{"id":7599,"date":"2017-05-19T07:07:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T11:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=7599"},"modified":"2017-05-19T07:13:30","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T11:13:30","slug":"chinas-war-law-victims-wives-tell-us-congress-torture-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/05\/19\/chinas-war-law-victims-wives-tell-us-congress-torture-trauma\/","title":{"rendered":"China&#8217;s &#8216;war on law&#8217;: victims&#8217; wives tell US Congress of torture and trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\" data-test-id=\"article-review-body\">\n<p>The wives of some of the most prominent victims of <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/jan\/03\/human-rights-activist-peter-dahlin-secret-black-prison-xi-jinpings-new-china\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Xi Jinping\u2019s crackdown on civil society<\/a> have stepped up their campaign for justice, backing calls for US sanctions against Chinese officials involved in allegedly barbaric cases of torture and abuse.\u00a0 Addressing <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/foreignaffairs.house.gov\/hearing\/subcommittee-hearing-disappeared-jailed-tortured-china-wives-petition-husbands-freedom\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">a congressional hearing<\/a> in Washington on Thursday, the women, whose husbands were among the key targets of a Communist party offensive against human rights lawyers, detailed the physical and psychological trauma inflicted by China\u2019s so-called \u201cwar on law\u201d.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--not-upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__arrow\">Chen Guiqiu, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/151d0f86ae2f4c43826a23887b07275c\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">who fled to the United States in March<\/a>, told of how her husband, the attorney Xie Yang, had been imprisoned and \u201cbrutally tortured\u201d because of his work defending victims of land grabs, religious persecution and dissidents.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Wang Yanfeng, the wife of Tang Jingling, a lawyer and democracy activist who was jailed in 2016 in what campaigners described as <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/jan\/29\/china-jails-three-activists-for-trying-to-start-civil-disobedience-movement\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">\u201ca gross injustice\u201d<\/a>, said her husband had suffered repeated spells of abuse, threats and torture. \u201cToday other [lawyers and political prisoners] are still suffering from such torture,\u201d Wang said, calling on US president Donald Trump to challenge China over such abuses.<\/p>\n<p>In a video message, Li Wenzu, the wife of <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/commentisfree\/2016\/sep\/23\/china-should-be-proud-of-wang-quanzhang-instead-it-persecutes-him\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">lawyer Wang Quanzhang<\/a>, said she had heard nothing from him since he was seized by police at the start of the campaign against lawyers in July 2015. \u201cI am deeply concerned about my husband\u2019s safety. I don\u2019t know how his health is. I don\u2019t know whether he has been left disabled by the torture. I don\u2019t even know whether he is alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wang Qiaoling, whose husband, Li Heping, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/may\/10\/emaciated-unrecognisable-china-releases-human-rights-lawyer-from-custody\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">recently emerged from a 22-month stint in custody<\/a>, said he returned home looking \u201c20 years older\u201d and had told of being forced to sit for hours in stress positions and being shackled with chains. \u201cHe suffered from very cruel and sick torture,\u201d Wang added.<\/p>\n<p>Also giving testimony was Lee Chin-yu, whose husband, the Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/apr\/28\/wife-of-taiwan-activist-seized-china-pleads-for-release-lee-ming-che\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">vanished into Chinese custody in March<\/a> after travelling to the mainland. \u201cI stand alone before you today to plead for your help for my husband,\u201d Lee said, calling on Washington to pressure China to end her husband\u2019s \u201cillegitimate detention\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Since China\u2019s crackdown on lawyers began almost two years ago, its victims\u2019 wives have emerged as a relentless and forceful voice of opposition, often using <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/s6SMItbJai81Fk5\/status\/865062810438561793\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">humorous online videos<\/a> and public performances to champion their cause. They say they have done so in defiance of a campaign of state-sponsored intimidation that has seen them trailed by undercover agents, struggle to enrol their children into schools or be evicted from their homes.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday\u2019s hearing was part of a push by human rights groups to convince the Trump administration to use <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/jan\/23\/trump-has-the-power-to-fight-china-on-human-rights-will-he-use-it\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">a law called the Magnitsky Act<\/a> to bring sanctions such as travel bans or property seizures against Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses.China has rejected claims of torture against the human rights lawyers it has imprisoned, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/mar\/02\/china-accuses-western-media-fake-news-human-rights\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">dismissing such allegations as \u201cfake news\u201d<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"submeta\"><span class=\"submeta__label\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"submeta\">Source for full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/may\/19\/chinas-war-on-law-victims-wives-tell-us-congress-of-torture-and-trauma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">theguardian.com<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The wives of some of the most prominent victims of Xi Jinping\u2019s crackdown on civil society have stepped up their campaign for justice, backing calls for US sanctions against Chinese officials involved in allegedly barbaric <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/05\/19\/chinas-war-law-victims-wives-tell-us-congress-torture-trauma\/\" title=\"China&#8217;s &#8216;war on law&#8217;: victims&#8217; wives tell US Congress of torture and trauma\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2],"tags":[1673,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-7599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-torture","11":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7599"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7604,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599\/revisions\/7604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}