{"id":80202,"date":"2018-01-19T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=80202 "},"modified":"2018-01-19T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T14:26:00","slug":"80202-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=80202","title":{"rendered":"China Detains Top Human Rights Lawyer Who Called For Constitutional Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2018-01-19<\/span><\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2018\/3\/2018119image(1).jpg\" alt=\"2018119image(1).jpg (615&#215;346)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">File photo of lawyer Yu Wensheng, who had taken up in politically sensitive human rights cases and was taken away from his Beijing home by around a dozen police officers on Jan. 19, 2017.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Yu wensheng<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Authorities in Beijing on Friday detained a prominent human rights lawyer after he penned an open letter to the ruling Chinese Communist Party about proposed constitutional changes.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Yu Wensheng was taken away from his Beijing home on Friday morning by around a dozen police officers.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">His family received a call some 10 hours later informing them that he is being held at the Gucheng police station on suspicion of &#8220;obstructing public duties.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Yu&#8217;s wife&nbsp; said she had gone immediately to the police station to inquire after her husband.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;They came and detained him on Friday morning because he sent out [an open letter] on the 18th,&#8221; Xu told RFA. &#8220;The constitution protects the rights of citizens to freedom of expression, to make suggestions, and his suggestion letter fell within those rights, and fell within the law.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;But in mainland China, they don&#8217;t let people speak out, and that&#8217;s why he was detained,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Of course he has done a lot of human rights work in the past three years, which probably also has something to do with it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Guangdong-based rights lawyer Wang Qingying said he is concerned that Yu will be held under criminal detention, paving the way for a criminal case against him.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I have a sense that Yu Wensheng is in a lot of danger right now; that they will detain him for at least a month this time,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;A lot of people went to detain him, which clearly indicates a criminal detention.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;If they just wanted to talk to him, they would have just sent one or two people over, or just called him up by phone to tell him to come in,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They wouldn&#8217;t send all those police officers over to take him away suddenly like that. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m very worried.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;We are pretty worried&#8217;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Rights lawyer Liang Xiaojun, who accompanied Xu to the police station earlier on Friday, agreed.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">He said Yu&#8217;s family are trying to get him a meeting with a defense lawyer.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We are pretty worried,&#8221; Liang said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Yu, 51, has defended a number of clients in politically sensitive human rights cases in recent years, including forced evictees and the families of victims of a tainted vaccinations scandal in the eastern province of Shandong.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In 2014, he was held by police for 99 days for showing public support for the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Yu was stripped of his professional license to practice after he joined the defense team for detained fellow lawyer Wang Quanzhang, held in the northern city of Tianjin amid a nationwide crackdown on lawyers and rights activists that began in July 2015.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/yuwensheng-detention-01192018124110.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Yu Wensheng was taken away from his Beijing home on Friday morning by around a dozen police officers.His family received a call some 10 hours later informing them that he is being held at the Gucheng police station on suspicion of &quot;obstructing public duties.&quot;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}