Over one thousand armed police officers, riot police, and City Management police officers suddenly congregated at Hualou Street, Wuhan city on the morning of June 23, 2007 to arrest human rights defenders.
The police busted into the homes of local human rights defenders whose names were on the authority’s black-list. It was reported that Mayor Li Xiansheng had authorized this operation as local resident groups had protested his plan of forcefully relocating the Hualou Street.
On May 20,.2007, nearly a thousand residents and human rights defenders had held a general assembly meeting to ask the Chinese authorities to investigate the collusion between their local government officials and a businessman. The event resulted in the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of the meeting’s organizer, Yu Zhenghua. But Yu was tipped off and ran away before police could arrest him. Meanwhile his home was surrounded by more than ten police officers.
