Li Wenzu

李文足

Li Wenzu marches to Tianjin in April, 2018. (Source: Anonymous

Li Wenzu is a rights activist and wife of "quintessential rights lawyer" Wang Quanzhang (王全璋), the only of the hundreds of rights lawyers and activists detained in the "709" or "Black Friday" crackdown in 2015 still believed to be detained in April of 2018. To mark the 1,000th day since her husband's disappearance, Li embarked on a 60-mile walk from Beijing to Tianjin, where Wang was believed to be detained, to seek information about her husband's situation. Along her walk, Li was stopped by authorities and returned to Beijing, where she was put under house arrest.

Beginning on Friday July 9, 2015, hundreds of rights lawyers and activists were detained and interrogated across China amid a broader long-running crackdown on civil society by the Xi Jinping administration. The roundup, which came to be known as the "709" or "Black Friday" crackdown. Wang Quanzhang, a lawyer with the Fengrui Law Firm and known for taking on sensitive torture cases, was detained in August while in hiding following the initial detentions. On August 10, his lawyer Li Zhongwei (李仲伟) confirmed that he had been planed under criminal detention for suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “inciting subversion of state power”—catch-all charges commonly used in the persecution of activists in China. Along with many other relatives of Black Friday detainees, Li formed an alliance of campaigners working on behalf of the "Black Friday" detainees and other political prisoners in China. In August of 2016, Li took part in protests outside of Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court amid concerns that detainees were being secretly tried. In May of 2017, Li was one of several wives to testify to a congressional committee in Washington D.C., urging the Trump administration to press Beijing to free remaining detainees and end the systemic use of torture in custody.

Following dozens of releases, trials, and sentencings—including some for lawyers who had attempted to aid in securing the release of initial detainees—Li's husband Wang remained the only lawyer still believed to be in detention, having been incommunicado after more than 1,000 days. To mark the 1,000th day since her husband's disappearance, Li began a protest march to Tianjin on April 5. Wearing a jacket lettered with the slogan "seized for 1,000 days," Li was joined by several other activists on her walk. On April 10, Li was intercepted by plainclothes police, returned to her home in Beijing, and barred under house arrest by security officials. Li's situation recalled that of Liu Xia, wife of deceased Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xia has similarly faced years of house arrest and harassment beginning when her detained husband was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

On April 11, Human Rights in China translated the following statement from Li:

[…] I am under siege in my house, surrounded by 40-50 people. Friends who came to see me were blocked from coming in. I could only shout through the windows to talk to them.

Wang Quanzhang has been disappeared for 1,006 days, and I’ve been under house arrest for two days. They even blocked our caretaker and our son from leaving the house, and said: if you come out, we’ll kill you. It was only after I called the police that the guards allowed them to leave the house. But a gang of Aunties hurled insults at them, calling them traitors, and made them cry.

If we—mother and son—are disappeared, are killed, we hope our friends everywhere will help us write this tragic episode into history. [Source]