THE wife of a repeatedly detained Chinese human rights lawyer died of cancer in the United States (US) yesterday, after her husband’s pleas to be allowed to leave the country and reunite with her were ignored, said rights activists.

Zhang Qing and their children fled to the US in 2009, after her husband Yang Maodong highlighted local corruption in a village in China and was imprisoned.

Zhang was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer in January last year, and died in hospital at the age of 55, said New York-based Human Rights Watch in a statement yesterday.

Yang had published an open letter to the Chinese government in January last year, after learning of the diagnosis, begging authorities to “have empathy for ordinary people” and allow him to leave the country to visit his wife.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post last month, Zhang said her life is coming to an end, and that multiple attempts by her husband to leave the country and join her had been blocked.

Yang – who goes by his pen-name Guo Feixiong – is a writer and lawyer known for helping residents of a Chinese village organise themselves against a local Communist Party boss, whom they accused of illegally selling their land to enrich himself, in 2006.

Yang has been repeatedly imprisoned, faced police harassment and beaten up as a result of his advocacy. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Zhang in the interview said she had not been able to contact him for several months.

The couple had been unable to see each other since Yang’s detention in 2006, with him being blocked by authorities from leaving the country even during intermittent periods outside of detention, said Human Rights Watch.

“Only by releasing Guo and allowing him to leave China to attend her funeral can Chinese authorities begin to mitigate the cruelty inflicted on the couple and their family,” said researcher Yaqiu Wang in the statement yesterday, using the activist’s pen-name.

The Washington-based coalition Chinese Human Rights Defenders also called China’s treatment of the couple “cruel and inhumane”.

“It is senseless and malicious to keep Guo from saying a final farewell to his dying wife,” said director Renee Xia. – AFP, January 11, 2022.