By Tamara Gil

Beijing, Jan 22 (EFE).– Chinese human rights lawyers were targeted initially and then Hong Kong-based book publishers, two of them holders of European passports, and now Chinese authorities have arrested the Swedish co-founder of a non-governmental organization.

These are but the latest in a long list of individuals persecuted by the Chinese government in a crackdown that has created a somber climate of fear and concern.

Diplomats, social workers, attorneys and activists have been stunned by a barrage of news about arrests in China and the airing on state media of confessions apparently extracted from both Chinese and foreign citizens, which they say reveal a disturbing trend.

The most recent case is that of Swedish citizen Peter Dahlin, who appeared this week on leading Chinese state broadcaster CCTV to confess his “crimes” and say he was being treated fairly.

His NGO, a grassroots legal aid organization in China, has slammed the broadcast as “absurd” and said the statements were false and made under duress.

Dahlin, co-founder of China Action, was planning to catch a flight from Beijing to Thailand with his girlfriend, but they were reported as missing by friends when neither of them arrived at the airport.

Chinese police soon reported that the Swede had been detained on charges of endangering state security, while the whereabouts of his girlfriend still remains a mystery.

China Action’s stated purpose is to promote human rights and the rule of law in China through assistance to lawyers and academics, among others, but authorities say the organization has received money from abroad to spark unrest and exacerbate societal problems with the ultimate aim of undermining the governing Communist Party.

The Swede has been linked to the Beijing Fengrui Law Firm, which has been in the government’s line of fire since last summer’s arrest of its director, Zhou Shifeng, as well as numerous human rights lawyers associated with it, including prominent attorney Wang Yu.

China’s crackdown on dissent also has targeted Hong Kong-based book publishers, with five people linked to a local publisher of books critical of the Chinese government going missing between October and December of last year.

Recently, two of them – Swedish citizen Gui Minhai and British national Lee Bo – were revealed to be in custody in China.

As in the case of Dahlin, Gui appeared on television saying he had turned himself in to the authorities so he could be held accountable for a crime committed years earlier.

In Lee’s case, police have said only that he is on Chinese soil.

“It’s shameful. Justice, respect for the law, is getting progressively worse in China. We’re going backwards,” lawyer Yu Wengsheng told EFE, adding that he was confident that Gui and Dahlin had been pressured “or tortured” into confessing on state television. “I went through the same, years ago.”

He said a fundamental shift had occurred that is cause for even greater concern.

“The government used to want to maintain its prestige vis-a-vis the international community, but not anymore. It wasn’t enough for them to attack lawyers and people from NGOs who help mistreated groups. Now they’re also targeting foreigners who help civil society.”

Yu is not the only one concerned; NGOs tackling human rights issues in the country also told EFE the situation was deteriorating.

Moreover, Beijing is planning to enact a new law to control foreign non-profit groups in the country, the draft of which says it can equate the work done by these organizations to crimes against the state, one member of an NGO, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The recent treatment meted out to foreigners also has alarmed the European Union.

EU Ambassador to China Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, in a recent meeting with reporters, said he hoped the incidents did not represent “the new normal” but “we do see an extremely worrying trend.”

Chinese authorities also have clamped down on government criticism by expelling foreign journalists, with Frenchwoman Ursula Gauthier, the China correspondent for French magazine L’Obs, being kicked out of the country late last year for writing an article criticizing the country’s hardline policy toward its mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority. EFE