Propaganda Coup? Released Chinese Activist Regrets ‘Naive’ Support for Lawyers
Editor's note: This Shark believes this mistreatment of Chinese lawyers is reminiscent of the mistreatment of lawyers Ditkowsky, Deninson and Amu by the IARDC. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
The Chinese flag flies in Beijing in March 2015. Photo: Bloomberg News
A year after China’s government arrested dozens of public-interest lawyers and activists in a coordinated police sweep loudly criticized by Western governments, the announced release of one of them is proving more of a gift to state propaganda than to her supporters.
On Thursday, police in the city of Tianjin, where many of those detained are being held, unexpectedly announced the youngest of the activists, 24-year-old Zhao Wei, had been released on China’s equivalent of bail.
Ms. Zhao was working as an assistant to well-known human rights lawyer Li Heping when she and her boss were caught in last July’s roundup. Both were later accused of subverting state power. Excitement among her supporters at her release Thursday quickly gave way to conflicted emotions after a series of messages appeared under her name on the popular social media site Weibo, where she uses the handle “Koala.”
First was a short post, published in the early afternoon, that expressed pleasure at being outdoors and thanked the police, “who helped me immeasurably as if they were relatives.” Several hours later, a longer open letter appeared on her account. It described how she came to work for Mr. Li out of a desire to improve society and her later discovery that he was being supported by an unnamed foreign nonprofit group. The group said its aim was to do anti-torture research, she wrote:
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In reality it was sponsoring projects as a way to collect information on sensitive domestic incidents that it could hype up to attack China’s legal and social systems, agitate for change and bring about China’s peaceful transition. The so-called “seminars” they organized were only intended to provide a platform for ‘human rights lawyers’ and sensitive people, turning such people into allies and pawns in their efforts to penetrate China and realize peaceful evolution.
The letter goes on to say that Mr. Li initially hid the nonprofit’s role from Ms. Zhao and that she brought up quitting her job after he started acting strangely. It concludes with her scolding herself for the “naivety and immaturity” that led her to believe supporting human-rights lawyers was patriotic.China’s state media have ramped up reports that portray foreign nonprofits as a threat to social and political stability, backing an effort under President Xi Jinping to severely restrict the ability of such groups to work in the country. On Thursday night, the nationalist tabloid Global Times jumped on the news about Ms. Zhao, running a story about her under the headline: “Post-90s Beauty ‘Koala’ Exposes the Dark Secrets of ‘Human Rights Lawyers’: I Was So Simple!”
Ms. Zhao couldn’t be contacted. Her lawyer, Ren Quanniu, said neither he nor Ms. Zhao’s husband had been able to contact her since police announced her release. Mr. Ren said Ms. Zhao is likely still under police control and that the point of her release was to smear Mr. Li and the other lawyers.
“If she was really free, the first thing she’d do is contact her family and friends. Why hasn’t she?” Mr. Ren said.
The Tianjin Public Security Bureau did not immediately respond to requests for comment submitted by phone and fax. Mr. Li remains in police custody and could not be reached.
Activists have wondered on social media and in private-messaging groups how Ms. Zhao could turn so unequivocally on her former boss, and debated whether she wrote the posts. Her lawyer said it was plausible she had done so.
“For a year, the police have been her only source of information, so it’s easy for her to misunderstand the situation,” he said. “It’s hard even for a strong-willed person like her to hold out in that environment.”
Though Mr. Zhao statement didn’t name the foreign nonprofit Mr. Li worked for, a U.K.-based group called the Rights Practice has said it previously cooperated with him in providing training for Chinese lawyers on the United Nations Convention against Torture. One of the group’s foreign staff members had to leave China last year after police caught him on a visa technicality.
The Rights Practice did not immediately respond to requests for comment relayed by email and phone. The group’s founder, Nicola Macbean, expressed concern for Mr. Li in a statement posted online in January.
Prior to Mr. Xi’s rise to power, activists were typically charged with subversion only if they organized political parties or otherwise directly challenged the Communist Party, said Maya Wang, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.
“Now even those who have posed no such challenge, but in fact are arguably helping to ensure social stability, are considered subversive,” she said.
Update, 9:30 pm, Beijing time: Zhao Wei’s lawyer Ren Quanniu was criminally detained by police in the city of Zhengzhou on Friday evening, according to a message posted on the Zhengzhou Public Security Bureau’s verified Weibo account. His mobile phone is switched off and he can’t be reached for comment.
– Josh Chin. Follow him on Twitter @joshchin
