Chinese Dissident Lawyer and Wife Formally Arrested on Suspicion of “Picking a Fight and Causing a Riot”

This content was published on May 23, 2023 – 02:46

23 mayo 2023 – 02:46

Beijing, May 23 (EFE).- The Chinese dissident lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan, have been formally arrested, the human rights NGO CHRD reported on its Twitter account on Monday.

According to CHRD (Chinese Human Rights Defenders), citing Yu’s brother, the couple have been formally detained since last Sunday on suspicion of “picking a fight and causing a riot,” a charge commonly used against Chinese activists. of human rights.

Xu posted a video on his Twitter account on April 13 in which the couple could be seen in a car and the woman explaining that they were being taken to a police station for “going to an embassy.”

Xu claimed in the video that both had been forced by “various people” to get into the car.

The Embassy of the European Union in China requested shortly after the release of both and filed a complaint with the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Yu, who was already sentenced in 2020 to four years for “inciting subversion against state power”, was released in March 2022.

During his career as a lawyer, Yu participated in the defense of several human rights cases, such as those of members of the Falun Gong religious group (banned in China since 1999) or of colleagues, including several arrested in 2015 in the known as the “709 raid”. EFE

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