Contact: Tracy Oliver, Media Coordinator, 267-210-8278, Tracy@ChinaAid.org; Mark Shan, Spokesperson, 617-943-1340, Mark@ChinaAid.org; both with ChinaAid, 888-889-7757, info@ChinaAid.org; www.ChinaAid.org, www.MonitorChina.org

BEIJING, Nov. 24, 2010 /Christian Newswire/ -- One of China's foremost legal scholars and advocates of constitutional democracy was detained and interrogated by police in Beijing late Wednesday night in what may be a warning shot preceding a crackdown planned to coincide with the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, according to ChinaAid Association sources.

Dr. Fan Yafeng, also a leader of Shengshan Church, an unregistered house church, was forcibly removed from his home at 9:10 p.m. Wednesday Nov. 24 by more than 10 Domestic Security Department police officers and taken to Shuangyushu Police Station, where he was interrogated until 2 a.m. about allegedly illegally "engaging in activities under the guise of a social organization."

This is the fifth time since mid-October that Fan has been taken into police custody. He was put under house arrest on Nov. 1, two days after a daylong detention and interrogation. Fan is also director of the group Christian Human Rights Lawyers of China and a founding member of the Association of Human Rights Attorneys for Chinese Christians, and has been one of the most active lawyers in the rights defense movement in China.

What was particularly despicable about the latest detention is that officers went back to Fan's home and took his wife and their three-year-old son to the same police station for interrogation. Mother and child were held until 1:30 a.m. The four officers who conducted the interrogation ignored the distress of the sleepy toddler as he lay and rolled around on the ground, crying loudly.

ChinaAid has learned from a reliable source that the Chinese authorities are preparing to launch a crackdown called "Operation Deterrence" to coincide with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. During the campaign, of unspecified duration, authorities are to arrest and sentence a total of 20 rights defenders.

ChinaAid president Bob Fu said these latest developments only further highlight the deteriorating human rights situation in China. Fu, who founded ChinaAid in 2002 to draw international attention to China's gross human rights violations against house church Christians, said "the unprecedented weakness exhibited by the nations of the Western world has only encouraged China to continue in its obstinacy, unrepentance and blind confidence in itself."