Over the past 2 weeks, more than 230 human rights lawyers, employees and activists have been arrested, detained or have disappeared following Beijing’s crackdown on individuals deemed threats to ‘national security’. This comes after Beijing recently passed several laws to enable it to override both rule of law principles as well as human rights concerns. Why are these individuals being targeted when Beijing’s leaders claim to want to make the judicial system more responsive to ordinary citizens? We explore.

This is a report by Wong Yu Han.