2015-04-17
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Qin Yongmin, in an undated photo.
Courtesy of Qin Yongmin
A veteran Chinese dissident and his wife have been "forcibly disappeared" by the authorities since last month, according to their relatives.
Wuhan-based dissident Qin Yongmin, who has already served a lengthy jail term for helping to found the banned opposition China Democracy Party (CDP), was taken with his wife Zhao Suli from their home by state security police officers on Sunday, friends and fellow activists said.
"We have launched a petition of lawyers and citizens that has collected around 500 signatures calling on the Wuhan authorities to release Qin Yongmin and his wife," Pan Lu, a close friend of Qin's told RFA.
"He has been refused the normal legal help a lawyer would provide," Pan said.
"If they formally arrest someone, then there should be an arrest warrant issued, but there hasn't been any of this stuff," he said.
Qin, 58, a veteran dissident who also served time in the wake of the 1981 "Democracy Wall" movement, was placed under police surveillance alongside Zhao in January, ahead of China's annual parliamentary sessions in early March, the couple's friends and relatives told RFA.
But while many others detained or forced by state security police to take "vacations" during the National People's Congress (NPC) have since reappeared, nobody has heard from the Qins, Zhao's sister said.
"We haven't managed to contact them in three months," Zhao's sister, who asked not to be named in full, said in a recent interview. "We don't know what has happened to Zhao Suli, whether she's been 'disappeared' or what."
"That's why we came to Wuhan to look for her."
Search blocked by police
She said the three sisters have teamed up with Qin's defense attorney Ma Lianshun to file a missing person's report on the couple at their local police station.
"The first thing we did was report them missing at the Qingshan police station," the sister said. "We don't know where Zhao Suli is, or even if she's still alive."
"We have looked all over for her, but we can't find her."
The sisters had been prevented from visiting Qin Yongmin's apartment in Wuhan to look for clues by police guarding the entrance to his apartment, she said.
They then printed and displayed a banner near the apartment calling on the authorities to explain what had happened to the couple.
