‘They tore through everything’: Labour activists increasingly targeted in civil rights crackdown in China, say supporters
![Wu Rongpu holds a picture of his wife Zhu Xiaomei, a labour activist who was arrested in Guangdong. Photo: AFP](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1020x680/public/images/methode/2016/01/15/b8dff2bc-bb51-11e5-9ce7-2395197ababe_1280x720.jpg?itok=H5ymBOYn)
About a dozen police barged into Wu Rongpu’s apartment in the early hours and dragged away his labour activist wife, leaving their one-year-old daughter screaming.
“They came into the room and tore through everything they could” looking for evidence of Zhu Xiaomei’s work for a small Chinese workers’ rights organisation.
Last week, just over a month after she was detained, authorities formally arrested her on charges of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order”, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.
Zhu, 36, came to the Chinese authorities’ attention for her role as a labour activist in Panyu in the southern province of Guangdong.
READ MORE: China arrests four labour activists amid crackdown on dissent, lawyers say
The region’s bustling ports and factories have made a huge contribution to China’s transformation into the world’s second-largest economy.
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