2014-08-11
Photo courtesy of Guo Feixiong
Activists across China launched a renewed campaign for the release of Guangzhou rights lawyer Guo Feixiong, while relatives of three other detained lawyers from the southern city took to the streets seeking their freedom.
Detained rights lawyer Yang Maodong, better known by his pseudonym Guo Feixiong, was detained in Aug. 8, 2013 on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order” after he petitioned the government to ratify U.N. human rights covenants.
However, his case has been sent back for further investigation twice by the state prosecution service in Guangzhou’s Tianhe district, his lawyer said.
A “pre-trial meeting” scheduled for Aug. 1 also never took place, Guo’s lawyer Sui Muqing told RFA.
Sui said he had launched a nationwide campaign to draw attention to Guo’s case, including a T-shirt campaign using his photograph.
“This is a campaign taking place across China, and there are so many people taking part that some of them haven’t even received their clothing yet,” Sui said.
“One year is a long time to be detained [without trial].”
On Sunday, relatives of three prominent Guangzhou rights lawyers formally arrested on charges of “incitement to subvert state power” took to the streets of the southern city with placards calling for their release.
Tang Jingling, Wang Qingying and Yuan Xinting were criminally detained on May 16, initially for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” But the charges were later changed to the more serious subversion charges.
Photos posted online showed Wang Qingying’s wife Zeng Jieshan holding up a cardboard sign with a cross printed on it, as well as the slogan “Families are suffering in silence!”
Wang’s one-year-old son was also shown holding a sign saying: “Daddy, come home!”
Other protesters held placards that read “Conscience is innocent,” “Tang Jingling come home,” and “No violence = no crime.”
“The authorities warned us that we shouldn’t go waving placards on the streets, nor should we make campaign T-shirts,” Tang’s wife Wang Yanfang told RFA on Monday.
“They said we should be careful what we say.”
Worried over detention
But she said the families of the detained lawyers found the waiting unbearable.
