Chinese legal rights activist detained

Jul 31, 2009, 3:19 GMT

   Beijing - A prominent Chinese human rights activist and director of a legal advocacy centre, who gained prominence helping victims of last years' poison-milk scandal, has been detained by police, as authorities continue to tighten control over the country's legal community.

   Xu Zhiyong, a legal scholar and co-founder of a volunteer legal service, Gongmeng, was escorted from his Beijing home at around 5am Wednesday by one uniformed and five plain-clothes police, a statement posted on the group's website on Thursday said.

   'We have lost all contact with him since Tuesday night, and he must be in big trouble,' lawyer and Gongmeng co-founder, Teng Biao, was quoted as saying by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

Human rights groups urged the Beijing goverment to disclose Xu's whereabouts.

   Xu's detention comes only weeks after Gonmeng's legal research branch was fined 1.42 million yuan (207,850 dollars) for tax evasion, and shut down on the grounds that it was not properly registered.

   'The bureau has no legal right to order a closure. The research centre has always been a division of the company that is registered with the authorities. There is no legal proof to show our group has not been registered properly,' Xu told reporters at the time.

   Gongmeng investigated a number sensitive cases, including the scandal over melamine-contaminated milk which killed at least six babies and sickened hundreds of thousands in China last year.

   Xu, 36, was one of several lawyers who championed the overturning of China's custody and repatriation system after the death of a student in a detention centre in 2003.

   More recently he has been researching China's petitioners - those seeking redress for a variety of problems from illegal land seizures to pollution-related illness.

   China's legal community has come under increased pressure from authorities this year as the country undergoes a number of sensitive anniversaries. According to rights groups, more than 50 lawyers were recently barred from renewing the licence which allows them to practice.

   Others have been quietly removed from key posts, including outspoken Beijing University law professor He Weifang, who was sent away from the capital to a remote western university earlier in the year.