New | Chinese rights lawyers and staff of law firm missing as police search office
Some were taken away by officers, others could not be contacted, while another disappeared after reporting her home was being broken into, their colleagues say
At least five employees of a Beijing law firm – including three lawyers – have gone missing, with some taken away by either police or unidentified men and another disappearing after reporting that her home was being broken into, their fellow lawyers said yesterday.
Police searched the firm, Beijing Fengrui, yesterday morning, lawyer Liang Xiaojun said.
The firm was where activist Wu Gan, nicknamed the “Super Vulgar Butcher”, used to work. Wu has been charged with “inciting subversion”.
Fengrui’s head, Zhou Shifeng, was seen being taken away by three unidentified men early yesterday, wrote Liu Xiaoyuan, a partner at the firm, on Twitter.
Zhou had gone to a Tongzhou district detention centre to meet a client, Zhang Miao, on Thursday night, Liu wrote. Zhang, a news assistant for German weekly Die Zeit, had just been freed after nine months in custody.
Zhang had been detained in October for “creating a disturbance” after she helped Die Zeit report on the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong.