Challenging Beijing

Made up of scholars, lawyers and rights advocates, Xu's Gongmeng group has annoyed Beijing with a series of high-profile operations, including providing legal aid to victims of tainted baby milk formula and with a report criticising the handling of demonstrations across the Tibetan plateau last year.

The group's Beijing office was shut down for non-payment of taxes earlier this month, and Xu was supposed to have attended an official hearing about the case on Thursday.

Instead, he was hustled from his home early on Wednesday by security officials, colleagues said.

The clampdown on legal activists has coincided with a tightening of Internet controls, which China says targets porn but critics say has also hit politically sensitive websites.

The most noted Chinese human rights lawyer to be detained is Gao Zhisheng. Gao has challenged the Chinese regime on its persecution of Christians and Falun Gong adherents; Gao has been outspoken about the restoration of human rights for all Chinese.

Gao has been arrested and tortured on several occasions. Currently, his whereabouts are unknown after the Chinese regime seized him.

he website of Yirenping, a Beijing-based group that educates hepatitis sufferers about treatment and rights, and helps them sue in cases of job discrimination, has been closed for 10 days.

Yirenping also faces a hearing for unauthorised publishing of materials it prints and distributes to hepatitis patients, its coordinator Lu Jun said.

"We think it’s because we defend rights," Lu told Reuters.

Officials have also sentenced folk singer and activist Huang Wei to 18 months of re-education through labour, after detaining him ahead of a planned memorial concert in Tiananmen Square, the group China Human Rights Defenders said.

In Sichuan, Huang's wife said she feared for her husband.

"I've not even been able to see Huang for the last year," Zeng Li told Reuters by telephone.

Huang, 45, was taken into custody in June 2008 and faces trial for "illegal possession of state secrets", a sweeping charge that can mean lengthy jail terms in China. His lawyer Mo Shaoping was unsure how long the trial would last.

"It's sensitive as it's to do with state secrets," Mo said.

China's handling of state secrets gained global attention this month with the detention on spying charges of employees working for Australian miner Rio Tinto.

**Additional reporting by The Epoch Times