

Neither Ding’s family members in China nor Peng have received the official documents notifying them of Ding’s detention or arrest.

Zhang and Dai are also under residential surveillance but Li’s status is not known.

Zhang, a former university lecturer in Shandong, was accused of inciting subversion after police claimed to have found 245 bullets at his home, according to his daughter Zhang Mofei.

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, denounced the crackdown on the activists.

“If discussing the need for official transparency over a meal is now considered ‘inciting subversion of state power’, then a lot of officials should be investigated as well … To accuse them of serious crimes and deny them the basic rights to a fair trial is a powerful statement about President Xi [Jinping]’s rule,” Richardson said.

Hong Kong police have been accused of violating international law and making arbitrary arrests after three human rights observers were among hundreds detained en masse following a march on New Year’s Day.

But the force denied the accusation and said that no one – including journalists, first-aiders and observers – had the right to stay in a “riot”. More than a third of those intercepted by police in Causeway Bay on Wednesday were released.

Civil Rights Observer on Thursday confirmed three of its volunteers were arrested the night before and said that the move violated the Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, which stated monitors should not be denied access to areas when they believed a violation of human rights was being committed.

“It is the first time any of our observers have been arrested since the team was set up in 2018,” the group said. “We strongly condemn police for these indiscriminate arrests.”

Tam Man-kei, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, also said the targeting of independent monitors was “especially disturbing” as they were essential to ensure full accountability.

On Wednesday, a march organised by the Civil Human Rights Front was cut short three hours after it started, with police citing violence in a branch of HSBC.

The violence then escalated as radical protesters spilled out into Causeway Bay, Wan Chai and Central, where they vandalised more bank branches, set fires and barricaded roads.

Later, police made mass arrests outside Sogo department store, where at one point around 70 people were seen being made to squat on the ground as they were searched and processed.

Some complained they had done nothing wrong, but were trapped after police cordoned off a sizeable area.

A total of 464 people were intercepted in Causeway Bay, of whom 287 were arrested for unlawful assembly, according to the police. The other 177 were released.

A 12-year-old primary school student and an 81-year-old citizen were among the 420 people arrested on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Eric Lai Yan-ho, deputy convenor of the front, said it was unreasonable to detain people without sufficient evidence then release them hours later.

“They were forced to kneel on the streets. It is unacceptable.”

Chief Superintendent Kwok Ka-chuen on Thursday said they had given repeated warnings for everyone to leave the scene.

“No one has the privilege to stay in a riot,” Kwok said. “You can claim to be a first-aider [or] a human rights observer. But this does not exempt you from the legal liability of taking part in a riot.”

Ng Lok-chun, senior superintendent of Hong Kong Island, denied police had made arbitrary mass arrests.

“When we had our first dispersal operation yesterday, rallygoers left. Those who came out again deliberately blocked roads,” Ng said.

Police had set up a cordon as they could not be sure whether the arrestees posed a risk to others and also to prevent any attempts to snatch arrested people away, Ng added.

Lai also attacked the force for its “unprecedented and disproportionate” decision to cut short the march, setting an “impossible” time frame of 45 minutes for the huge crowd to leave. He said it had risked a stampede.

“Many people didn’t know how to leave safely and didn’t take the trains for fear of arrest even though they only marched peacefully.”

Organisers were told at 5.30pm to call off the march, but were initially given 30 minutes – then an additional 15 minutes – to disperse the crowd.

“It was the first time a march of the scale of 1 million people was cut short,” Lai said. “With only 100-odd helpers and many people still stuck in Victoria Park, it was impossible to disband a procession like this.”

The group estimated more than 1.03 million people took part in the march, while police put the turnout at 47,000 in the procession and another 13,000 at the park.

Ng stressed police had only started advancing on Arsenal Street at 6.30pm and fired tear gas at around 7pm, which was 90 minutes after the ending time of the march.

But police had fired the first round of tear gas at protesters at around 5pm, shortly after the HSBC branch on Hennessy Road was vandalised.

In response to an incident during which a police officer forcibly removed the protective goggles of lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung and pepper-sprayed him in Causeway Bay on Wednesday night, Senior Superintendent Kelvin Kong Wing-cheung said that Hui had ignored repeated orders to get back on the pavement.

“He refused to cooperate and resisted. My colleagues issued warnings that pepper spray might be used. I don’t know if it was because he was wearing goggles, he was not afraid,” Kong said. “So my colleagues removed his goggles and used pepper spray to make the dispersal effective.”

Hui on Thursday vowed to launch legal action.

