“Today is the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year. But Yao Baohua will not be having a family get-together like the rest of us. While Yao and his daughter have been let out, his wife and son are still behind the bars. They cannot even see each other although they are locked up in the same place.”

He then added: “This happened just because they protested against land seizures.”

Yao has recently been diagnosed with stomach cancer, said Liu.