Wife of detained lawyer Yu Wensheng barred from travelling

Xu Yan, the wife of detained Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng

The wife of a detained Chinese human rights lawyer said that she has been prevented from leaving her neighborhood, the latest apparent case of extra-legal harassment of those who fall afoul of the ruling Communist Party.

Xu Yan tweeted that she had been followed from her apartment by police officers who stopped her leaving by taxi by telling the drivers not to take her.

“I asked ‘Why am I being restricted?’” Xu wrote. She said the officers said they didn’t know, nor were they aware of who had authorized the measures or how long they were to be enforced.

Xu’s husband, Yu Wensheng, was grabbed by police on Jan. 19 while preparing to take his 13-year-old son to school and has been charged with the loosely defined crime of inciting subversion against the one- party authoritarian Communist state.

During a visit to Beijing last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met privately with Xu and Li Wenzhu, the wife of another detained lawyer, Wang Quanzhang.

Yu’s detention extends a crackdown on independent legal activists by the ruling party launched in July 2015. His seizure came a day after he posted a letter online calling for reforms to the constitution and open presidential elections.

China’s vast domestic security apparatus has frequently detained or harassed family members of those accused of crimes against the state, most notably Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who died last year of liver cancer while serving a prison sentence for inciting subversion of state power.

Germany said earlier this month it would welcome Liu Xia after a recording was released of her crying in desperation. AP