On May 20th, Taiwan’s 16th President took office in an inauguration ceremony. In Chongqing, various local residents gathered at a restaurant near the petition office to spontaneously celebrate the inauguration of the democratically elected President Lai Ching-te. More than twenty attendees of the dinner were all summoned for questioning, and it has been revealed that Li Xuezhi has been criminally detained.
One of the attendees, Mr. Xin (pseudonym), told a reporter from Epoch Times, “All more than twenty guests who attended the dinner party were summoned for questioning by the police or state security officers, including myself who was also questioned outside.”
On the night of the 27th, Li Xuezhi’s sister, Li Xuezhi, sent a message stating, “Around 12:30 a.m. on May 26th, Li Xuezhi was taken away by people claiming to be public security officers, and around 8:30 p.m. on the 27th, food was sent to him at the Longxing Police Station. The police station said he had been criminally detained in the afternoon. I don’t know what law Li Xuezhi violated.”
Epoch Times reporters contacted Li Xuezhi’s sister, Li Xuezhi, and she said, “On the 27th, I discovered that Li Xuezhi was not around, so I instinctively went to the Longxing Police Station to look for him. The officer on duty told me that Li Xuezhi had been detained, but the details of the arrest were unclear as it was not a case he handled.”
Li Xuezhi’s family has not yet received a detention notice, and Li Xuezhi’s sister is also unsure of the reasons for his detention.
Epoch Times reporters tried to contact the Longxing Police Station in Yubei District, but several phone numbers of the police station were unreachable.
Li Xuezhi, 53 years old, is a farmer from Longxing Town, Yubei District, Chongqing. In 2013, his farmland and house were forcibly occupied and violently demolished. After futile complaints, he embarked on the path of rights protection and appeals. Through rights protection activities, he gradually realized the importance of collective rights protection and participated in rights protection activities in the Chongqing area with other human rights victims. Therefore, he was seen by the Chongqing authorities as a target in need of severe crackdown for stability maintenance.
On February 17, 2022, Li Xuezhi posted a video on Weibo in which a local discipline commission secretary was asked, “You only care about your political power, don’t you care about the lives of the common people?” This discipline commission secretary openly stated to these rights defenders, “We simply do not care about the lives of the common people, what can you do about it?”
Around 6 a.m. on February 23, 2022, dozens of police officers from the Yubei District Public Security Bureau Security Division, government stability maintenance personnel, and local security guards suddenly broke into Li Xuezhi’s home while he was sleeping, put a black hood over his head, handcuffed him, and took him away from home. On March 29th, he was arrested by the Yubei District Procuratorate on suspicion of “intentional injury.”