Executive Secretary China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group Details Persecution Of Rights Lawyers In PRC In New Article

In his article,? Rights Defense Lawyers and the Rule of Law in China, posted the China LIS Law Patrick Kar-wai Poon the Executive Secretary of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group says… “A number of “rights defense lawyers” have been to subjected to various degrees of harassment and the situation of several of them are particularly appalling.”


Here’s his article

Rights Defense Lawyers and the Rule of Law in China

Patrick Kar-wai Poon
Executive Secretary China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group

Lawyers play an important role in maintaining the rule of law of a country. In China, however, lawyers, in particular criminal defense lawyers (especially those representing human rights defenders), are always the targets of suppression by the Chinese government. The crackdowns on these lawyers and some legal rights defenders have been continuing as their influence has been increasing as a result of their legal representation for arrested or detained human rights defenders, petitioners whose lands are illegally grabbed by developers who collude with local government officials and persecuted religious believers, such as Falun Gong practitioners – which is outlawed as an “evil cult” by the Chinese government – and Protestant house church Christians.

These lawyers and legal rights defenders are usually referred as “rights defense lawyers” (???? “weiquan lvshi” in Chinese) by human rights defenders and observers of China’s human rights situations. Below, I would like to list out some areas of concerns of these “rights defense lawyers” that deserve more attention among the legal profession, the civil society and governments in Asia and other parts of the world. As China’s international influence is expanding, it is alarming that its distorted representation of the rule of law by an authoritarian practice of “rule by law” would be gradually accepted by the international community with the justification of China’s economic development.

A number of “rights defense lawyers” have been to subjected to various degrees of harassment and the situation of several of them are particularly appalling.

The most serious case which attracts a lot of international media attention is Beijing human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng (????who has been disappeared twice and his current whereabouts is still unknown. In 2005, Gao wrote three open letters to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao to demand the government to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Because of this open support, his legal practice license suspended and his law firm was also suspended from practice. In December 2006, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years, for a so-called offense of “inciting subversion of state powers” in a closed court hearing. He and his family were subsequently under round-the-clock surveillance in their home. He was subjected to ill-treatment and insult by public security officers in front of his family and he was once nearly hit by a car on the street. His daughter, who was 12 at that time, was harassed in school. In September 2008, he was hooded and grabbed to an unknown place where he was tortured. In February 2009, Gao was taken away by unidentified people from his home and disappeared. One year later, he reappeared briefly in late March 2010 but disappeared again when he was supposed to go to visit his father-in-law in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in mid-April 2010. His current whereabouts remains unknown. His wife and two children are currently in exile in the US. In January 2011, the Associated Press unveiled an interview it did with Gao in Beijing in early April 2010, days after he reappeared, in which Gao said he was subjected to torture again and this time was even more severe to the previous one. The Chinese government still owes the world an explanation about Gao’s situation.

The Chinese authorities’ treatment of Gao is entirely illegal according to China’s own domestic laws, such as China’s Criminal Procedure Law, Law on Lawyers and China’s Constitution, and international conventions which China had signed or ratified, such as the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) [China signed but still hasn’t ratified it] and Convention Against Torture and other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) [China signed and ratified it].

There are also a number of other cases of harassments and crackdowns on lawyers and legal rights defenders in violation of these legal requirements.

Chen Guangcheng (???), a blind legal rights activist in Shandong province, northeastern China, who provided legal assistance to local villagers and exposed the forced abortion practices adopted by local officials to implement the population control policy (known as the “one-child policy”), was sentenced to four years and three months in August 2006 for fabricated charges of “destruction of property” and “assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic”, accusing him of gathering a crowd to lie on the railtrack at his small town. After he was released in September 2010, he and his family have been detained incommunicado. He and his wife were beaten up in February 2011 after a friend released video clips in which Chen and his wife said how they were under tight surveillance at their village home.

Guo Feixiong (???), a legal rights defender in Guangdong province, southern China, who provided legal assistance to villagers in Taishi Village in Panyu, Guangdong, was imprisoned for five years in November 2007 for a fabricated charge of “illegal business operation,” alleging him that he used an unauthorized book registration number to publish a book in 2001 which was about the bribery scandal of a senior official in Shenyang, Liaoning province, northeastern China. He was tortured, beaten by electric baton, when he was detained before his trial in November 2007. Since July 2009, his lawyers and his older sister, have not been allowed to visit him in prison. For unknown reason, in early 2010 he reportedly sent a fax from his prison cell to his lawyer in Beijing telling the lawyer not to visit him in prison.

Shanghai human rights lawyer Zheng Enchong (???), who legally represented a group of residents in Shanghai who lands were evicted to sue former Shanghai tycoon Zhou Zhengyi (???), had served three years’ imprisonment for a fabricated charge of “leaking state secret”, allegedly faxing “internal reports” to an overseas organisation. After he was released from prison in June 2006, he had been taken to the police station for interrogation for nearly 70 times and he remains to be under house arrest and is only occasionally allowed to go to church.

Since mid-Februrary 2011, a number of lawyers were taken away. A few of them have been released after being detained for some time while some are still missing. Some people believe the recent crackdowns on rights defense lawyers along with other human rights defenders are related to the Chinese government over-reaction on an online appeal for “Jasmine Revolution” to assemble in specific landmark places in big cities across China echoing the successful democratic movements in Tunisia, Egypt and in some parts of north Africa and Middle East since January 2011. The anonymous online appeal for the action in China in fact merely calls for people to “stroll” and “smile” on the streets on every Sunday afternoon starting from 20 February 2011.

