Thanks to William Farris @ Stanford with a short list that tells you everything you need to know
List member Teng Biao recently posted on Twitter about how there was a time in 2005 when the Asia Weekly’s “People of the Year” included 14 PRC civil rights lawyers – https://twitter.com/tengbiao/
I think the people shown on the magazine cover he posted are just about the best case I could make today if someone were to ask why I held some optimism for rule of law in the PRC when I moved there in 2007 to work as an in-house legal counsel.
It also serves a very effective platform to illustrate how I feel about rule of law there today:
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Zheng Enchong – He had already been imprisoned and disbarred at the time of the article. I guess I should have known.
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Gao Zhisheng – imprisoned, disbarred, then and just disappeared. I mean where the hell is he?
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Xu Zhiyong – imprisoned, disbarred, his 2 NGOs dismantled, now about to be imprisoned again.
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Guo Feixiong – imprisoned, disbarred, then imprisoned again.
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Li Heping – imprisoned in the 7.09 crackdown.
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Pu Zhiqiang – jailed & disbarred.
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Fan Yafeng – put under house arrest for his role in Charter 08.
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Chen Guangcheng and Teng Biao himself have left the PRC.
I’ll take this opportunity to note that documents relating to the prosecutions of 4 of the 14 civil rights lawyers who were 2005’s “Men of the Year” are translated in my free casebook: State Prosecutions of Speech in the PRC (https://www.feichangdao.com):
- Guo Feixiong: p. 80
- Xu Zhiyong: p. 287
- Pu Zhiqiang: p. 489
- Zheng Enchong: p. 566
Several other names on that list make appearances in other documents in the casebook, including Fan Yafeng, Teng Biao, a Li Heping.
