Christian human rights lawyer is 'more dangerous than Bin Laden', according to China

A Christian human rights lawyer who was taken away in a political crackdown last year is considered by Chinese authorities as "more dangerous than Bin Laden," according to his friend. 

"A Chinese security agent once told him, in the eyes of Beijing Li had become 'more dangerous than Bin Laden,'" said Terence Halliday about his Chinese friend, Li Heping.

Halliday, an American Bar Foundation scholar and co-author of a soon-to-be released book "Criminal Defense in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work," wrote about Li in an article on The Guardian published Wednesday, June 8.

Li was a farmers' son who rose to become the "enemy of the state" as he championed the weak and disenfranchised. The father of two was taken away by the Chinese authorities on July 10 last year in a political crackdown against the rights defenders movement.

According to Halliday, Li believed that China's government was starting to lose the people's trust as impunity and injustice continue to prevail.

"Chinese say that they are living inside a prison," Li once told Halliday.

Li expounded, "If you are detained, you are in a smaller prison. If you are released, you are in a bigger prison."

Halliday imagined his friend as having been taken to the "netherworld of the disappeared," to a so-called "hidden realm" because families, lawyers, or overseas diplomat find it impossible to reach detainees.

"A place where, as Li himself once told me, torture is highly likely," cited Halliday as he recounted Li being abducted once in 2007.

Halliday explained that these human rights defenders are rewarded with disappearances and imprisonment as the government takes down those that it deems as opposed to its monopoly on power.

He recalled when he once asked the Chinese lawyer, also a devout Christian, if those who persecute people deserve a Christian's forgiveness.

Li answered, "I think that basically we have to forgive police and government officials for the harms they do us and their misconduct."

Halliday wondered whether a year of solitary confinement and torture would have broken Li's courage and convictions.