Taipei, Taiwan —

Multiple human rights organizations said that in recent months, China has intensified the persecution of human rights lawyers and their families. One lawyer’s sick wife was unable to obtain pensions and medical insurance, and the children of two lawyers were repeatedly harassed by local authorities. Forced dropouts by the authorities.

VOA has contacted China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment but has not yet received a response.

On March 31, 16 Chinese human rights lawyers and dissidents called Donate to Chinese human rights lawyer Zhou ShifengHis family is struggling to pay his wife’s mounting medical bills because she has no access to Social Security or a pension.

Zhou’s wife has been disabled since suffering a severe stroke in 1995. In 2015, Zhou was sentenced to seven years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” as part of a nationwide crackdown by the Chinese government on more than 300 human rights lawyers, leaving his wife unable to make regular social security payments or properly handle her retirement application. .

“Before his arrest, Zhou’s law firm would pay social insurance for his wife and he would take care of everything she needed,” said Ren Quanniu, a Chinese human rights lawyer familiar with Zhou’s situation.

“But after his arrest, her social security contributions were suspended, and no one helped her complete retirement procedures in 2017, causing her to lose her social security and pension,” he told VOA by phone.

As a result, Zhou’s wife’s increasing medical expenses could not be reimbursed, and her health deteriorated rapidly, putting increasing pressure on her family.

“Her overall health has deteriorated since Zhou was arrested in 2015, and has become more serious since early 2024,” Ren said, adding that she had been in the intensive care unit of a local hospital in Henan province since February .

Like many human rights lawyers in China, Zhou had his license revoked after being detained, and since his release in September 2022, he has been unable to find stable work to support his family. “Since he can no longer practice law, his family has lost its only source of income,” Ren added.

With no income to pay for his wife’s medical expenses, Ren Zhengfei said the human rights lawyer’s community wanted to support his family by appealing to the public for donations. “His wife may be hanging on by a thread, so we want to do whatever we can to help his family through this difficult time,” he said.

Forced to drop out of school

Other human rights lawyers have had their families repeatedly subjected to forced evictions, while schools have repeatedly denied their children admission due to pressure from local authorities.

Prominent human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for subversion during the 2015 crackdown, has been evicted from landlords or hotels more than a dozen times since last April. He said the forced demolitions were part of a retaliation by Chinese authorities against him and his family.

The 2015 crackdown is known in China as the “709 Crackdown” because it began on July 9, 2015. Since that day, Chinese authorities have targeted independent legal advocates and arrested hundreds of lawyers.

“The authorities think our community has been trying to humiliate them, so they want to use every means at their disposal to punish human rights lawyers,” Wang told VOA by phone.

Wang said that in addition to forced expulsions, his 11-year-old son was refused admission to school several times last year. “We were forced to move to new places frequently last year and it was difficult for my son to stay in the same school long enough,” he said, adding that some schools would reject his son due to pressure from the school. authorities.

Last year, Wang tried to send him to study abroad, hoping to protect him from harassment.

“Last October, when we tried to leave China, customs officials stopped my son and the daughter of another human rights lawyer and said they were not allowed to leave China because they could pose a threat to national security,” he said.

Wang and his family have since moved to the southern province of Guangzhou and are trying to get their son into a private school recommended by a friend.

“Just a week later, nearly 20 people suddenly showed up at the college to conduct an ‘inspection,’ and under their repeated harassment, the college was forced to move to a more secluded location,” Wang said.

Since it’s unclear when his son can return to school, Wang is signing him up for some online classes to make sure he’s still learning something. “The authorities know my son is my greatest weakness, so they are trying to make it difficult for him to go to school in the hope that this will stop me from criticizing them,” he told VOA.

Some human rights advocates say the Chinese government has stepped up its persecution of Chinese dissidents and their families in recent years. Yu Zhenyang, the son of detained human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife Xu Yan, was briefly detained and detained. Attempted suicide twice since November last year.

“The persecution of children of dissidents in China has increased under Xi Jinping and has now become a new normal,” said Zhou Fengsuo, a former Tiananmen student leader and executive director of the New York-based Chinese Human Rights Organization. He spoke to VOA by phone.

period universal periodic reviewAt a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in January, China’s top diplomat said in Geneva that Beijing was committed to “safeguarding the rights of specific groups” and “continuously implementing four rounds of child development guidelines.”