''One night in July,
Wang Yu, a lawyer in her mid-forties, returned to her home in Beijing
after seeing her husband and teenage son off at the airport, unaware
that they had both been detained by police before boarding their flight
to Australia. Around 3 a.m. she sent a text message to friends:
‘Electricity and wifi were cut off suddenly. Someone is working on my
door lock. I can hear murmured whispers outside, though it’s so dark I
can’t see anything through the peephole.’ Neighbours later reported
seeing dozens of police, who told them they were arresting a drug
addict. Nothing has been heard of Wang since the text message. Her
whereabouts are not known.
More than a hundred lawyers across the country signed an open letter
demanding an official explanation. In response, police raided the
offices of Fengrui, the law firm where Wang worked, arrested its founder
and director, Zhou Shifeng, and rounded up its associates across the
country. The official media hailed it as a successful crackdown by the
Public Security Ministry on a ‘major criminal gang’ that had been
undermining the social order since 2012. By 22 July, more than three
hundred lawyers and civil rights activists had been detained or were
being questioned. Those who signed the letter defending Zhou were barred
from Beijing..''
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