IAPL
On 31 March 2023, the Nanning Municipal Intermediate Court in Guangxi province convicted human rights lawyer Qin Yongpei of “inciting subversion to State power” and sentenced him to five years in prison, to be followed by three years of “deprivation of political rights”. The human rights defender said he would appeal.
According to the verdict, the court’s decision was based on the human rights defender’s online speech on Twitter and on the Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo criticising government wrongdoing and corruption, the interviews he gave to overseas media outlets, and his role in establishing a support group for disbarred human rights lawyers. The court said these acts amount to disinformation and libel against the government, the judiciary, and the Chinese Communist Party, and thus constitute “incitement to subversion of State power” under article 105(2) of the Criminal Law.
The human rights defender has been in detention since late October 2019 and was tried on 31 December 2021. In September 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that Qin Yongpei’s detention is arbitrary because his fair trial rights were not guaranteed and that the charge of “inciting subversion of State power” is so ill-defined that it fails to meet the principle of legal certainty. The Working Group also ruled that the human rights defender’s arrest and detention were in retaliation against his exercise of his human rights, including the rights to defend human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. The Working Group called for his release and for the Chinese government to amend its Criminal Law, including article 105, to align it with China’s human rights obligations under international law.
In a legal career spanning more than a decade, Qin Yongpei has defended other human rights lawyers facing reprisals from the authorities, provided legal assistance to vulnerable groups, and took up cases involving unlawful administrative detention, industrial pollution, forced demolition of housing, and wrongful convictions. He is the founder and director of the Guangxi Baijuming Law Firm, where several human rights lawyers in Guangxi also worked. In July 2015, he was briefly taken and questioned by police in what has become known as the “709 Crackdown” targeting human rights lawyers and other defenders across China. He has often taken to online platforms to comment on State policies and actions, including incidents of abuse of power by officials and human rights violations. He has had multiple social media accounts shut down because of his online postings critical of the government.
[…]
https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/qin-yongpei-a-lawyer-on-a-mission-to-give-a-voice-to-the-voiceless/
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/albert-ho-03302023154631.html