Chinese police have launched a nationwide operation detaining at least eight people and questioning others, following a Dec. 13 meeting of liberal-minded activists and lawyers in the southeastern province of Fujian.

Authorities in the eastern province of Shandong set up a police task force after the meeting in the Fujian port city of Xiamen, and had detained eight people in Fujian, Shandong, Beijing, Hebei, Sichuan, and Zhejiang by Jan. 1.

The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said a similar gathering took place one year ago in Shandong, which could explain the leading role of the Shandong police.

Rights lawyers Ding Jiaxi and Huang Zhiqiang and activists Dai Zhenya, Li Yingjun, and Zhang Zhongshun were among those detained.

Rights lawyer and university professor Liu Shuqing, 43, was detained by police in Shandong's provincial capital Jinan on Dec. 31, on suspicion of "subversion of state power."

"Police used force to kick open the door of his residence without any warning," CHRD said, adding that Liu had recently undergone cardiac surgery. Liu was allowed back home on Jan. 1, the group said.

In the eastern city of Hangzhou, veteran activists Zhu Yufu, Wu Zexi, Xin Zhongcheng, Mao Lijun, and Tang Xiaoyun were detained and interrogated for a day on Dec. 29 after they had dinner with someone who attended the Dec. 13 meeting, CHRD said.

The rights website Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch said many of the activists were detained on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power."

CHRD called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to release all the detainees immediately, as their right to freedom of peaceful assembly is protected under international human rights treaties.

Others also held

Rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, 52, was detained in his hometown of Beijing on Dec. 26 by Shandong police, and police searched his home and confiscated belongings without a search warrant, it said.

Ding's wife Luo Shengchun said her husband had likely attended the meeting in Xiamen.

"He said he was going to meet friends for a meal," Luo said. "I've asked all [the other families], and they all said it seems that their husbands went to Xiamen."

On the same day, university professor Zhang Zhongshun was detained on suspicion of subversion at his home in Yantai, Shandong, despite not having attended the Fujian meeting.

Xiamen-based Dai Zhenya, 46, was meanwhile detained on similar charges. He is being held under "residential surveillance at a designated location" that hasn't been disclosed, CHRD said.

Zhang's wife Yang Hongni said the family had planned to visit relatives in the United States on the Jan. 15 and had tried to get police to rescind her husband's travel ban.

"I have no news of Zhang Zhongshun," Yang said. "It's probably because he went to Xiamen."

Going to a cold place

Lin Yanping, wife of Dai Zhenya, said she was told her husband would need warm winter clothes where he was going.

"In the living room, they told us that they were from the Xiamen police department, and told us to get some very warm clothes for him, because he'd be going to a cold place for investigation," Lin said.

"A police officer told us that the [other officers] were from Shandong and that he might be taken to Shandong, allegedly for inciting subversion of state power," she said.

Lin said the family has been unable to find out any more about Dai since.

"We have no information," Lin told RFA. "We went to that police station and asked which police agency in Shandong took him away."

"They wouldn't tell us, so we are very worried now. I don't know about this Dec. 13 taskforce. I just want to know where he is," she said.

Activist Li Yingjun, a factory worker from Fujian's Zhangzhou city, was also held on the same day, while lawyer Huang Zhiqiang, 47, was detained on Dec. 29, in the eastern province of Zhejiang on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge often leveled at peaceful critics of the regime.

Meanwhile, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, police detained businessman-turned-activist Wei Xiaobing, 42, after he distributed T-shirts printed with slogans supportive of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

No clear theme

An employee at the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website said the latest crackdown was unusual in that there was no clear theme connecting all of the detentions.

"In the past, they would divide the opposition into categories, so you would get waves of crackdowns on activist websites, or on lawyers, or the one-off crackdown on the New Citizens Movement," the employee said.

"This time it was very complicated."

Zhu Yufu's U.S.-based son Zhu Xi said his father is still under close surveillance by the state security police, and that the additional security will likely continue at least until after the annual parliamentary sessions in March.

"This time around it has been quite strange: I think a lot of people are very nervous," he said.

Repeated calls to the Shandong provincial police department went unanswered during office hours, while calls to the political department of the ministry of public security in Beijing were met with the sound of a fax machine.

An official who answered the phone at the political department of the Xiamen police department declined requests for an interview.

"We don't know the situation you asked about ... so you have to ask the department that is handling the case," the official said. "I can't answer you about the legal matters. You will have to ask a lawyer."

'China can't go on like this'

New Citizens' Movement founder Xu Zhiyong is currently on the run after penning a New Year's message to China's citizens, calling on them to think about whether they want to carry on with an authoritarian government or movement towards democratic constitutionalism, an idea that President Xi Jinping has said has no place in his vision for China.

