Zhou Shifeng is one of several Chinese lawyers who disappeared last year
China has formally arrested and charged at least seven human rights lawyers and associates with “subversion”, friends and relatives say.The employees of Fengrui law firm in Beijing, including founder Zhou Shifeng, have been detained and held in secret since last summer.
If put on trial they may face sentences of between 15 years and life in jail.
China has been conducting a widespread crackdown on activists, including scores of lawyers and their staff.
Mr Zhou came to prominence representing families caught up in China’s poison baby milk scandal in 2008. He was detained in July last year – a week later state media reported he had confessed to unspecified crimes.
His colleague, Liu Xiaoyuan, confirmed with the BBC that Mr Zhou, lawyer Wang Quanzhang and intern Li Shuyun had been formally arrested by police under suspicion of “state subversion”.
Four others, lawyers Xie Yanyi, Xie Yang and Sui Muqing, and legal assistant Zhao Wei, had been arrested and accused of “incitement to state subversion”, AFP news agency reported, citing their friends and relatives.
The BBC’s Jo Floto in Beijing says it now looks likely the group will face trial – if they do, conviction is all but guaranteed.
Crackdown
Last year authorities put out a statement accusing a group led by the Fengrui lawyers of illegally hiring protesters and swaying court decisions in the name of “defending justice and public interests”.
It accused the group of organising more than 40 controversial incidents and severely disrupting public order, and gave an example in which it had allegedly presented a legitimate police shooting at a railway station as a murder conspiracy.
Mr Wang is also accused of “state subversion”
In July last year Chinese authorities launched what appeared to be an orchestrated campaign, when more than 280 human rights lawyers and activists – along with their associates – were summoned, detained or just disappeared. The arrests have been widely seen as the state’s attempts to stifle dissent.
Last month one of the country’s most prominent rights lawyers, Pu Zhiqiang, was received a suspended jail sentence after a brief trial for “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels” in social media posts.
Rights group Amnesty International called that sentence “a deliberate attempt by the Chinese authorities to shackle a champion of freedom of expression”.