China rights lawyer disappears and feared detained

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese human rights lawyer who has defended dissidents and urged stronger citizens' rights ahead of the 2008 Olympics is missing, family and colleagues said on Friday, fearful he may have been secretly detained by police.

The lawyer, Teng Biao, has belonged to a lively network of young Chinese activists who have used test cases, online petitions and media publicity to campaign for stronger rights under the ruling Communist Party.

Beijing has faced a surge of calls to improve human rights from international groups and activists ahead of the Games, a period when many local dissidents expect to be closely watched, isolated or detained.

A teacher at a Beijing law school, Teng, 34, recently urged authorities to free Hu Jia, an outspoken Beijing dissident who faces subversion charges after spending much of last year under house arrest.

He also warned last month that Beijing's Olympic Games, which open on August 8, had led to some retreat in China's human rights.

But now Teng's wife and friends fear he may have been subjected to one of the secretive state security detentions he has often decried.

Teng phoned his wife, Wang Ling, on Thursday night to say he was heading home, but never arrived at the door of their sixth-floor apartment in the capital's north, Wang said.

"About 20 minutes after he called, I heard someone yell out downstairs," she said by telephone.

"I went downstairs and our car was there but he wasn't. Two women said they'd seen a man taken from the car and pushed into a black car without license plates. That was the last he was seen."

REPORTED MISSING

Wang said she reported her husband's disappearance to police but had heard nothing of his whereabouts.

"He's never done anything that would attract personal vendettas, but he writes essays and defends rights. So it may be related to the government, but I can't be sure," she said.

Officers at the district Public Security Bureau near Teng's home responded to questions about him by hanging up or passing the query on to other officers who also deflected questions.

Teng's mobile appeared to be switched off when Reuters made repeated attempts to call him.

"To judge from what's happened in recent years, the Olympic Games have not brought China the free, open space that people expected," Teng said in an interview last month that appeared on the overseas Chinese Web site Boxun (www.peacehall.com).

"There has been no obvious improvement in the human rights situation, and in some areas the situation has deteriorated."

A rights activist who spoke to Teng recently said he appeared "deeply downcast and under pressure", partly because state security officers had confiscated his passport and a deadline loomed for deciding whether to challenge their act in court.

"He said they'd also warned him not to speak out about Hu Jia and to stop taking interviews and publishing essays," said the source, who requested anonymity.

"He told us, 'There's no guarantee that any of this is going to get easier after the Olympics'."

Another Beijing-based rights advocate, Xu Zhiyong, backed Wang's account of Teng's disappearance and said he was puzzled why Teng would be detained.

"He's not at all an extremist," said Xu, a law professor. "It may be because of Hu Jia but we're all just guessing and waiting for more information."

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)