Is China cracking down on dissent?

That headline from Al Jazeera is  disingenuous.  Using a question mark as a rhetorical device in this case is unacceptable. As the Chinese government is clearly cracking down on dissent.  

Chinese lawyer who exposed baby milk scandal jailed for subversion

Zhou Shifeng, director of Beijing’s Fengrui law firm, jailed for more than seven years in latest crackdown on activists

'I want to rescue my dad': children's heartbreak for the lawyers China has taken away

Li Heping’s six-year-old daughter Li Jiamei dresses as a superhero, hoping to free her human rights lawyer father from prison

For all her gallantry, it is a battle the six-year-old is unlikely to win.

Li Jiamei is the daughter of Li Heping, a top Chinese human rights lawyer who has not been heard of since he disappeared into the custody of China’s security services in July 2015.

My friend Li Heping, a man China thinks is 'more dangerous than Bin Laden'

Li is a top human rights lawyer who nearly a year ago slipped into a netherworld of the disappeared after a political crackdown

On 10 July last year, just days after we had met for lunch in an upscale Beijing shopping mall, my friend Li Heping vanished.