Missing: Mr. Jin Guanghong, Defence Attorney for Falun Gong Practitioners

Mr. Jin Guanghong, a Beijing-based defence attorney for Falun Gong practitioners, has been missing for more than 10 days. According to a friend, in March 2011, Mr. Jin acted as the defence attorney for Mr. Li Tie, a human rights activist in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. At the beginning of April, Mr. Jin should have been working on the case of Falun Gong practitioners in Luoyang City, Henan Province. Mr. Jin was seen on QQ (a Chinese Internet instant messenger program) on April 8th, 2011. The location of his login was displayed as Luoyang City, Henan Province. He wasn't seen on the Internet after that. His mobile phone has also been off line. Mr. Jin's friend said he hadn't been able to get a hold of Mr. Jin since April 10th.

The Luoyang Municipal Justice Bureau didn't respond to inquiries, but passed them to the Attorney Management Office. Officials at the Attorney Management Office of Luoyang City said they only managed local attorneys, and an attorney based in Beijing would not belong to their jurisdiction. They suggested that such cases should be directed to the attorney's law firm or the public security agencies.

The Domestic Security Division of the Luoyang Municipal Justice Bureau denied having anything to do with the case. They claimed that they did not know or had not heard of this attorney. They suggested contacting the attorney's law firm.

Mr. Jin's law firm, the Beijing Jing Fa Law Firm, hung up the phone after saying "wrong number" upon hearing that the inquiry was about Mr. Jin Guanghong. When making another call to the law firm, I heard the law firm's automatic outgoing message. It prompted me to enter "0" for the switchboard, and I talked to the receptionist. When the receptionist heard the purpose of my call, I was told "wrong number" again and she hung up.

I tried again and was able to reach an employee of the law firm directly. When asked the whereabouts of Mr. Jin, he said he did not know anything. I asked him to forward my call to the director or the chief. He told me that all leaders were occupied in meetings. I asked if the law firm had taken any action regarding their missing employee, and whether the law firm had reported the case to the Public Security Bureau, and whether they had contacted family remembers of the employee. He asked me to leave my contact information and said he would return my call. No further information was available before the publishing deadline of this article.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/4/23/39393.html