Chinese lawyer Xie Yang, who has in the past defended Christian or pro-democracy activists, has been detained and charged with incitement to subversion, according to an official notice obtained by his family and communicated Wednesday (January 19th) to the AFP.
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The 49-year-old lawyer was arrested last week in Changsha (center), told AFP his wife, Chen Guiqiu, who lives in the United States with their two children. According to a police notice dated Monday, the lawyer is suspected “incitement to subversion” and of “provocation to disturb public order“, a catch-all accusation commonly used in China against protesters.
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“Bogus reasons”
“I’m furious that he was arrested for bogus reasonssaid Chen Guiqiu, adding that her husband’s home had been ransacked during the arrest. The detention of the lawyer comes just a few weeks after he tried to visit a teacher placed, according to his relatives, in a psychiatric asylum in the context of a controversy surrounding the official report of the massacre of Nanjing (east) by Japanese troops during World War II.
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This event remains an extremely sensitive subject in China. Authorities say the 27-year-old teacher, Li Tiantian, was voluntarily interned. Ms. Li is currently expecting a child. In December, Xie Yang posted a video on social media of him outside a local police station holding a poster calling for the teacher’s release. Changsha police declined to comment on the reports, while the prison and local propaganda services could not be reached.
Xie Yang has already served almost two years in detention after being arrested in July 2015 during a raid targeting several hundred human rights activists and their defenders. He claimed to have been tortured while in detention. This dragnet, three years after the coming to power of President Xi Jinping, had annihilated the hopes of democratization of the communist regime.
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Another lawyer, Yang Maodong, was charged last week with incitement to subversion, according to a police notice seen by AFP. Me Yang had been arrested in December in Canton (south) without being authorized to go to the United States at the bedside of his wife, who has since died of cancer.
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