Canada

Wang Yan vividly recalls the last time she heard her husband’s voice, more than five years ago.

It was Dec. 13, 2019, and Canadian citizen Li Yonghui had gone to a public square in Shijiazhuang, in China’s Hebei province, to exercise as he spoke to his wife in Canada by mobile phone.

“Suddenly, the call ended, like someone was grabbing his phone. And I called other family (in China) and no one knew what happened,” Wang recalled.

Li had been seized by city police, who accused him in a social media post of “allegedly gathering public funds illegally” through his company Qingyidai, a platform for person-to-person lending.

Li has been in detention ever since, without ever being tried or sentenced.

Now, his family is taking the rare step of speaking out publicly to seek a resolution to his case.

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