They helped Chinese women, workers, the forgotten and dying. Then they disappeared
BEIJING — Wang Jianbing visited dying construction workers. Sophia Huang Xueqin investigated China's earliest #MeToo cases. Fang Ran wanted to empower factory workers in the south.
This year, all three disappeared.
The recent censorship of Peng Shuai, a tennis player who was erased from the Chinese internet after accusing a former party leader of sexual abuse, has drawn a global outcry of concern for her safety and freedom. But lesser-known individuals such as Wang, Huang and Fang have been vanishing as China tightens restrictions for activism on gender, labor and other issues.
The three activists were held in a form of secret detention called "residential surveillance at a designated location," or RSDL, which allows the state to lock up people in "black jails" without trial. The human rights group Safeguard Defenders estimates that 45,000 to 55,000 people have been subjected to RSDL since Xi Jinping became president in 2013, including as many as 15,000 in 2020 alone.
