A human rights group said on Tuesday that Chinese lawyer and dissident Yu Wenshen and his wife Xu Yan were formally arrested after they tried to visit the EU delegation in Beijing.
According to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), citing Yu’s brother, the couple have been formally detained since last Sunday on suspicion of “provoking confrontations and causing disturbances”, a charge often used against activists and political dissidents in China. China.
UPDATE: The brother of #YuWensheng says Yu and his wife Xu Yan were arrested on charges of “provoking fights and causing trouble”.
But the police only showed him the arrest notice and the police do not allow lawyers to intervene in the case.https://t.co/yPs3WTe1UH https://t.co/EEgHxXbzAR
– CHRD 人权捍卫者 (@CHRDnet) May 22, 2023
On April 13, Xu released a video on the social network Twitter, showing the couple sitting in a car. In the video, the woman said they were taken to the police station because they “went to an embassy”.
Xu claimed that both were forced into the car by “different people”.
The European Union Delegation to China requested their release and lodged a complaint with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Yu, already sentenced to four years in prison in 2020 for “inciting subversion of state power”, was released in March 2022.
During his career as a lawyer, Yu has participated in several human rights cases, such as those of members of the religious group Falun Gong, which has been banned in China since 1999, or his colleagues, including several arrested in 2015, during a campaign that became known as ” Repression of 709″.
Source: DN
