A human rights lawyer who was arrested in neighbouring Laos has been deported back to China, his attorney said, despite pleas from rights groups and United Nations experts for his release.
Lu Siwei was stripped of his legal license for taking on sensitive cases and fleeing China when he was arrested in Laos earlier in the summer.
According to Lithnarong Pholsena, Lu’s attorney, officials at the prison where Lu was held said that Chinese police took Lu and two busloads of other Chinese citizens detained in Laos back to China earlier this week.
Bob Fu, a Texas-based Christian activist who was assisting Lu, said Laos had violated international law by deporting Lu to China, where family members and activists fear that he may be at risk of imprisonment and torture.
“We failed,” Fu said. “It’s a shame for the international human rights community.”
Lu had a history of taking on sensitive cases and navigating the fraught and murky waters of defending people who are deemed to be the political targets of authorities.
China’s fledging legal rights movement has been heavily targeted under its leader, Xi Jinping.
In 2015, hundreds of activists and rights lawyers were arrested in what later became known as the 709 Crackdown, named after July 9, the day it was launched.
Lu, an insurance attorney by trade, defended some of those detained, including rights lawyer and Xi critic, Yu Wensheng.
In 2021, Lu was stripped of his legal license after representing a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist who tried to flee to Taiwan.
Later that year, Lu found out that he was barred from leaving China when he tried to attend a visiting fellowship in the United States.
For over a year, Lu has been separated from his wife and daughter, who both resettled in the United States in 2022.
He fled China in late July, crossing into Vietnam and then Laos. He was seized by Laotian police while boarding a train for Thailand, where he was planning to catch a flight to the US to join his wife and daughter.
Lu was charged with entering Laos on a fake visa, Lu’s attorney Pholsena said, citing documents she received from Laotian prosecutors.
But Fu, the activist assisting Lu, disputed that assertion, saying the visa was authentic and sending images of Lu’s visa to the AP to back his claim.
In August, 68 rights groups issued a joint statement expressing concern over the arrest.
A group of UN experts called on Laos to release Lu.
“It is outrageous that human rights defenders working peacefully to promote, defend or protect the rights of others, are being persecuted even while fleeing,” UN experts said at the time. — AP
