China frees rights lawyer but another disappears

BEIJING, May 5, 2011 (AFP) - Chinese human rights lawyer Li Fangping said Thursday he was home after disappearing for five days, but activists said another attorney had vanished as Beijing wages a tough crackdown on dissent.

"I'm home, thank you. I got home yesterday after 6:00 pm," Li told AFP, adding he could not take any more questions.

Li had disappeared on Friday afternoon after leaving the office building of an AIDS sufferers' group in Beijing less than two hours after another prominent human rights lawyer, Teng Biao, returned home after 10 weeks in custody.

But another attorney named Li Xiongbing -- who has represented human rights activists, victims of religious persecution and AIDS advocacy group Aizhixing -- went missing Wednesday, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.

"Around 5:00 pm that afternoon he was able to call his wife to tell her he would not be able to return home for a few days, but since then no one has been able to contact him," the Hong Kong-based rights group said in a statement.

Aizhixing founder Wan Yanhai, who fled to the United States with his family last year because he feared for his safety, said police had warned Li Xiongbing Tuesday that he would be detained and should leave his phone on 24 hours a day.

The missing attorney has been repeatedly asked by police to stop representing Aizhixing and legal research centre Gongmeng, which was shut down and fined in 2009 for alleged tax evasion, Wan told AFP by email.

Chinese authorities have launched their toughest campaign against critics of the government in years after anonymous online appeals emerged in February calling for weekly protests to emulate those in the Arab world.

Scores of Chinese activists and rights lawyers have been rounded up since the emergence of the "Jasmine" campaign, which has gone largely unheeded.

Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the "blatantly unlawful" campaign of disappearances "suggests a de facto policy of drip-feed repression hinged on intimidation and fear".

He said the intention of the "targeted disappearances" appeared to be to "silence perceived dissidents and spread fear throughout China's legal community and nascent civil society that no one is safe".

Last week, US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner accused China of "serious backsliding" on human rights after two days of talks between the two countries in the Chinese capital.

The issue is likely to be raised again next week in Washington, when the countries sit down for their annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue.


(2011-5-5/mysinchew.com)