Whistleblower posted photos of luxury cars of officials, including several memebers of one prominent family

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© Pool , Getty ImagesChinese President Xi Jinping took office with a pledge to strike hard against corruption, and a number of high- and low-level officials have since been investigated but there are still no signs the party is willing to undertake real institutional reforms to fight corruption.
BEIJING - A Chinese whistleblower who spent his free time embarrassing Communist party officials by posting pictures of their luxury cars on the Internet has been blinded with acid and had two of his fingers hacked off.

Li Jianxin, 47, is in hospital after being recently attacked. His car was rammed from behind and he was allegedly taken by three men to a remote industrial park in the southern city of Huizhou, where they doused him with acid and hacked at him with knives.

A woman from a worker's dormitory nearby found Li lying on the ground in a pool of blood and his six-year-old son wailing in his car.

Li had posted dozens of reports of corruption on a popular local Internet forum.

His younger brother, Li Jianhuang, said several members of one prominent family in Huiyang, many of whom worked for the government, had been particularly embarrassed by Li.

He said he was not hopeful the police would find his brother's attackers. "The pressure from the local government is enormous because the influence of that family is huge. My only wish is to see my brother recover," he said.

Li Jianxin is scheduled for a second surgery to give him an artificial eye and a skin graft and remains in a stable condition in hospital in Huizhou.

Chinese authorities, meanwhile, have detained a well-known rights lawyer in a move activists described as the widening of a crackdown on individuals calling for greater accountability to fight graft, even as new accusations of official corruption surfaced.

Xu Zhiyong is the latest anti-graft campaigner to be arrested after more than a dozen detentions over the past few months and his detention has called into question the sincerity of China's new leaders's vows to scrub the Communist party clean of graft.

Chinese President Xi Jinping edged to strike hard against corruption, and a number of high- and low-level officials have since been investigated but there are still no signs the party is willing to undertake real institutional reforms to fight corruption, such as requiring officials and their families to declare how much money they have and what they own.

"Xu Zhiyong's detention is likely part of the government's crackdown on groups of activists across the country who publicly call for tougher and more systematic measures to fight corruption," Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang said in an interview. "For calling for essentially the same things as Xi Jinping, who vowed to bust graft, these activists are punished and detained."

She described Xu as being "very involved in the movement and widely considered as the intellectual force behind it."

Xu's view on asset declaration is hardly controversial and has also been advocated by government academics and other anti-corruption experts. However, authorities appear to be wary Xu is also advocating a movement urging Chinese citizens to build a stronger civil society, which he terms a New Citizens Movement, and could be trying to stem its influence.

Wang Gongquan, a venture capitalist who is a close friend of Xu's, said he saw a detention notice that police delivered to Xu's wife on Tuesday night.

The notice said Xu was detained on suspicion of gathering people to disturb order in a public place, he said. No details or causes were given to support the charge, which is often used to punish people who speak out against abuses.