As communist China holds human rights lawyer Wang Yu captive, her son Bao was detained at an LA ICE facility upon reaching the United States.
Renowned human rights lawyer Wang Yu was recently honored as one of the International Women of Courage Awardees this year, but her absence from the online ceremony sparked concern for her wellbeing. The lawyer, whose run-ins with Chinese law enforcers dated back to 2016, was once again captured by the police earlier this month in Tianjin. She has not been heard from since then.
Described as a "fearless human rights lawyer," Wang is known as one who advocates for "defying political threats to defend abused schoolchildren, jailed feminists and persecuted minorities," ChinaAid reported. Her resilience against the abusive Chinese Communist Party made her a target.
The only thing that could make her comply with their wishes was the safety of her son. Five years ago, Wang was one of over 200 activists who were captured during a crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists in China. She was subjected to interrogations, isolation, sleep deprivation, and other abuses until she made a forced confession, which was televised across China.
In it, the award-winning human rights lawyer denounced "ideas like Western universal values, democracy and human rights, to attack and smear the government...I am Chinese. I can only accept the Chinese government's leadership." In exchange for the confession, Wang's then teenage son Bao Zhuoxuan would be allowed to travel abroad.
Bao was able to leave for Australia in 2018 as a free individual, but after suspicious monitoring, he sought asylum in the U.S. in 2020. Upon arrival, Bao found himself in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Los Angeles where he was detained for about a month, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Bao recently spoke out about his experiences and the values his parents had instilled in him. He told Radio Free Asia Wang and her husband never "indoctrinated" him to oppose communist China rule. They did however share their stories about the cases they had to take on as human rights lawyers, speaking of homes that had been "forcibly demolished" and "people who had been beaten up by the authorities just for filing a petition."
"The education the CCP instilled in me, and the reports in their media, their newspapers, was all very biased," Bao admitted. "Some people may be very rich, but the evidence of oppression is everywhere. People are suffering; people we don't know about."
As Bao continues to wait to hear from his mother Wang, he remains in Los Angeles, where his passport is in the hands of ICE and waiting for the immigration court's decision on whether he could stay or be deported to China, where he will most likely be captured by Chinese police.
"The law is only made for showing the outside world that the Chinese legal system is great. If you try to use the law for real, it harms [the authorities'] interests," Wang said as per the Los Angeles Times in talking about her hopes to continue to fight for the oppressed as a human rights lawyer.
