2015-07-27
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Beijing-based lawyer Wang Yu in an undated photo.
Photo courtesy of Wang Yu’s microblog
A Chinese lawyer has filed a formal information request to police in the northern city of Tianjin in a bid to find out the whereabouts of his lawyer, detained rights attorney Wang Yu, who has been held at an unknown location since the start of a nationwide crackdown on the legal profession.
Yu Wensheng filed the freedom of information request online on Saturday, calling on Tianjin police to reveal her location, and what crimes she is suspected of committing.
“Nobody knows what has happened to Wang Yu, and we only know that she was criminally detained through the media,” Yu told RFA. “Even her relatives and her defense attorneys don’t know.”
“Wang Yu was also my defense attorney, and because I am currently out on bail, from a legal perspective, I have an interest in her case, and I also believe I have a duty to understand her whereabouts and the nature of the charges against her,” he said.
“That’s why I filed the freedom of information request with the police.”
Since Wang’s detention amid a night-time raid on the Beijing-based Fengrui law firm on July 10, at least 255 lawyers, paralegals and legal support staff have been detained or questioned by Chinese police, the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said in a statement on its website.
Lawyers in undisclosed locations
Of those, 230 have since been released, but 12 lawyers and three non-lawyers are still being held in undisclosed locations, including Wang Yu, her husband Bao Longjun, and Fengrui colleagues Wang Quanzhang, Huang Liqun and Zhou Shifeng, it said.
China’s tightly controlled state media has accused the Fengrui lawyers of “troublemaking” and seeking to incite mass incidents by publicizing cases where they defend some of the most vulnerable groups in society.
According to Yu, the lack of information about Wang’s whereabouts contravenes China’s Criminal Procedure Law. “Such a large-scale detention of lawyers is also in breach of legal procedural regulations,” he said.
“I think they are trying to create a climate of fear for lawyers, so that some of them won’t dare to speak out, or may not take on human rights cases,” Yu said. “But I don’t think they will succeed in their aim.”
“Maybe some rights lawyers will be silenced, but even more will rise up in opposition, and still more will want to enter the profession of human rights lawyers,” he said.
Rights lawyer Chen Jiangang said that information on the whereabouts of detainees should be given to relatives and lawyers as a matter of course.
“Nobody should have to apply for it,” Chen said. “The police should formally notify the families within a time period specified by law, but China’s police don’t abide by the law at all nowadays.”
“Every step they take is against the law now.”
Fearless ‘warrior’ Wang
An officer who answered the phone at the Tianjin police department declined to comment on the case.
“For freedom of information requests, you need to contact the complaints department, or you can call them and try,” the officer said. “I don’t really know about this.”
The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said Wang Yu is described by those who know her as a courageous and fearless “warrior.”
