ICC Note:

It is feared that three prominent lawyers are at risk of torture in China. The whereabouts of the three lawyers are still unknown. The Chinese Human Rights Defenders said, “The detention and disappearance in quick succession of these well-known leading figures of China’s rights defense movement further signal the escalation of President Xi Jinping’s relentless crackdown on civil society.” Unfortunately, the disappearance and torture of lawyers in China is becoming commonplace. China’s crackdown has effectively removed the last line of defense in trials against Christians in China as well. Recently, China even barred a human rights lawyers from pleading innocent on behalf of his defendant, a Christian woman who was caught holding a house church service.

12/2/2016 China (China Aid) – Concerns are mounting over the continued detention of three prominent Chinese rights defenders all detained or “disappeared” last month, rights group said.

Prominent Beijing rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, Sichuan-based Tianwang website founder Huang Qi and Hubei-based rights activist Liu Feiyue have all been incommunicado since mid-November, amid growing calls for official confirmation of their status.

“Police are believed to be holding the men in unknown locations, raising fears that they are at risk of torture,” the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) said in a statement on its website.

“The detention and disappearance in quick succession of these well-known leading figures of China’s rights defense movement further signal the escalation of President Xi Jinping’s relentless crackdown on civil society,” it said.

According to a statement from Jiang’s family posted on the Human Rights in China website: “The family cannot accept the fact that Jiang is being administratively detained—or criminally investigated—merely because of his visit with a fellow lawyer’s family in Changsha or for trying to help them find out more about that lawyer’s detention.”

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