"China’s missing #MeToo and labour activist pair held by police, family told", 5 October 2021

Two activists who disappeared last month in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou had been detained by police, a family member was told by authorities.

However, Guangzhou police refused to disclose what charges high-profile women’s rights campaigner and freelance journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin and labour activist Wang Jianbing were facing, or where they were being held, according to a request filed with authorities by Wang’s younger brother, Jianen.

The Twitter account Free Xueqin&Jianbing shared a document – written by Wang Jianen and filed with police in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district – which said officers told him last Wednesday that Wang Jianbing had been taken, but that they did not reveal any other details about the case.

“[We] hereby request that relevant departments notify the families in writing,” Wang Jianen wrote in the form.

He was told to go to the Chigang police station in Guangzhou last Thursday, where three unidentified officers told him to stop visiting various law enforcement and judicial agencies to find out what had happened to his brother, and asked him to keep quiet about the case, according to the Twitter account. [...]

The detention of the pair follows that of University of Hong Kong doctoral candidate and labour researcher Fang Ran, who was taken by national security agents in his hometown of Nanning in southern Guangxi province in August. [...]