China: Citizen journalist Ding Lingjie went missing again, family suspects she is being held in police custody

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October 1, 2020, Dingzhou, China -- Citizen journalist and human rights defender Ding Lingjie has been missing since June 3 according to her family. Ding Lingjie is believed to have been taken into police custody on June 3 after she told her friend that the police of Dingzhou city of Hebei Province were going after her. The police of the city told Ding’s younger brother that they had no knowledge of the incident.

Ding Lingjie is an editor for Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, an online platform documenting civil rights violations across China. The topics of Ding Lingjie’s written work ranges from human rights issues, such as Chinese judicial procedure, to victims of human rights abuses, including Liu Xiaobo, Liu Feiyue, and victims of China’s “709 crackdown”.

Ding had previously gone missing back in September 2017 and was found under detention and later arrested on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. She was sentenced to 20 months in jail for “insulting the State leader” along with other human rights defenders who spoke up about the Chinese government’s increased suppression of independent groups that document and report human rights abuses. Following the confirmation of her arrest she was not allowed to see her lawyers or family during pre-trial detention which lasted until November 2017. 

Ding Lingjie was released on 21 May 2019 at the end of her sentence. This second case of “disappearance” of the journalists by police forces is utterly concerning. China is notorious in its practise of stifling freedom of the press and using torturous tactics against journalists. The Coalition For Women In Journalism urges the authorities to immediately announce Ding’s whereabouts and if she is detained, bring her before a court which will investigate and interrogate her impartially and independently.