IAPL: Chinese police target prominent rights lawyers with harassment, travel bans

Detained lawyer Xie Yang is denied a last video call with his father, terminally ill with COVID-19

Police in China are keeping up their harassment of prominent rights lawyers, putting pressure on recently evicted Wang Quanzhang and his family, slapping a travel ban on Li Heping and his family, while denying rights attorney Xie Yang a phone call with his sick father.

A police officer from the Beijing suburb of Changping pushed his way into the Wang family home on Wednesday, refusing to show ID and demanding to read the couple’s lease agreement, according to a video clip posted by Wang’s wife Li Wenzu on Twitter.

“Comrade Policeman, please would you leave – this is our home,” Li tells the officer, who is identified as Wang Kaiguo in her tweet.

“You can’t just go into people’s residences,” Li tells the officer in a heated discussion. “You didn’t produce any identification.”

“I’m wearing a police uniform, so I can come in here,” he says.

Police were claiming to have received a tip-off that the home had been illegally rented, according to the couple.

‘Stability Maintenance’

The renewed harassment is the latest in a slew of “stability maintenance” actions by Beijing police and other Chinese officials, who have targeted the families of prominent rights attorneys and other activists who were previously jailed in a 2015 crackdown on rights lawyers and public interest law firms.

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https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-dissidents-harassed-06142023161406.html

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/14/joint-letter-us-secretary-state-his-visit-china

https://euobserver.com/opinion/157096

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/01/china-acknowledge-tiananmen-massacre

https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/news/united-nations-experts-raise-concerns-china-proceedings-against-jimmy-lai-violating-his

https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-xie-yang

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