Disappeared, Jailed, and Tortured in China

Lawyer Xie Yang was tortured for the better part of 2 years because he dared to represent China's poor and persecuted. Xie Yang was sleep deprived and kept in isolation. Squads of police punched and kicked him for hours at a time. Police made threats to his wife and children and said that they would turn him into an invalid unless he confessed to political crimes. Xie Yang and his fellow human rights lawyers wanted the best for China, but what they got was the very worst. Since July 2015, almost 250 lawyers and legal assistants were detained, sending a chilling message to those fighting for legal reforms and for elemental human rights. Chinese officials repeatedly say that the focus should be on the positive aspects of China, not on the negative. The human rights lawyers and rights activists are some of China's best, bravest and brightest, and now they are women and men with broken bodies, shattered minds, broken noses and faces, who have aged 20 or more years after just 2 years or 3 of solitary confinement or torture. While President Xi Jinping is feted at Davos and lauded in national capitals for his public commitments to openness, his government is torturing and abusing those seeking rights guaranteed by China's own constitution. One Oxford University scholar said that Xi Jinping has built a "perfect dictatorship," an increasingly repressive garrison state that avoids any international censure.