"We are sadly seeing that the Chinese economy is deteriorating, while the stability maintenance regime is depleting national wealth accumulated over more than three decades, and stagnation and poverty are looming," Xu wrote.

"China cannot go on like this. Think about it, people! What kind of China do we want to leave for future generations?"

Over a dozen Chinese lawyers and activists were detained or went missing in the final days of 2019 in a crackdown on participants of a private democracy gathering, rights groups said Thursday.

The Chinese government has severely reduced the space for civil liberties since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, rounding up rights lawyers, labour activists and even Marxists students in various sweeps.

The latest crackdown was linked to a December gathering in the east coast city of Xiamen in Fujian province, where participants discussed “democratic transition in China,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Wang Yaqiu.

The period around Christmas and New Year is traditionally when China chooses to sentence prominent dissidents in an effort to minimise international media attention, “so it is not a surprise that they chose this particular time to launch a manhunt of activists,” Wang said.

The meeting involved a small group of people “peacefully discussing politics in a private space,” she said.

Ding Jiaxi, a prominent Beijing-based disbarred lawyer previously jailed for protesting against official corruption, was among the activists known to have been detained across the country since December 26, according to China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).

At least seven people, including Shandong-based disbarred lawyer Liu Shuqing, were released after being detained for questioning.

Other civil society figures, including pro-democracy activist Xu Zhiyong and human rights lawyer Tang Jingling, have gone missing or are currently unreachable, CHRD said.

At least two of the people detained, activists Dai Zhenya and Zhang Zhongshun, are suspected of “subverting” or “inciting subversion” of state power, a charge often used to silence dissidents in China.

The crackdown showed how the authorities have “zero tolerance of even just private discussion on issues like democracy and human rights,” Amnesty International researcher Patrick Poon said.

According to CHRD, five activists were taken in for questioning by Jinhua city police in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, on December 29, after having had dinner with someone who attended the Xiamen gathering.

Another lawyer, Lu Tingge, was held overnight for questioning on New Year’s Eve by police in the northern city of Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, CHRD said.

Police in Shandong province, whom CHRD said were heavily involved in the crackdown, as well as Jinhua and Shijiazhuang police, did not respond immediately to AFP’s requests for comment.

“This round of detentions and harassment is the continuation of the larger crackdown on civil society,” Wang said.

On December 30, a court in southwest China’s Chengdu sentenced Wang Yi, the leader of an underground Protestant church, to nine years in prison for “incitement to subvert state power.”

SHANGHAI : The pastor of one of China’s best-known unregistered “house” churches was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday on charges of inciting subversion of state power, part of Beijing’s crackdown on unregistered religious groups.

Wang Yi, pastor of the Early Rain Covenant Church in the southwestern city of Chengdu, was among dozens of the church’s members and leaders detained by police in December 2018, most of whom were subsequently released.

China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office six years ago, the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party.

The government has cracked down on underground churches, both Protestant and Catholic, and has rolled out new legislation to increase oversight of religious education and practices, with harsher punishment for practices not sanctioned by authorities.

“Today’s verdict makes a mockery of China’s supposed religious freedoms,” Amnesty International China researcher Patrick Poon said in a statement.

“Wang Yi was merely practising his religion and peacefully standing up for human rights in China. This nine-year sentence is appalling and unjust.”

Chinese law requires that places of worship register and submit to government oversight, but some have declined to register, for various reasons, and are known as “house” or “underground” churches.

Wang was profiled in Beijing-based journalist Ian Johnson’s 2017 book The Souls of China, and was also among three Chinese Christians who travelled to Washington in 2006, where they met with then-president George W. Bush, asking for his support in their fight for religious freedom.

An unusually outspoken religious figure, he has openly criticised Xi and wrote in an essay before his detention that Communist Party ideology was “morally incompatible with the Christian faith”.

Quotes attributed to him on a Facebook page run by the church’s supporters’ include one that said, “the Communist Party may kill my body but it cannot kill my soul.”

Wang’s sentencing was announced in a brief statement on the website of the Chengdu court, which said he had been charged with illegally operating a business.

Wang was also deprived of his political rights for three years and 50,000 yuan ($7,160) of his personal property was confiscated as part of his sentencing, the court said.

In 2009, China sentenced Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison on charges of “inciting subversion of state power”. Liu, a writer and activist, died in prison in 2017 after being denied permission to go abroad for treatment of late-stage liver cancer.

