Chinese police hold four wives of rights activists seized in ‘709 crackdown’
Women were taken away while visiting courthouse to check rumour of trial dates for their husbands
The wives of four detained mainland human rights advocates were taken away by police for questioning on Friday after they went to a local courthouse to ask about rumoured trial dates for their husbands.
The husbands were among hundreds of rights lawyers, aides and activists rounded up in what is commonly referred to as the 709 crackdown, referring to the date of July 9 last year, when the sweeping campaign was launched.
Liu Ermin, wife of human rights activist Zhai Yanmin, and Wang Qiaoling, Li Wenzu and Fan Lili – the wives of lawyers Li Heping, Wang Quanzhang and activist Gou Hongguo – were taken away by Tianjin Hexi district police yesterday afternoon.
Critics have called last year’s crackdown unprecedented and a move to silence advocates and the mainland’s emerging rights defence movement.
They say it also reflects the authorities’ fear of a fast-growing civil society on the mainland and their wariness over an expanding community of rights lawyers in the “rights defence” movement.