Beijing targets activists on International Human Rights Day
Dec 11, 2021
Beijing [China], December 11 : As the world observed the International Human Rights Day on Friday, Beijing on the other hand targeted a rights lawyer and his activist wife.
Rights activist Li Wenzu and her rights lawyer husband Wang Quanzhang said they were placed under house arrest on December 9, with unidentified security guards refusing to let them leave to take their child to school, reported Radio Free Asia.
"I'm leaving for the school run," Wang tells them in a video clip posted to Li's Twitter account. "It's OK. We'll take the kid to school for you," the guards replied.
Li said she had asked the people stopping them from leaving to identify themselves, but met with no clear answer.
Fellow activist Xu Yan and her rights lawyer husband Yu Wensheng said around nine people were outside the door of their apartment at 6.00 a.m. on Thursday, and they were unable to get out at all, reported Radio Free Asia.
"They're not letting me open the door," Xu told RFA. "I can't get it open no matter how hard I push.
"They pushed back pretty hard a couple of times, and my ribs are still hurting," she said.
She also said that the couple contacted the police but the security forces came, taken one look at the guards outside her home, and left again.
"It feels pretty helpless to have your freedom restricted like this, as well as being a violation of human rights and the law," Xu told RFA.
"It's like this every year," independent journalist Gao Yu said in a tweet on December 9.
Meanwhile, another rights activist Wang Qiaoling and her rights lawyer husband Li Heping were also told to stay home on the International Human Rights Day, reported Radio Free Asia.
The developments came on International Human Rights Day. On this day in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was declared by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
