On December 22, 2006, a Beijing court sentenced Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng to three years in prison for “inciting subversion”, the charge frequently used to silence independent voices like that of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo. But the court suspended Gao’s sentence subject to five years of probation. What seemed like a light sentence, however, soon turned into a nightmare of “disappearances” and obscene tortures.

Someone will make a movie about Lai Changxing. Books about him in Chinese and English were published long before the Canadian Government deported him to China July 22 after an eleven-year legal battle. Lai, allegedly the mastermind of China’s notorious Yuanhua smuggling and bribery scandal, now faces a prosecution that may end one of the most massive criminal investigations the People’s Republic has ever conducted. Hundreds of Lai’s associates, family members and Chinese officials have been sent to prison, fourteen sentenced to death and eight executed.

The ominous reticence once-vocal lawyers and activists are showing after release from detention suggests new methods are being used to instill fear

The prosecution of naturalized American citizen Xue Feng, which concluded on February 18, is a vivid reminder that China’s abuses of criminal justice can reach even those who steer clear of politics and human rights.

On Human Rights Day 2010, the day on which imprisoned writer Liu Xiaobo was honoured with this year’s Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, I was in Beijing, where the authorities’ angry clampdown on dissent had brought about an eerie hush among those aware of the occasion. Scores of activists had been house-arrested, deprived of internet and phone service, or ‘vacationed”’ out of town to assure their silence.