China’s ‘missing’ photographer Lu Guang arrested in troubled Xinjiang region, his wife confirms
- Charges currently unknown, lawyer’s request for meeting denied
- Award-winning documentary photojournalist was last heard from in early November
Internationally acclaimed photojournalist Lu Guang – who disappeared without trace in early November – is under arrest in China, it was confirmed on Thursday.
Lu’s wife Xu Xiaoli, who lives in the United States, told the South China Morning Post that other family members in China were verbally notified of her husband’s arrest by police in the troubled Xinjiang region.
Xinjiang has been under a sweeping security clampdown in recent years, with up to 1 million Uygurs and other Muslim minorities detained in its extrajudicial internment camps, according to a United Nations panel estimate in August.
Xu said Kashgar city police notified the relatives on December 6 that Lu had been formally arrested the day before.
“We can’t tell the specific charge,” Xu said.
“We just hired a lawyer for him in Beijing because it’s convenient to go to Xinjiang from Beijing. The lawyer filed an application to the authorities asking for a meeting with Lu Guang, which was not granted,” she said.