The editor of a Chinese Web site monitoring human rights issues has been detained on suspicion of subverting state power, according to an announcement on the Web site.
Liu Feiyue (劉飛躍), founder of the Web site Minsheng Guancha, was taken away earlier this month by police in the central Chinese city of Suizhou.
The site says that Liu’s family has been told he is under investigation for subversion, a vaguely defined charge often leveled against human rights advocates and dissidents.
Minsheng Guancha, known in English as Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, was founded in 2006 and documents protests, land seizures, unannounced detentions and other alleged human rights violations that are typically ignored by China’s state-run media.
Liu has published stories about China’s detentions of dissenters and rights advocates, one of a few people living in China to do so.
His Web site has alleged that China has committed hundreds of perceived troublemakers to mental hospitals under the guise of giving them psychiatric treatment.
He has also documented local corruption cases and protests by veterans seeking benefits after their discharge from the Chinese military.
Liu has been detained multiple times for brief periods, often during high-profile events such as meetings of the National People’s Congress or international summits.
If he is convicted of subversion, Liu could face life in prison, the maximum penalty for anyone guilty of organizing a “scheme of subverting the state power or overthrowing the socialist system.”
Word of Liu’s detention came shortly after news that another rights campaigner has disappeared.
The wife of legal activist Jiang Tianyong (江天勇) on Thursday said that he had not been heard from since Monday.
In a separate column on its Web site, Minsheng Guancha called Liu’s detention the latest incident in a “prolonged suppression” of rights advocates.
“As long as the rights of a single person fail to be guaranteed, the appeals for human rights will never die,” the site said.
Patrick Poon, a researcher for Amnesty International, said the cases of Liu and Jiang were “worrying,” and a possible sign of “another wave of crackdown against human rights defenders.”
An official who answered the telephone at the Suizhou public security bureau said he had no knowledge of Liu’s detention.
Calls to Liu’s mobile phone rang unanswered.
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