{"id":6367,"date":"2016-01-11T22:29:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T03:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=6367"},"modified":"2016-01-12T05:43:33","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T10:43:33","slug":"tom-phillips-wife-of-chinese-human-rights-lawyer-missing-for-six-months-tells-of-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/tom-phillips-wife-of-chinese-human-rights-lawyer-missing-for-six-months-tells-of-despair","title":{"rendered":"Tom Phillips : Wife of Chinese human rights lawyer missing for six months tells of despair"},"content":{"rendered":"
Li Heping was taken from his home in July and has not been seen since along with dozens of other attorneys amid a crackdown on dissidents<\/h5>\n
\"Li<\/a>

Li Heping, a well-known human rights lawyers, has been missing in China since 10 July 2015. \u2018I never thought this country could be so corrupt,\u2019 his wife said. Photograph: Supplied<\/p><\/div>\n

Six months after her husband was spirited into secret detention by security forces, the wife of one of China\u2019s top civil rights lawyers has spoken of her grief and despair.<\/p>\n

Li Heping, a 45-year-old attorney, disappeared on 10 July last year after security officials came to his home at the start of what activists call an unprecedented government crackdown in which more than 240 lawyers and activists were detained or questioned.<\/p>\n

Exactly six months on, up to 35 lawyers and activists, including Li, are still missing or in custody, according to the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers\u2019 Concern Group which has monitored the government offensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t any information. We haven\u2019t received any kind of notice or correspondence from the government,\u201d complained Wang Qiaoling, Li\u2019s 44-year-old wife. \u201cI never thought this country could be so corrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the days following Li\u2019s disappearance, two Chinese lawyers launched a Kafkaesque mission to locate the missing attorney, travelling to police stations and detention centres across northern China where they suspected he was being held.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the husbands, wives and children of the missing lawyers have joined that so far fruitless hunt for answers.<\/p>\n

On Friday, almost exactly six months after Li vanished, Wang Qiaoling made her latest such trip, to a detention centre in Tianjin, a city about 70 miles from Beijing, but again came away empty handed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many lawyers have been taken away,\u201d she said. \u201cConscientious people have been cracked down upon. I have no words to describe this kind of behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Henan, one of China\u2019s most deprived provinces, Li Heping became a leading member of the country\u2019s \u201cweiquan\u201d or \u201crights defence\u201d movement and a major thorn in the government\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat these lawyers did was help ordinary people address their grievances and escape false charges,\u201d his wife said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese days in China we always say that if an elderly person falls over nobody goes to help them. What these lawyers do is like trying to help the elderly but the government stops you from doing that. And what\u2019s more, if you do try to help them, you will be beaten. If you try to help them, you will be arrested. It is totally unscrupulous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Li was known as one of China\u2019s most courageous rights lawyers, defending a series of politically sensitive clients including environmentalists, dissidents and the blind activist Chen Guangcheng.<\/p>\n

But that work brought the devout Christian into frequent conflict with authorities. On 10 July last year, day two of a major roundup of rights lawyers, he was seized at his family home in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Maya Wang, a Hong Kong based activist for Human Rights Watch, admitted Li\u2019s location remained a complete mystery.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis particular detention status is: we don\u2019t know,\u201d Wang said on Monday, as the six-month deadline for authorities to charge or release the missing lawyer expired without word on his situation. \u201cThere is basically no information whatsoever about what his status is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang said Li \u2013 and other missing lawyers such as Wang Yu and Bao Longjun \u2013 were likely being held in a shadowy form of detention called \u201cresidential surveillance in a designated place\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under that regime, prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, deprived of access to their relatives and lawyers, and, activists fear, were often vulnerable to physical or psychological torture.<\/p>\n

\u201cLi Heping\u2019s case really illustrates the lawlessness of this entire crackdown,\u201d Wang, the Hong Kong activist, said. \u201cWe have a very prominent human rights lawyer \u2026 who just completely disappeared and no news whatsoever has ever been heard from him. His case is a blatant violation of Chinese law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang said the ongoing detentions showed that while president Xi Jinping had vowed to strengthen the rule of law since taking power in 2012, in fact the law had simply become \u201ca tool of the [Communist] party against civil society\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really quite disheartening,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In an essay marking the six-month anniversary of the disappearances, King\u2019s College London scholar Eva Pils, who knew many of the missing lawyers, wrote: \u201cTheir absence is keenly felt. It does diminish the vibrancy of China\u2019s human rights movement; and I know that unfortunately, some part of a person who \u2018went in\u2019 may never be back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wang Qiaoling, Li Heping\u2019s wife, said the difficulties of raising two children alone paled in comparison to the emotional cost of losing her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart is broken,\u201d she said. \u201cMy family has been taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/jan\/11\/wife-of-chinese-human-rights-lawyer-missing-for-six-months-tells-of-despair<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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