The wife of jailed lawyer Zheng Enchong was detained in Beijing and sent back to Shanghai after she travelled to the capital to discuss her husband's appeal with legal counsel, a relative and a human rights group said.
A Shanghai court sentenced Zheng, a crusading lawyer who advised local residents on property disputes with the government, to three years in prison last month on charges of stealing state secrets. He has appealed against the ruling. His wife, Jiang Meili, and her sister arrived in Beijing on Tuesday to meet the couple's lawyer, Zhang Sizhi, and consult legal scholars over the details of the case.
A number of officials, who later identified themselves as representatives of a Shanghai government body, burst into their hotel room and detained the pair.
The authorities put them on a train back to Shanghai, accompanying them all the way before releasing them yesterday on their return to the city.
A US human rights group condemned the move. 'There is no legal basis for any branch of the government interfering with these women in their lawful and peaceful contact with legal counsel and other members of the public,' Human Rights in China said.
The court charged Zheng with leaking state secrets to entities outside the mainland by telling a human rights group about a protest by workers laid off from a plant owned by the Shanghai Yimin Food Products Company and by faxing a Xinhua report classified as 'internal' about eviction cases.
