President Xi Jinping's Maoist bent is
becoming increasingly evident as promises of judicial, economic and social
reform give way to crackdowns and market manipulation.
Before dawn on July 9, more than 20
police officers raided the home of Wang Yu, a lawyer, in Beijing. Known as the
"bravest female lawyer in China," Wang has been involved in various
politically sensitive human rights cases, including that of Ilham Tohti, a
Uighur academic who called for the rights of the Muslim Uighur minority in the
Xinjiang region to be protected. Last year, Tohti was sentenced to life in
prison on charges of separatism.
Following the raid on Wang's house,
police targeted human rights lawyers and activists across the nation, focusing
primarily on lawyers affiliated with Fengrui, the Beijing law firm to which
Wang belongs.
At least 249 lawyers and activists
have been detained, denied contact with the outside world or subjected to other
restrictions on their freedom, according to China Human Rights Lawyers Concern
Group, a nongovernmental organization based in Hong Kong. As for Wang, all
contact with her has been lost since she was taken away by police.
Such crackdowns are not new. Indeed,
China's Community Party has long treated human rights lawyers as little more
than an inconvenience. KATSUHIKO MESHINO, Nikkei senior staff writer
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