Rights lawyer Zhou Xiaoyun, who formerly worked as a senior editor at the cutting-edge Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper in Guangzhou, remains incommunicado after being held under "residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)," RFA has learned.

Zhou was initially detained by police in the northeastern province of Liaoning around six months ago on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

He was held incommunicado under RSDL, but now that the six-month limit has been reached, he is now likely being held under criminal detention on the same charges, people familiar with the case told RFA.

"According to the information that emerged [on Aug. 29], he is being held under criminal detention now," journalist Hong Tao told RFA. "Somebody is taking the opportunity to deal with him in the current political and law enforcement climate."

"It's likely to be an official in the local government in Panjin going after him," Hong said. "They are just trumping up some charges to pin on him, and they've just changed the kind of compulsory measures he is under to criminal detention."

"That's the way the judiciary operates, especially in the northeast and places like that," he said. "They just lock someone up and deprive them of visits from their lawyer."

"It's pretty shameless, as the saying goes."

Zhou's lawyer Zhao Cong declined to comment when contacted recently by RFA.

However, sources said she has applied for bail for Zhou, and that the application has been rejected by the Panjin municipal police department.

Local retaliation

A former colleague of Zhou's at the Southern Metropolis Daily, who gave only a surname, Liu, said the local police department and state prosecutor's office are targeting Zhou because he accused them of abuses of power.

"This is totally about the local political and legal affairs committee retaliating [against him]," Liu said. "Now that he's been converted from RSDL to criminal detention, it looks likely that he'll be sentenced."

"He ran afoul of some local vested interests, so the police are dealing with him."

Guan Changbo, CCP secretary of the Liaoning provincial police department's criminal investigation bureau, has written a defense of Zhou's arrest.

An anonymous senior reporter said that the current political climate harks back to political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when public denunciations of intellectuals and professionals were rife, and were usually followed up with political or violent retribution.

Southern Metropolis Daily founder Cheng Yizhong said the fact that police in Liaoning felt comfortable detaining someone who used to be a journalist in a far-off city showed how much law enforcement power is now being delegated to local authorities under CCP general secretary Xi Jinping.

"The CCP is delegating a huge amount of authority to local governments now," Cheng said....RFA

https://www.crimeandmoreworld.com/journalist-turned-rights-attorney-held-incommunicado-in-chinas-liaoning/

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