More than three weeks after completing a long prison term in China, the Mongolian human rights activist Hada has disappeared without a trace. Attempts to contact members of his family have also been unsuccessful. "We are very worried about the bookdealer and about his family, who were recently imprisoned under false pretences," said the head of the Asia section of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), Ulrich Delius, on Tuesday in Göttingen. "We assume that the human rights activist is still being unlawfully held by Chinese officials and is being prevented from contacting friends or family."

The human rights organization urged Catherine Ashton, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to call for the immediate release of Hada and his wife and son. "It is a scandal that China, a strategic partner of Europe, can simply make their dissidents disappear," said Delius. Such arbitrary acts and punishment of the dissident's family are not consistent with the rule of law.

Hada was condemned to 15 years in prison for distributing books about the destruction of Mongolian culture by China. His sentence ended on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2010, and he should have been released. Instead, his wife Xinna was arrested on 4 December 2010 under the pretence that she had engaged in "illegal business practices." The 55-year-old ran the bookshop after her husband's arrest. On 5 December 2010 her son Uiles was arrested for "illegal drug possession." The 25-year-old was sentenced to three years in prison in 2002 for allegedly committing robbery. Officials were displeased that he had repeatedly drawn the attention of foreign journalists to the fact that his father was a political prisoner.

Xinna's sister Naraa and Hada's uncle Haschuluu, a retired teacher, were placed under house arrest and currently can no longer be reached by telephone. The only signs of life from Hada and his abducted family members are several photographs of a meeting of the three prisoners, submitted anonymously after December 10 to the Chinese information service, "Boxun News."

The roughly 5.8 million Mongolians in Inner Mongolia were systematically "sinicized" throughout the 20th century. As millions of Han Chinese moved to the area, the Mongolians became a minority in their own region, where today they make up only 20 percent of the population.

For further information pleace contact Ulrich Delius: 0049-(0)551-49906-27

Translated by Elizabeth Crawford