China puts freed rights lawyer in quarantine

A LEADING Chinese human rights lawyer has been released from prison after almost five years, his wife said yesterday – but has been sent hundreds of miles away from his family.

Wang Quanzhang, 44, was detained in 2015 as part of a sweeping crackdown on lawyers and government critics as Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, tightened his grip on power.

Despite his release, Mr Wang is yet to return home to his family in Beijing and was yesterday escorted to a property he owns in Shandong province for 14 days in quarantine as a precaution against the coronavirus, according to

Li Wenzu, his wife. Ms Li told AFP she feared her husband would be placed under house arrest.

“I think [authorities] have been lying to us step by step,” she said. “They used the pretext of the epidemic as an excuse to quarantine him for 14 days when he should have been able to return to his home in Beijing according to the relevant legal guidelines.”

Rights groups said police had put other released lawyers under house arrest to isolate them from their network.

A prominent lawyer who has defended political activists and victims of land seizures, Mr Wang was held for years before being sentenced in January 2019 for “subverting state power” in a closed-door trial. Ms Li has tirelessly campaigned for her husband’s release and believes his stay in Shandong is not out of choice.

“Is this what a rational person would do after being separated from their wife and child for almost five years?” she asked.

The EU welcomed Mr Wang’s release as a “positive development”, but said reports of him undergoing “serious mistreatment and torture” in detention must be “thoroughly investigated”. “The European Union expects that Mr Wang’s release will be unconditional ... including the possibility to reunite with his family,” it said in a statement yesterday.