What China's crackdown on lawyers says about authorities' fear of burgeoning rights defence movement

It was going to be just another day.

Wang Yu, a 44-year-old human rights lawyer, saw off her husband and teenage son at the airport on Wednesday last week, where they were due to fly to Australia to put their son into school.

But after she got home, things started going horribly wrong.

At around 3am, the electricity and internet connection was suddenly cut off. Then she heard someone picking at her front-door lock. She heard people murmuring outside, so she looked through the peephole, but couldn't see anyone in the darkness, according to a message she sent to a friend.

Shortly after 4am she sent another message, saying someone was forcing her front door open. That was her last message before she disappeared. Her friend tried to call her back later, but there was no answer.

No one has been able to contact Wang or her husband since then. Friends who had her house keys tried to get into her home last Friday, only to find the locks had been changed. They could not find any record of her husband and son's departure from the airport. A security guard at her housing compound told them he saw someone being taken away by dozens of policemen in the early hours of last Thursday.