In one of his most daring writings, he urged China's President Xi Jinping to resign, saying: “You’re just not smart enough.”
Then, over the weekend, Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal activist, went silent. Authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou detained him on Saturday, according to his friends, after he spent nearly two months in hiding.
His girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a social activist, went missing Sunday, Mr Xu’s friends said.
The activist is the latest critic to be caught up in Mr Xi’s far-reaching efforts to limit dissent in China. The crackdown, which has ensnared scores of activists, lawyers, journalists and intellectuals, is likely to intensify as the ruling Communist Party comes under broad attack for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, one of its biggest political challenges in years.
Mr Xu, a 46-year-old former university lecturer, has long railed against government corruption and social injustice in China. He went into hiding in December as police began rounding up human rights activists who met with him in the eastern city of Xiamen.
An elderly man wearing a face mask lying on the pavement after he collapsed and died near a hospital in Wuhan. Source: AFP
While in hiding, Mr Xu continued to publish blunt critiques of the President on social media, accusing him of leading a dictatorship.
He also criticised Mr Xi’s handling of the outbreak in the central province of Hubei that has killed at least 1,770 people in China and infected more than 70,000.
In one of his last writings, before he was detained, Mr Xu mourned the death of a doctor in Wuhan whom police had silenced after he warned about the virus.
“In their hearts,” Mr Xu said of party leaders. “There is no right and wrong, no conscience, no bottom line, no humanity.”
Mr Xu, a firebrand who has spent decades pushing for political changes, has long clashed with the Chinese government.
He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 for “gathering a crowd to disturb public order,” a charge that stemmed from his role organising the New Citizens Movement, a grassroots effort against corruption and social injustice in Chinese society.
It is unclear what charges authorities might bring against Mr Xu. The circumstances of the disappearance of his girlfriend, Ms Li, were also ambiguous. Police in Guangzhou did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It is within the scope of freedom of speech under the Chinese constitution,” US-based activist Hua Ze said, after confirming his detention.
Faced with growing public anger over the coronavirus outbreak, China’s leader has cited a need to “strengthen the guidance of public opinion,” a term that often refers to blocking independent news reporting and censoring critical comments on Chinese social media.
Many free-speech activists worry that the party, which is concerned about maintaining its control, is tightening the reins of public discourse despite a growing perception that the silencing of doctors and others who tried to raise alarms has enabled the virus to spread more widely.
Two video bloggers who attracted wide attention for their dispatches from Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, have gone missing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks to residents as he inspects the coronavirus pneumonia prevention and control work in Beijing. Source: AAP
Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization, said the detention of Xu showed that authorities had no intention of loosening restrictions on speech.
“The Chinese government persists in its old ways: silencing its critics rather than listening to people who promote rights-respecting policies that actually solve problems,” she said.
