This archive report was first published on 1 November 2019.
Beijing resident Xu, 37, has made over 20 trips from her home to Xuzhou in Jiangsu province in a bid to uncover information about her husband Yu Wensheng's detention, which began in January 2018.
Yu, a human rights lawyer, was taken into custody after writing an open letter calling for constitutional reforms, including multi-candidate elections.
His wife Xu has received very little information since then, with the only update coming in April 2018, when she had a five-minute video call with him.
During the call, Yu mentioned that he was being treated poorly by the Beijing police and was thinner and had longer, messier hair than when he was at home.
That same day, Xu received a government notice stating that Yu was being held in Xuzhou.
However, it wasn't until May this year that Xu heard from her brother-in-law that Yu had been put on trial, but she and his lawyers have been unable to visit him or determine if he was sentenced.
"I feel helpless, disappointed, and also useless," Xu told AFP. "But in my heart, I've never considered giving up."
Yu's case is a prime example of how the Chinese authorities deal with dissidents and human rights defenders, said Patrick Poon, a researcher at Amnesty International.
"They never make it clear whether family members will be notified of the trial date or even invited," Poon explained. "All of this is enshrouded in mystery and makes the family very concerned about the safety of the person."
Another human rights lawyer, Wang Quanzhang, was held incommunicado for over 1,000 days without access to his family or a lawyer prior to his closed-door trial in January.
His wife, Li Wenzu, was finally allowed to visit him in jail in June -- nearly four years after he disappeared in a 2015 crackdown on rights lawyers and activists.
Yu's wife Xu has been battling bureaucracy to get information about her husband's detention, including submitting a complaint about his closed-door trial at the city procuratorate.
However, staff refused to let her take a copy of the complaint, and one of Yu's lawyers, Xie Yang, told AFP that there was no record of his client's case at the courthouse.
The court, the detention centre and the procuratorate could not be reached for comment.
Yu's detention has also had a significant emotional and financial impact on his family, with Xu spending roughly 150,000 Chinese yuan ($21,000) over the past year in seeking justice for her husband.
Her husband's detention has also disturbed their middle school son, who witnessed his father's arrest and several house searches by the police.
The boy has become more introverted and does not like leaving the house, she explained. And if Xu pushes him to, he prefers to go out after dark.
"It's as if he's not as confident when seeing other people anymore," she said. "That makes me very sad."
