They write
BEIJING — Chinese police released a lawyer detained after he used social media to poke fun at President Xi Jinping over the naming of a close relative in the Panama Papers, the man’s attorney said Saturday.
Ge Yongxi, a civil rights defense lawyer, had posted an edited image mocking Xi on the WeChat messaging service about 2:30 p.m. Thursday. Around midnight, plainclothes police officers came to his house in Guangzhou and took him away, according to Ge’s attorney, Chen Jinxue.
Ge was released at 9 p.m. Friday with a warning, Chen said. “The reporting from the international media definitely helped his release. Also the authorities don’t want to draw further attention to Panama Papers.”
The Panama Papers — data leaked from a Panamanian law firm that exposed offshore accounts held by prominent politicians and others — have become a source of embarrassment for China’s Communist Party despite the absence of direct evidence of wrongdoing. The party habitually clamps down hard on stories about the wealth of top leaders and their families, and has instructed local media not to cover stories about the data leak. Social media references to it have been deleted.