Lawyers who are still missing as of writing this speech (4 May) include: Beijing human rights lawyer Li Fangping (???) who was taken away on 29 April 2011 (Note: Li Fangping was released on 4 May 2011; Beijing human rights lawyer Li Xiongbing (???) was taken away on 4 May 2011 and released on 6 May 2011) ; Guangzhou lawyer Liu Shihui (???) was beaten up and his legs were severely injured when he tried to go out to take part in the “Jasmine Assembly” in Guangzhou. He was taken away on 25 February 2011; Shanghai lawyer Li Tiantian (???) was taken away on 19 February 2011.

Lawyers who disappeared and were later released include: Beijing human rights lawyer Tang Jitian (???) was taken away on 19 February 2011 and was released and taken back to his hometown in Jilin province, northeastern China, on 5 May 2011. It was reported that Tang was subjected to torture during detention; Beijing human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong (???) was taken away on 19 February 2011 and was released on 19 April 2011; Teng Biao (??), a lecturer of China University of Political Science and Law and a former human rights lawyer, was taken away on 19 February 2011 and was released on 29 April 2011; Guangzhou lawyer Wu Zhenqi (???) was taken away on 25 February 2011 and was released on 4 March 2011; Guangzhou lawyer Liu Zhengqing (???) on 25 March 2011 and was released on 28 April 2011; Beijing lawyer Jin Guanghong (???) ?was taken away on 8 April 2011 and was released on 19 April 2011 and taken back to his hometown in Hubei province; Beijing human rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan (???), a close friend of detained renowned artist Ai Weiwei (???) was taken away on 14 April 2011 and was released 19 April 2011.

Beijing human rights lawyer Ni Yulan (???), who was crippled after being beaten by the police during detention a few years ago when she was defending her own house from being demolished, was criminally detained on 6 April 2011 on the suspicion of “disturbing social order.” Guangzhou human rights lawyer Tang Jingling (???) was taken away on 22 February 2011. ?Tang’s family was informed by public security on 1 March 2011 that he was put under “residential surveillance” in a so-called “Dashi Training Centre” in Panyu District of Guangzhou city.

The Chinese authorities have not given any explanation of the detention of all these lawyers. When officials of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked by foreign journalists about the cases of these lawyers and other detained human rights defenders, the Chinese officials simply routinely claimed that China is a country of “the rule of law” and the authorities follow laws and regulations to deal with the cases. It is doubtful how relevant laws and ?regulations of criminal procedures have been followed, and how much power the enforcement officers have been given to handle such cases, and how much legal protection, if any, has been given to the detained human rights lawyers and other human rights defenders.

In addition to these crackdowns, a number of human rights lawyers have also been subjected to suspension of their legal practice largely due to their human rights works. In April 2010, the Beijing Justice Bureau handed down an administrative punishment on Beijing human rights lawyers Tang Jitian (???) and Liu Wei (??) to permanently revoke (??) their legal practice license alleging them of “disrupting the order of the court” during a court hearing of a Falun Gong case in Luzhou (??) city in Sichuan province, southwestern China, in the previous year. According to the two lawyers, at that time they only stepped out of the court in protest against the trial judge for repeating interrupting them when they were trying to deliver the defense statement in court. On ther other hand, some human rights lawyers, including Wen Haibo (???), Jiang Tianyong (???), Li Subin (???), Tong Chaoping (???), Yang Huiwen (???), Teng Biao (??), Zhang Jiankang (???), Tang Jingling (???), have not been able to renew their legal practice license as the Beijing Justice Bureau did not allow them to pass the so-called “annual assessment” (??), who has no clear criteria. It is believed that these lawyers could not pass the “annual assessment” because of their human rights works or their legal representation for “politically senstive” cases, such as Falun Gong practitioners or high-profile human rights defenders.

By looking at the cases of these lawyers and legal rights defenders, we are extremely concerned about the Chinese government’s frequent assertion that China is a country of “the rule of law.” If China genuinely follows the rule of law, it is doubtful why the provisions on the freedom of expression enshrined in the Chinese Constitution have never been put implemented. Rights defense lawyers and other human rights defenders who only strive to exercise their freedom of expression always become the targets of crackdowns of political dissidents. While acknowledging that there have been some improvements in some laws and regulations, such as the Law on Lawyers which was amended in 2007 and implemented in June 2008, provisions on protection of lawyers have not been properly and adequately implemented. Criminal defense lawyers are still subjected to the risk of being prosecuted for fabricating evidence in the course of collecting evidence by Article 306 of China’s Criminal Law. The latest and famous victim of this law is Beijing lawyer Li Zhuang (??) who was sentenced for two years and six months by a court in Chongqing (??) munipality, southwestern China, in January 2010. Li originally represented for a suspected mafia boss. Li was accused of telling his client to lie in court by testifying that he was tortured in detention.

The above cases show that it is very dangerous to be a criminal defense lawyer and even more risky to represent human rights cases which are considered “politically sensitive” by the Chinese authorities. It is doubtful how China can claim that the country is under the system of “the rule of law.” In fact, what the most the Chinese government can claim would be that China is still only a country “ruled by law” while many laws and regulations actually have not been strictly followed.