A leading Chinese human rights lawyer has been released from prison after almost five years behind bars, his wife said Sunday. Wang Quanzhang, 44, was first detained in 2015 in a sweeping crackdown on more than 200 lawyers and government critics in China as President Xi Jinping tightened his grip on
Beijing - A leading Chinese human rights lawyer has been released from prison after almost five years behind bars, his wife said Sunday.
Li told AFP from Beijing, where she lives with the couple's young son, she feared Wang would be placed under house arrest despite his release from prison, and would be subject to surveillance."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."
But it was not until January 2019 that he was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for"subverting state power" in a closed-door trial. Police had forcibly evicted tenants from Wang's property in the city of Jinan to make way for his return to Shandong, his wife added."His speech is being restricted. He phoned me yesterday saying he would go to Jinan," she said.
"My husband's health has deteriorated during the long incarceration, he has lost so much weight," Li told AFP at the time.Beijing has stepped up its crackdown on civil society since Xi took power in 2012, tightening restrictions on freedom of speech and detaining hundreds of activists and lawyers. Eleven human rights and legal concern groups -- including some based in Hong Kong and Taiwan -- also released a joint statement calling on authorities to ensure Wang's freedom from house arrest, surveillance or any other form of control.
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