A labor rights worker, a volunteer and an intern were reported incommunicado in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Thursday, while mainland Chinese activists who took part in the Hong Kong protests were sent for "drug rehabilitation," RFA has learned.

Chen Weixiang, who worked for the Xin Huanwei group focusing on labor rights for street cleaners and sanitation workers, was detained on the afternoon of Dec. 17 by police at his home in Guangzhou, a person familiar with the situation told RFA.

Recent graduate and intern Lu Haoju was detained at the same time, the source said.

Yang Zhanqing, a friend of Chen's, said Chen was detained by officers from the Nanshitou Street police station in Guangzhou's Haizhu district.

"We don't know what the charges are or where they are being held," Yang said. "We have had no news so far."

He said a third person -- a volunteer -- linked to Xin Huanwei was also incommunicado, believed detained.

"One of my former classmates, she was involved in [Chen's] project, and she is now out of touch," Yang said. "I think they were taken away by Guangzhou police between 4-5 p.m. on Dec. 17. There were three of them."

"My guess is that they are targeting him because of Xin Huanwei, but a more direct reason could be that he recently helped some sanitation workers to stand up for their rights [with legal assistance]," Yang said.

"One instance was a case of wage arrears for sanitation workers, and another was a sanitation worker who got fired, then died, so it became a compensation case," he said. "Both of these cases touched on vested interests in local government."

No tolerance left for civil rights organizations

Chen had only recently returned to China after gaining a master's degree in the United States, Yang said.

But he said the ruling Chinese Communist Party had no tolerance left for civil rights organizations like Chen's.

"According to my experience and that of my former colleagues and people I know, any independent, privately run NGO that stands up for people's rights will be threatened and harassed with detentions and demands that it cease operating," he said.

An officer who answered the phone at the Nanshitou Street police station declined to comment, saying interviews had to be approved at district level.

"If you want an interview, you'll have to go higher up ... the Haizhu police department," the officer said.

Chen Weixiang graduated from Sun Yat-sen University School of Medicine in 2015, but was rejected from further medical training because of his labor activism.

After studying for a master's degree at Penn State University in the United States, he returned to China in August and set up services for sanitation workers, including Xin Huanwei.

'Compulsory detoxification'

Meanwhile, authorities in Guangdong's Dongguan city have detained activist Hu Haibo after he traveled to Hong Kong to support the pro-democracy movement there.

Since his return from Hong Kong, Hu was designated a "drug addict" by police and referred for "compulsory detoxification" at a rehab center last month, fellow activist Chen Yanhui told RFA.

"We are guessing that he may not have been cooperating after being admitted [to rehab] so it was changed to compulsory detoxification," Chen said. "He refused to accept their drugs and injections because he had never done drugs in the first place."

According to the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, Hu could be incarcerated for up to two years under the compulsory program.

Chen said Hu's father had visited him at the center on Wednesday, but the visit was controlled and monitored at all times by police, who forced the pair to speak Mandarin rather than their native language.

"Maybe they were worried that Hu would disclose some information about life inside, because he was being treated differently from other drug addicts there," Chen said.

A Hong Kong resident who knew Hu said he had never seen any evidence of drug-taking during their time as roommates.

Reported by Wong Siu-san and Sing Man for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long and Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Authorities in the Chinese capital detained and questioned a group of rights activists en route to the U.S. embassy in Beijing to participate in an event marking Human Rights Day on Tuesday, RFA has learned.

Wang Heying and a group of fellow petitioners -- people pursuing complaints against misconduct and rights violations by the ruling Chinese Communist Party -- were detained by police on the street after they registered to attend the event online, Wang said.

"This was a public event bringing friends together, an opportunity for the exchange of views," Wang said. "Everyone else got their invitations by using an invitation code they saw online, and registering with their ID. I was directly invited to participate by a friend."

But the group was stopped by a police patrol en route to the embassy, and taken to a nearby police station for questioning, she said.

"There were more than a dozen people at the police station, all of whom had previously lodged complaints against the government," Wang said.

"All petitioners have their ID cards marked with a special code, so they wouldn't be allowed through if there was an ID check. All we did was to lodge a petition ... and now we're labeled as class enemies. I don't get it."

Meanwhile, state security police in Beijing's Shijingshan district warned Xu Yan, wife of detained rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, not to go out ahead of Human Rights Day on Tuesday.

"They came to my door and told me very forcefully that I mustn't go out," Xu told RFA. "They said the restrictions would be in place for four or five days."

Xu, who recently wrote to the Global Lawyers' Forum in Guangzhou calling on overseas lawyers to call for Yu's release or speedy trial, said she was yelled at and shoved by more than a dozen people who surrounded her later, when she tried to leave her apartment.

