On the China Beat blog, our former colleague Susan Jakes takes a look at the breadth and boldness of detained legal scholar Xu Zhiyong's work:

Xu has a knack for seeing what's possible where others see only futility. In 2003 and again in 2006 he ran as one of China's handful of independent—that is, not CCP pre-approved—candidates in an election for his district People's Congress. He not only won by a landslide, but in both of his terms in office has sought to prove through his actions—by providing constituent services, demanding budget reviews, preventing the relocation of the Beijing Zoo and lobbying on behalf of aggrieved dog owners—that the congress was not the parody of a political institution it sometimes seemed to be. “Actually,” he explained, “the People's Congress has real power. It's just that people don't take it seriously.” I interviewed Xu shortly after his first election. When I asked him how he decided to run, he looked at me evenly for a moment before replying. “I ran,” he said, “because the law allows me to.”

The lawyer Xu Zhiyong disappeared in Beijing one week ago, but now his image is popping up all over town. Xu, who was taken from his house by police, is featured in the latest edition of Shishang Xiansheng, the Chinese version of Esquire. He is one of 60 people interviewed by the magazine in recent months about their idea of the Chinese dream. The police haven't explained the charges against Xu, but his brother told the Associated Press that officials at the university where Xu taught said he was being held for tax evasion. The Open Constitution Initiative (or Gongmeng in Chinese), a legal advocacy group that Xu founded, was shuttered by tax authorities last month over allegations it owes $208,000 in taxes. Many observers think the closure is more likely related to Gongmeng's pioneering work on sensitive legal cases.

In the Esquire piece Xu is pictured with a white light behind his head and wearing a French-cuffed shirt and tie--not, by any means, his usual attire. He is featured with six other activists. Here, via China Digital Times, is a translation of his Chinese dream:

I wish our country could be a free and happy one. Every citizen does not need go against their conscience and can find their own place by their virtue and talents; a simple and happy society, where the goodness of humanity is expanded to the maximum, and the evilness of humanity is constrained to the maximum; honesty, trust, kindness, and helping each other are everyday occurences in life; there is not so much anger and anxiety, a pure smile on everyone's face.

A recent web survey by a Chinese magazine has found that prostitutes are more trustworthy than government officials. The result comes from a web survey, not the most trustworthy form of surveying itself. But the China Daily deemed it "unusual." Perhaps not. Prostitution is illegal here but amazingly widespread. A visiting editor once expressed her admiration for the employees of Chinese salons that stay open late into the night. I didn't have the heart to tell her that they weren't there to cut hair. Hair salons are a typical front for prostitution on the mainland, and they persist because of official corruption and indifference. That type of corruption is probably why officials scored so poorly in the recent survey. Citizens can never be sure about officials' purity. But when you step into a pink-lit hair salon after midnight, there isn't much question.

Beijing authorities have detained the head a legal research and advocacy group, the latest blow in a continued drive against China's activist lawyers. Police took Xu Zhiyong, a human right lawyer who runs the recently shuttered Open Constitution Initiative (or Gongmeng in Chinese), from his Beijing apartment early Wednesday morning, according to a posting on the group's website. Another Gongmeng employee, Zhuang Lu, was also detained.

Earlier this month police closed the Open Constitution Initiative on the grounds that it owed $208,000 in tax penalties. Xu admitted the possibility of flaws in the group's bookkeeping, but its closure and now his arrest indicate that this is more than just a question of accounting. In recent years OCI has been involved in a variety of sensitive cases including last year's tainted milk powder scandal, defending a waitress who stabbed to death a Communist Party official, and investigating the causes of last year's Tibetan unrest. Rather than actively oppose the government, their goal has been to work within the system, fighting for the rights granted citizens under Chinese law.

That sort of loyal opposition would seem to offer OCI a measure of defense. In interviews Xu denied that there was anything controversial about the group's work, that they were merely helping China develop the rule of law. But for activists pursuing a similar agenda this has been a perilous summer. More than 50 lawyers who handle sensitive rights cases have had their licenses revoked. And this week authorities also raided a Beijing group that works with hepatitis patients, apparently because they were not authorized to print an anti-discrimination newsletter.