Issued 24 November 2016 by China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group
Press Release – for immediate release
To: All Media
From: China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group
Date: 24th November 2016
Issue: Human right lawyer Jiang Tianyong has disappeared for 48 hours
Until 10:22 pm on Tuesday night, human right lawyers Jiang Tianyong has disappeared for 48 hours.
According to Jin Bianling, wife of Jiang Tianyong, Jiang went to Hunan Changsha to a few days ago to visit Chen Quiqiu, the wife of human right lawyer Xie Yang who was arrested in the 709 crackdown. He also went to Changsha detention centre together with Chen, Xie’s lawyers Zhang Zhongshi and Lin Quilet, as well as another friend, lawyer Ma Lianshun, to enquire about the situation of Xie.
At 22:22 on 21 November, Jiang told his wife Jin that he had bought a train ticket for returning to Beijing. The departure time was 22:53 and the arrival time would be 06:30 the next morning. However, Jin lost contact with him since then. Jin has tried to use phone and different telecommunication software to contact him but there was no response. She asked his friends in Changsha and Beijing, and none of them has managed to get in touch with him. By 10:22 pm, 23 November, Jiang has disappeared for 48 hours.
Jiang has been a famous human rights lawyer in China. He has represented cases for HIV carriers and Falun Gong practitioners, and has also taken part in various famous cases including those of Chen Guangcheng, Gaozhisheng as well as the one on the Beijing Lawyers Association Direct Elections. Despite having his licence revoked in 2009 by the Beijing authorities, Jiang has insisted in providing legal advice to cases with human rights implications. Over the past years, he has been arrested, detained, and beaten by the police and state security officers many times, and as a result of that, he is suffering impairment in hearing and has broken ribs.
In view of the many instances of abduction and brutal torture by secret police that Jiang has experienced over the past years, the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group does not exclude the possibility that Jiang’s disappearance this time is related to his work on rights protection and is done by the Chinese authorities. We urge the Chinese authorities to come forth and clarify.
Bearing in mind also the yet to be answered cases of lawyers being detained incommunicado for over a year in the 709 crackdown, we strongly call on the attention of the international community to Jiang Tianyong as yet another case of disappearance of rights lawyer in China.
