CHINESE state security officials have arrested the brother of Dr Zhang Shuyun, the former Shanghai orphanage employee whose information this month revealed the shocking death toll among the city's orphans and abandoned children in recent years.
The security police also ransacked his apartment, took money, and confiscated jewellry left to Dr Zhang by her recently deceased mother.
Mr Zhang Jian (44) was detained at his Shanghai home on January 9th, the day after foreign journalists had been given a guided official tour of the city's orphanage to demonstrate how well the children at that institution are treated these days.
On January 15th the family was formally notified of his arrest and told that he was accused of "participating in the counter revolutionary crime of subverting the government".
Such a charge carries a minimum sentence of 10 years and was recently used against the prominent dissident, Wei Jingsheng, who was jailed for 14 years in December.
In the past few days, several friends, relatives and former colleagues of Dr Zhang have been interrogated by police or state security agents the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.
On January 7th, HRW published a 331 page report on the death rates of China's orphanages based on detailed information provided by Dr Zhang and the Chinese government's own Ministry of Civil Affairs statistics Dr Zhang left China in March last year and smuggled out hundreds of medical records and documents on the death toll in the Slianghai Children's Welfare Institute between 1988 and 1992.
Official investigations between 1989 and 1992 into conditions at the orphanage, prompted by complaints from Dr Zhang and others, eventually led to a high level cover up, according to the HRW report.
"[My brother] had nothing to do with my work or what I was trying to do. I didn't let my family or friends know because I thought it might place them in danger," Dr Zhang said yesterday.
She added that she had spoken by telephone to friends in Shanghai who said they had been questioned by police. "[The police] asked about my whereabouts and wanted to know who my contacts were. But my friends don't know anything" she said.
Her brother, Mr Zhang Jian, is a Communist Party member and works as an official in the Baoshan District People's Government offices in Shanghai. The officers who came to his home were from the State Security Bureau rather than ordinary police, suggesting that the case is being handled as a political offence.
Only last Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organised a briefing for the foreign media on human rights in China, including criminal procedures.
Under existing laws, a suspect can be held for only 72 hours without charge. However, under "administrative" regulations used by the security services, a person can be held almost indefinitely without trial under a provision for "custody for investigation".
Prof Liu Hainian, the director of the Law Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and his colleagues were brought out to defend their country's human rights record on Monday. Commenting on the recent Human Rights Watch/Asia report about the alarming death rate in China's orphanages, Prof Liu said he had "some doubts" about the "personality" of Dr Zhang Shuyun.
"How can she refrain from doing anything but only taking some photographs, rather than reporting to the responsible persons or untying the knot? Why hasn't she done that?
In fact, Dr Zhang repeatedly reported the abuses, starting three years before the photographs were taken.