BEIJING — A well-known Chinese human rights activist who had not been seen or heard from for more than three weeks is in police custody, accused of possessing secret government documents and spiriting them abroad, state-run news outlets said on Friday.
The activist, Jiang Tianyong, is a disbarred lawyer who has energetically supported the families of human rights lawyers caught in a crackdown that began in July 2015. Mr. Jiang’s family and friends lost contact with him on Nov. 21.
The website of The Legal Daily, an official newspaper, said on Friday that the police detained Mr. Jiang when he tried to travel to Beijing by train from Changsha, a city in southern China. They accused him of using a fake identity card to buy a ticket. After he was in custody, much graver charges were lodged: Citing the police, the newspaper said Mr. Jiang “illegally possessed multiple secret state documents, colluded with overseas institutions, organizations and individuals, and is suspected of illegally providing state secrets abroad.”
It appears likely that Mr. Jiang, 45, will join a long list of Chinese rights advocates who have been detained, discredited and in some cases imprisoned as a warning to others not to embrace dissent.
About 250 lawyers and activists were detained in the crackdown last year. Most were released, but about 17 were arrested and in some cases tried and imprisoned on subversion and other charges, according to estimates by Amnesty International.
The Legal Daily said Mr. Jiang was a “citizen advocate” who “meddled in some serious cases, wantonly fabricated and spread rumors on the internet, and incited petitioners and the families of people in legal proceedings to resist state agencies.”
Patrick Poon, who researches Chinese issues for Amnesty International from Hong Kong, said in an interview that “without access to a lawyer of his own choice, Jiang Tianyong is at risk of torture or other ill treatment.”
The Chinese news reports said Mr. Jiang had been held under “criminal coercive measures” since Dec. 1. Those measures give the police vaguely defined powers to hold suspects secretively.
The reports said the police had notified Mr. Jiang’s family about his case. “That’s simply a lie,” Mr. Poon said.
Mr. Jiang’s wife, Jin Bianling, who lives in California, denied in an emailed statement that his family had received any official notice. She said the authorities had concocted the allegations “to avenge and crush Jiang Tianyong’s long-running work in rights defense.”
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