China has launched a major crackdown on dissidents following the publication online of a letter urging President Xi Jinping to resign.
According to reports, authorities have detained around 20 people in relation to the incident. Four of those detained were from the online news site Wujie News, where the letter was first published on March 4, the New York Times reported.
One detainee, Ouyang Hongliang, served as the editor-in-chief for the website, which was launched in Sept. 2015, with the Communist Party being one of the major investors. Ouyang reportedly received a call from fellow detainee freelance writer Jia Jia, who asked the former to take the letter off the site after it started to spread online.
As of writing, Ouyang is still detained along with another editor and two technicians.
Wujie was temporarily available following the arrests. However, it resumed publishing news stories on Friday, though only articles coming from the main state news outlets.
Jia was arrested on March 15 while preparing to board a flight to Hong Kong. The writer has reportedly been freed by the authorities after his family and friends said that he has nothing to do with the letter.
Meanwhile, New York-based Chinese activist Wen Yuchao said that his parents and older brother were also among those detained. Wen alleged that the three members of his family were taken by authorities on Tuesday and he has since not been able to get in touch with them.
Wen also denied any involvement with the letter, saying that he neither authored nor help distribute it. He also asserted that he merely linked to it in his Twitter account only after it had been published by Wujie.
In the controversial letter, the authors, who only identified themselves as "loyal Communist Party members," called for Xi to resign from his position, both from the party and the government. The letter also accused him of curtailing freedom of speech, as well as making several major economic and political mistakes.
Several international rights organizations have called for the Chinese government to stop the arrests and release the detainees, Al Jazeera News reported.
According to Amnesty International China researcher William Nee, the crackdown goes contrary to China's claims of respecting the rule of law.