What’s new: Shanghai lawmaker Dong Yunhu has been removed from his position as a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s top legislature, after becoming the target of a graft probe.
Dong is the first representative to be publicly booted from the 14th NPC, whose members were confirmed in February. He has also been dismissed from his post as chairman of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress, according to a Tuesday report published on the Shanghai government-backed Jiefang Daily.
Both dismissals were announced during a meeting of the local legislative body on Monday, the report said. It came after China’s top graft busters began investigating Dong in mid-July.
The background: Dong is being investigated for alleged “serious violation of law and discipline,” a common euphemism for corruption, according to a Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announcement on July 12.
Dong was appointed head of Shanghai’s People’s Congress in January. Previously, the Zhejiang province native led the party’s publicity department in the Tibet autonomous region before he was transferred to Shanghai in 2015.
The 61-year-old is also known as one of the earliest scholars in China to focus on human rights. He has penned a series of publications on the topic since the early 1990s.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
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