China: Three Human Rights Defenders Held in Unknown Locations, 'at Risk of Torture'

[TomSea]

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Three Human Rights Defenders Held in Unknown Locations, 'at Risk of Torture'

Concerns are mounting over the continued detention of three prominent Chinese rights defenders all detained or "disappeared" last month, rights group said.

Prominent Beijing rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, Sichuan-based Tianwang website founder Huang Qi and Hubei-based rights activist Liu Feiyue have all been incommunicado since mid-November, amid growing calls for official confirmation of their status.

"Police are believed to be holding the men in unknown locations, raising fears that they are at risk of torture," the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) said in a statement on its website.

"The detention and disappearance in quick succession of these well-known leading figures of China’s rights defense movement further signal the escalation of President Xi Jinping’s relentless crackdown on civil society," it said.

According to a statement from Jiang's family posted on the Human Rights in China website: "The family cannot accept the fact that Jiang is being administratively detained—or criminally investigated—merely because of his visit with a fellow lawyer’s family in Changsha or for trying to help them find out more about that lawyer’s detention."

Continued: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/defenders-disappeared-12012016135824.html