Prominent legal scholar held incommunicado

Xu Zhiyong is a prominent Chinese legal scholar and rights activist known for his work on behalf of disadvantaged groups and his promotion of a “New Citizens’ Movement”, a loose network of activists founded by Xu to promote government transparency and expose corruption in 2012. He has been jailed previously for his peaceful activism, spending four years in prison on trumped-up public order charges from 2013 to 2017.

In December 2019, dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers and activists attended a private informal gathering in Xiamen, a city on China’s southeast coast. Many who were present at this private gathering had been active in the New Citizens Movement.

Since 26 December 2019, police across the country have been summoning or detaining participants of the gathering. More than 10 people who were at the meeting have since been summoned or detained. Among them are Ding Jiaxi, Dai Zhenya and Zhang Zhongshun. Dai Zhenya and Zhang Zhongshun were released on bail on 18 June 2020. Formerl human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi was formally arrested for “inciting subversion of state power” on 19 June after being held incommunicado for more than six months. 

Friends of Xu Zhiyong say he went into hiding after the meeting in December 2019. In early February 2020, Xu criticized President Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests and called on him to resign. On 15 February, Xu was detained while staying at the home of fellow activist Yang Bin, who had also spoken out against China’s censorship of information about the coronavirus outbreak. Since then, Xu Zhiyong has not allowed to meet his lawyers or family.

Apart from detaining participants of the Xiamen meeting, police have also harassed and detained families of the participants. Li Qiaochu, a labour rights and feminist activist who is also Xu Zhiyong’s partner, was held in secret detention from February to June 2020. One of the reasons behind her detention was her connection with Xu Zhiyong. 

In March 2020, the United Nations human rights expert bodies expressed their alarm at the ongoing use of residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) in China, a detention system that enables the authorities to hold criminal suspects for periods of up to six months outside the formal detention system in what can amount to a form of secret incommunicado detention. This form of detention has been used to curb the activities of human rights defenders, including lawyers, activists and religious practitioners.