China a 'bitterly ironic' host

State media said around 800 delegates from around the world attended the forum, which was hosted by the government-controlled All-China Lawyers' Association.

As it opened on Monday, a group of human rights lawyers from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Europe and the International Bar Association penned an open letter hitting out at the ruling Chinese Communist Party's use of indiscriminate arrest and detention and the forced disappearances of millions of people with no access to legal representation or fair trials.

Guangdong-based rights attorney Sui Muqing said the forum was mostly attended by justice department officials, and that few practicing Chinese attorneys had the opportunity to participate.

"It's just for people who do as the government tells them," Sui said. "Human rights lawyers or people who are slightly critical of the regime can't attend."

He said he has also had restrictions placed on his movements until the forum closes on Tuesday.

Geng He, the U.S.-based wife of disappeared rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, called on Human Rights Day for the world to remember the nationwide crackdown on lawyers, law firms and associated activists that has seen more than 300 people detained, questioned, prevented from leaving the country or their families harassed and denied access to jobs and education since July 2015.

"In China, law firms can be shut down whenever they want, and lawyers can lose their license, or be arrested, disappeared and tortured whenever they feel like it," Geng told RFA.

"It is bitterly ironic that they are holding a lawyers' conference in such a country, and on Human Rights Day, too."

An outspoken former Chinese rights lawyer has been arrested on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power”, as the government continues to crack down on activists and political dissidents.

Qin Yongpei, 50, who often criticised Beijing on social media including Twitter, was arrested on Tuesday in southern China, according to an arrest notice seen by AFP.

“He dares to say anything online,” his wife, Deng Xiaoyun, said.

She said he had been accused of inciting state subversion “because it would be easiest charge to give”.

Qin “drew a lot of attention, and possibly retaliation, from the authorities for openly criticising and reporting high-level public officials”, said Doriane Lau, a researcher at Amnesty International.

Qin, who was detained last month in Nanning, in the southern region of Guangxi, often took to social media to comment on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party, including pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

The Chinese lawyer, who was disbarred in May last year, is also among the growing number of rights lawyers in China to be stripped of their license to practise – a method activists say effectively silences them without attracting as much attention as an arrest. The widespread disbarment of rights lawyers – at least a dozen have had their licenses cancelled or revoked since 2018, according to government documents – follows one of the largest clampdowns on China’s legal profession in the country’s recent history.

A police sweep launched on July 9, 2015 saw more than 200 Chinese human rights lawyers and activists detained or questioned in a huge operation – later dubbed the “709 crackdown”– that rights groups called “unprecedented”.

“That authorities arrested Qin is outright political persecution,” said Sui Muqing, a Chinese lawyer who was detained during the “709 crackdown” and a friend of Qin’s.

His arrest is also “an escalation of political persecution towards lawyers”, he added. Nanning police did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

A Tibetan man detained in Qinghai on charges of disturbing social order after he complained online about corrupt officials, illegal mining, and the hunting of protected wildlife was convicted on Friday following a two-day trial and handed a seven-year term in prison, a Tibetan advocacy group says.

Anya Sengdra, a resident of Kyangche township in Gade (in Chinese, Gande) county in the Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture was widely respected in his community for his campaigns, London-based Free Tibet said in a statement.

“[His] arrest and conviction fits a wider pattern of harassment of Tibetan activists and environmental defenders, which has [now] seen hundreds of arrests,” Free Tibet said, adding that roundups by Chinese police are conducted as a crackdown on so-called “criminal gangs.”

Sengdra’s work to end corruption and protect the environment “highlighted problems that the authorities should have taken seriously,” Free Tibet said. “But rather than listening, the [Chinese Communist Party] decided that A-Nya must be locked away in silence.”

Sengdra’s lawyer Lin Qilei said in a tweet following the trial that his client refused to accept the court’s verdict against him and will appeal his sentence, Free Tibet said.

Jailed before

Elected Kyangche township chief in 2014, Sengdra was later jailed for 15 months after raising questions about government corruption and served his term at hard labor, suffering damage to his health, sources told RFA in an earlier report.

Before his arrest in December 2014, Sengdra had questioned local authorities about their use of money assigned for projects in the township, one source said, adding, “He argued with them about the mismatch of funds announced by the government and what was actually spent.”

“This could have angered authorities and led to his detention,” the source said.

Development projects in Tibetan areas have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms and local officials of pilfering money, improperly seizing land, and disrupting the lives of local people.

Many result in violent suppression, the detention of protest organizers, and intense pressure on the local population to comply with the government’s wishes.