ICE arrests human rights lawyer who fled Chinese crackdown

Wu Shaoping was stopped by ICE officers while delivering parcels in his job as an Amazon courier. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Wu Shaoping was stopped by ICE officers while delivering parcels in his job as an Amazon courier. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images ICE arrests human rights lawyer who fled Chinese crackdown Arrest in Pennsylvania of Wu Shaoping, who is awaiting asylum decision, raises fears of deportation and persecution A Chinese human rights lawyer has been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising concerns he could be deported to China where he would face persecution. Wu Shaoping fled China at the end of 2019 amid a crackdown on human rights lawyers. He travelled to the US on a tourist visa and made an asylum claim in 2020, for which he is still awaiting a decision. In the US, he found work as an Amazon courier while remaining active in China’s embattled human rights community. On Wednesday, Wu was stopped by ICE officers the Mount Holly Springs borough, in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, while delivering parcels. According to an account relayed through Shi Minglei, a friend who spoke to him in detention on Thursday, ICE officers asked Wu to provide proof of his citizenship. Wu presented proof of his pending asylum application and explained that he had entered the country legally. However, ICE agents arrested him and took him to a detention facility in Pennsylvania. The facility and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an immediate request for comment outside of US working hours. Human rights groups have also raised concerns about Bai Zhaodong, a Chinese investigative journalist detained in Thailand. China’s foreign ministry confirmed to Reuters this week that China has submitted an extradition request for Bai, saying he is suspected of ​extortion and bribery by a non-public servant. Wu started his career as a commercial lawyer but later became involved in human rights circles as a loose collective of scholars, lawyers and activists interested in political and legal reform emerged in the 2010s. Wu took on sensitive cases involving religious minorities and political dissidents, the type of work that has resulted in many lawyers disbarred or harassed. “He hoped that Chinese people could enjoy freedom and democracy, and did not like the way that China’s authoritarian system oppressed the common people,” said Wu’s wife, Li Caoliu, who lives in the US with him. In December 2019, Wu attended a meeting of human rights defenders in the southern city of Xiamen. Several attendees were later arrested in a sweeping crackdown, including Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, China’s most prominent human rights lawyers. They remain in prison on convictions of subversion of state power. Wu fled China soon after that meeting. skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion Zhou Fengsuo, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests who is now in the US, said W