Christian human rights attorney kidnapped, threatened, beaten

A human rights lawyer who has championed many cases of injustice in China was kidnapped by more than 10 security agents today and threatened with death in China’s coastal Zhejiang province.

Li Baiguang, a Christian human rights lawyer, had just finished filing a petition for peasants who had lost their land in a government takeover and suffered injustices. As he was pulling open the door to his hotel in Wenling, Zhejiang, more than 10 “solid and tall” Communist Party agents in plainclothes abducted him, took him into the forest, beat him severely, and threatened to dismember him, cutting off his hands, feet, and head, should he return or refuse to leave by tomorrow.

“I was very afraid!” Li told his friends after the officials abandoned him in a field.

He immediately called the police, who viewed the hotel's surveillance video and started filing a case. According to the police, the license plate of the car that kidnapped him was linked to the Luqiao District Public Security Bureau in Taizhou, Zhejiang, connecting the abduction to superior officials in the city.

He suffered many bruises and soft tissue contusions but is otherwise in stable condition. The day before, four vehicles tracked the farmers, and they found that an Audi car was tracking Li when he left Wenling.

During his career, Li, who works for the Beijing Municipal Gongxin Law Firm, has represented many prominent human rights cases, including that of Zhang Kai, a Christian attorney who was tortured by the government for defending more than 100 Zhejiang churches from a cross demolition campaign. In a letter written after his release, Zhang lauded Li as someone who “stepped forward for me in my period of horror.”