Thread by @WilliamYang120

My latest: While German Foreign Minister @ABaerbock was in #China last week, #Beijing arrested some Chinese human rights lawyers while putting others under de facto house arrest. I talked to one human rights lawyer and @zsuzsettte about what this means: dw.com/zh/%E5%B7%A6%E…

Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer @yuwensheng9 and his wife @xuyan709 were taken away by police last Friday, when they were originally scheduled to meet the EU delegation in #China.

Later, several police reportedly went to Yu's house to read out the arrest notification to his teenage son. Yu and his wife have reportedly been arrested under the charge of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble."

When two lawyers tried to visit his son, they found two police guarding the door and they were told that Yu doesn't want to hire a lawyer while his wife has reportedly "hired her own lawyer."

Police also reportedly raided the house and took away some personal stuff from Yu's house. Wang Quanzhang, who was prevented from leaving his house last Friday and has continued to be followed by police, said he found Yu and his wife's charges absurd and unusual.

Apart from Yu and his wife's arrest, human rights lawyer @wangyulawyer and Wang Quanzhang were prevented from leaving their house while Baerbock was in town. Wang told me that he noticed the number of people following him has increased and after Baerbock left China, ...

... he and his family continued to be followed.

The @EUdelChina issued a statement on Twitter, demanding the unconditional release of the detained human rights lawyers while calling the practice completely unacceptable.

Wang Quanzhang told me that #China seems to be targeting specific human rights lawyers who are critical of #China during this wave of the crackdown. Until today, which is four days since Baerbock left, Wang and his family are still banned from leaving their house freely.

@zsuzsettte told me that China is sending a message to the EU through these arrests that any effort that the EU will have on the European level to criticize China’s human rights record will be ineffective.

"We had a feeling that China wants to come back to normal terms with the EU and trying to push for maintaining that “business as usual” approach.

When it comes to sensitive human rights issues, I think China has been consistently sending a message that this is not for the EU to interfere with."

"This is how China compartmentalizes different aspects of its relationship with other countries. It cuts off the political issues from the economic engagement and China has made it clear that it wants to trade and economic cooperation and want to go deeper in it."

Wang said the reason why #Beijing is arresting or putting many human rights lawyers under house arrest is that they are concerned about the human rights lawyers meeting EU officials as they think that might be unfavorable to China.

While #China and the EU has resumed their bilateral human rights dialogue in February, @zsuzsettte said has never cooperated on this front. "They never show any openness and never agree to liberalize in that sense," she told me.

"I think the EU needs to be able to use its economic leverage in a way that sends a message to Beijing that there are conditions to doing close economic cooperation.

The EU can use it as a public criticism because I think what China dislikes the most is being publicly criticized when it comes to its human rights record."

"We need to not shy away from publicly and consistently exposing the atrocities and human rights violations that take place in the country because China will continue to reject criticism.

We need to publicly expose those atrocities in coordination with like-minded partners in the region. Pressure and vocal criticism should not be limited or constrained."