China: Disappearing Dissidents
September 3rd, 2011Via: New York Times:
Last Jan. 27, an Inner Mongolian rights activist, Govruud Huuchinhuu, suddenly vanished after leaving a hospital where she had undergone treatment for cancer. On Feb. 16, the Beijing human-rights lawyer Tang Jitian vanished after being forcibly taken away by police officers. On May 30, an ethnic Uighur, Ershidin Israel, vanished after being deported to China from Kazakhstan as a terrorism suspect. In the next two weeks, three other Uighurs vanished as well.
The Beijing artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, who vanished into police custody on April 3 and did not emerge until June 22, is but the most famous Chinese activist to suffer an “enforced disappearance,” as human rights officials call such episodes. Experts say 2011 has seen a sharp and worrisome increase inside China of a security tactic that a United Nations international convention has sought to outlaw.
