Around 4 pm on the afternoon
of 13 May, Beijing lawyers Zhang Kai and Li Chunfu were beaten
by a group of police officers from the Jiangjin District Public Security Bureau
in Chongqing and taken away in handcuffs.
(Source: Chinese Human Rights Defenders)
(May 13, 2009) Around 4 pm on the afternoon
of 13 May, Beijing lawyers Zhang Kai and Li Chunfu were beaten
by a group of police officers from the Jiangjin District Public Security Bureau
in Chongqing and taken away in handcuffs. Their current whereabouts are
unknown. Zhang and Li were in Chongqing to meet with the family of Jiang Xiqing,
a 66-year old Falun Gong practitioner, who died suddenly while detained in
Chongqing's Xishanping Re-education Through Labor (RTL) camp on 28 January.

Zhang and Li arrived at the home of Jiang's brother-in-law on the morning of
May 13 and were there for approximately two hours before two police officers
arrived to question them.  In the afternoon, a group of more than 20
officers, including officials from the National Security Unit under the
Jiangjin PSB, arrived at the home, demanding that Zhang and Li produce their
identification cards. When the lawyers, who were carrying their lawyers'
licenses and passports, were unable to produce their personal ID cards (shenfenzheng),
the officers suddenly surrounded them, throwing the pair to the ground, beating
and handcuffing them. Zhang's eyeglasses were smashed. Zhang and Li
were then pushed outside into a waiting police vehicle.  Jiang's son,
Jiang Hongbin, was also taken away by the officers. The whereabouts
and status of the three remains unknown at the time of writing.

Zhang and Li, from Beijing's Zhengtai Law Firm, are representing Jiang's
children in a lawsuit they are bringing against the RTL authorities over the
death of their father. The family suspects that RTL officials are not
telling them the truth about Jiang's death. This was the first meeting
between the lawyers and the family. 

Jiang Xiqing was kidnapped at his home on 14 May 2008, one day after
police
had seized his wife, and sent to a year of Re-education Through Labor.
His family never received a formal notice, though they were later able
to
discover Jiang was set to be detained from 25 June 2008 until 26 June
2009. On 2 January, family members visited Jiang and reported that he
was
in good health.  A few weeks later, on 28 January, he was dead.
Officials reported that Jiang died of a sudden heart attack while in
detention. Family members, who say Jiang had no history of heart
disease,
question why officials did not notify the family when Jiang was sent to
the
hospital shortly before he was pronounced dead, and point out factual
inaccuracies on Jiang's death certificate as among the reasons they do
not
trust the official version of events.