Remembering the 709 crackdown

Three years ago, on the night of July 9, human rights lawyer Wang Yu returned home after dropping off her son and husband at the airport in Beijing. Arriving at her apartment, she noticed a group of men hanging around outside. Later that night, the electricity went out, her internet connection was cut, and the men broke into the apartment and led her away in handcuffs to a secret detention center, where she endured torture and interrogations. Police released Wang a year later—only after she agreed to a televised confession.

Wang was the first of more than 300 lawyers, legal assistants, and activists detained throughout China in what is now called the 709 Incident, named after the date Wang was taken. Human rights lawyers, many of whom are professed Christians, stood up for the vulnerable in China against government policies and corporations. Seeing these lawyers as a threat to complete control, the Chinese government silenced them by placing the most prominent lawyers into “residential surveillance at a designated location.” The lawyers say they endured beatings, psychological torture, threats against family members, forced feedings of unknown drugs, and sleep deprivation while detained.

Most of the human rights lawyers have since been released on bail. Today, 17 lawyers remain imprisoned and at least a dozen have lost their licenses and can no longer practice law.

Family members of one detained lawyer, Wang Quanzhang, have not been able to speak to him since his arrest three years ago. He had defended Falun Gong religious practitioners, victims of land seizures, and political prisoners. He taught Chinese villagers about their land and legal rights, helped found the rights group Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, and worked at Beijing Fengrui law firm, where Wang Yu also worked.

Wang Quanzhang’s wife, Li Wenzu, has made dozens of freedom of information requests on her husband’s behalf. In April, on the 1,000th day of Wang’s detention, she started a 100-kilometer (62-mile) protest march from Beijing to Tianjin’s No. 2 Detention Center, where officials last said he was held. But police stopped her from completing the march and briefly placed her under house arrest. On July 13, Li said she’d finally heard from a trusted source that her husband was alive and “in reasonable mental and physical health,” according to Radio Free Asia.

Li Wenzu, center, holds a paper that reads ‘Release Liu Ermin.’ Gerry Shih/AP

In a statement released on the third anniversary of the 709 Incident, the China Human Rights Lawyers Group noted, “Politics that do not respect human rights are evil, and economic growth supported by low respect for human rights is a false Chinese dream.”

The group added: “China has just entered an era when the awakening of rights awareness is conflicting with the increasingly suppressing political atmosphere. We human rights lawyers are fortunate to live in it and to witness it at the right time.”

Freed widow: One spot of good news this week: The Chinese government allowed Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, to leave China for Germany yesterday. She had spent eight years under house arrest. Her husband, a democracy activist, died of liver cancer while in Chinese custody one year ago.

This page was updated July 18 to reflect new information about Wang Quanzhang.