Lu Siwei released on guarantee pending investigation
Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the deportation of Chinese human rights lawyer Lu Siwei back to China by the Lao authorities, who detained the human rights defender on 28 July 2023 while he was about to board a train to Thailand for his onward journey to the United States to reunite with his wife and child.
On the morning of 28 July 2023, Chinese human rights defender and lawyer Lu Siwei was detained by the authorities in Laos at the Thanaleng railway station near the Lao-Thai border, as he was about to board a train to Thailand where he was scheduled to take a flight to the United States to reunite with his family. On 31 July 2023, he has been transferred to and kept at a Department of Immigration facility, which strongly suggests he is facing imminent deportation.
Lu Siwei (卢思位) was a human rights lawyer based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He provided legal assistance to victims of human rights violations. His work focused on human rights issues such as freedom of expression, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, forced eviction, and demolition of personal properties. In recent years, he also provided legal counsel to political activists in Hong Kong who were detained and tried in mainland China while fleeing to Taiwan. In retaliation against his human rights work, the Chinese authorities arbitrarily disbarred him in January 2021 and imposed a travel ban on him in May 2021 on unspecified “national security” grounds.
On 28 October 2023, Zhang Chunxiao, the wife of human rights lawyer Lu Siwei’s who is based in the United States, reported on social media that the local police released her husband on guarantee pending investigation in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
On 7 October 2023, a lawyer appointed by Lu Siwei’s family attempted to visit him at the detention centre in Chengdu where he was detained after being deported from Laos back to China in late September 2023. However, when the family-appointed lawyer arrived at the detention centre, the police denied the lawyer’s request to meet the human rights defender on the grounds that the government had already appointed two lawyers to represent him.
Under Chinese law, a suspect may be released from detention on guarantee pending investigation (qubao houshen 取保候审). Release on guarantee pending investigation is a procedure enforced by the police and may not exceed 12 months. Criminal suspects released on guarantee pending investigation may be prohibited from leaving their city or county of residence without the permission of the local police, and may be required to report any change of address, workplace or contact information to the police within 24 hours. Among other restrictions, they must appear promptly when given a custodial summons. Those who violate the conditions of release on guarantee may be detained under residential surveillance or re-arrested.
Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the deportation of Chinese human rights lawyer Lu Siwei back to China by the Lao authorities, who detained the human rights defender on 28 July 2023 while he was about to board a train to Thailand for his onward journey to the United States to reunite with his wife and child.
Lu Siwei (卢思位) was a human rights lawyer based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He provided legal assistance to victims of human rights violations. His work focused on human rights issues such as freedom of expression, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, forced eviction, and demolition of personal properties. In recent years, he also provided legal counsel to political activists in Hong Kong who were detained and tried in mainland China while fleeing to Taiwan. In retaliation against his human rights work, the Chinese authorities arbitrarily disbarred him in January 2021 and imposed a travel ban on him in May 2021 on unspecified “national security” grounds.
Zhang Chunxiao, Lu Siwei’s wife, who is now living in the United States, told overseas Chinese-language media sources this week that the human rights defender’s family members in Sichuan received a call from local police asking them to send clothing, medicine and money for Lu Siwei who is being transferred to a detention centre in Xindu district in Chengdu. The caller did not provide further information on the exact date of his deportation from Laos back to China or on the legal basis of his detention.
Since detaining Lu Siwei on 28 July 2023, near the Lao-Thai border, the Lao authorities failed to definitively confirm the exact location of his detention and denied repeated requests by diplomats, UN officials, civil society representatives, and family-appointed lawyers to meet with the human rights defender. Neither the Lao nor the Chinese authorities have released verifiable, accurate, or transparent information that would enable an assessment of whether, and how, Lu Siwei’s detention and subsequent deportation complied procedurally and substantively with local laws in both countries, as well as international human rights law.
On 3 August 2023, UN human rights experts sent a formal urgent appeal to the Lao government expressing grave concerns about Lu Siwei’s detention and the imminent risk of his deportation back to China, where, the experts stated, “there are substantial grounds to believe that Mr. Lu Siwei would be in danger of being subjected to irreparable harm upon his return to China on account of torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading or ill-treatment or punishment, and other serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance.” On 11 August 2023, UN human rights experts followed up with a press release calling on the Lao authorities to end the human rights defender’s arbitrary detention and allow him to continue his travel to the United States.
Front Line Defenders calls on the international community to take all necessary and meaningful measures to hold the Lao government accountable for Lu Siwei’s deportation back to China, which is in violation of the principle of non-refoulement as enshrined, among others, in Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), to which Laos is party. Impunity for such complicity in refoulement and transnational repression emboldens perpetrators.
Front Line Defenders also calls on the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Lu Siwei, drop any charges against him, and allow him to leave the country to reunite with his family in the United States. Pending his release, the human rights defender should be given prompt and regular access to a legal counsel of his choice, to family visitations, and to adequate and quality medical care.
On the morning of 28 July 2023, Chinese human rights defender and lawyer Lu Siwei was detained by the authorities in Laos at the Thanaleng railway station near the Lao-Thai border, as he was about to board a train to Thailand where he was scheduled to take a flight to the United States to reunite with his family. On 31 July 2023, he has been transferred to and kept at a Department of Immigration facility, which strongly suggests he is facing imminent deportation.
Before his arbitrary disbarment in 2021, Lu Siwei (卢思位) was a human rights lawyer based in Chengdu, in the Sichuan province. He provided legal assistance to victims of human rights violations. His work focused on human rights issues such as freedom of expression, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, forced eviction, and demolition of personal properties. In recent years, he defended other human rights lawyers who were prosecuted and imprisoned on “national security” charges, advocated for an independent investigation into the torture of human rights lawyers during the 2015 “709” crackdown, and provided legal representation to activists who faced prosecution for commemorating the lethal 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing.
According to Lu Siwei’s family in the US, the human rights defender holds a valid Chinese passport with valid visas for both Laos and the US, where his wife and daughter now live after leaving China in 2022. In May 2021, immigration officers at the Shanghai Pudong Airport stopped Lu Siwei from boarding his flight to the United States, where he was due to participate in a fellowship programme. The officers informed him that an exit ban had been imposed against him on “national security” grounds. Since the imposition of his exit ban, the human rights defender continued to face regular surveillance and harassment.
In January 2021, the Sichuan Provincial Judicial Department formally revoked Lu Siwei's lawyer's license in retaliation against his peaceful human rights activities. The revocation of his license came shortly after Lu Siwei’s attempt in the fall of 2020 to provide legal representation to one of the 12 Hong Kong youth activists who were intercepted by mainland Chinese authorities in August 2020 while fleeing to Taiwan by boat. The authorities refused to allow Lu Siwei to meet his client and repeatedly threatened him in a bid to force him to abandon the case.
Front Line Defenders is deeply concerned about the detention of human rights lawyer Lu Siwei and the possibility of his imminent deportation. Lu Siwei’s deportation back to China would add to a growing pattern of refoulement of human rights defenders from one country to another in Asia. If deported back to China, the human rights defender is likely to face reprisals, including arbitrary detention and prosecution, as a result of his human rights work. Front Line Defenders recalls that Laos is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), which prohibits it from returning “a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
