A prominent Chinese Christian human rights lawyer and two publishers of human rights news websites in China disappeared in the past two weeks, renewing fears of a crackdown on human rights defenders.
The men could have been detained, although police have only charged one man with an offense. The disappearances are reminiscent of a 2015 operation called the 709 Crackdown, referring to July 9, the day the arrests began, when police arrested more than 250 human rights lawyers, activists, and legal aids in an attempt to silence threats to the Chinese Communist Party’s control.
The family of Jiang Tianyong, a 45-year-old Christian lawyer in Beijing, said he recently traveled to the city of Changsha to visit the wife of human rights attorney Xie Yang, who was arrested in the 709 crackdown. Jiang told his friends he would take a train back to Beijing on the night of Nov. 21, but he never arrived and...