{"id":5376,"date":"2015-07-12T21:41:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T01:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=5376"},"modified":"2015-07-11T21:41:26","modified_gmt":"2015-07-12T01:41:26","slug":"chinese-authorities-detain-and-denounce-rights-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/chinese-authorities-detain-and-denounce-rights-lawyers","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Authorities Detain and Denounce Rights Lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"zhoushifeng\"<\/a>By CHRIS BUCKLEY JULY 11, 2015<\/p>\n

CHONG KONG \u2014 At least five Chinese lawyers from a firm that specialized in rights cases have been detained by the police in Beijing and accused of running a criminal syndicate to smear the Communist Party and \u201ccreate social chaos\u201d through their litigation, state-run news media said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The accusations bear the hallmarks of a concerted operation, and signaled one of the most high-profile efforts by the party under President Xi Jinping to discredit the \u201crights defense movement,\u201d which has tried to challenge state power through litigation and publicity, said experts and rights advocates.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir objective was to win fame and profit and to create social chaos,\u201d said the news report laying out charges against the rights lawyer Zhou Shifeng and his colleagues, which was published online by People\u2019s Daily, the Communist Party\u2019s leading newspaper; Xinhua, the main state news agency; and other outlets.<\/p>\n

Chinese Authorities Appear to Detain 4 Human Rights LawyersJULY 10, 2015
\nXu Zhiyong, center, was indicted last month for \u201cgathering a crowd to disrupt public order\u201d and faces almost certain conviction.Chinese Activists Test New Leader and Are CrushedJAN. 15, 2014
\n\u201cThese no-holds-barred lawyers staged open defiance inside the courtroom and on the Internet, and behind the scenes instructed their key troublemakers to organize petitioners\u201d into protests, the official news reports said.<\/p>\n

\u201cZhou Shifeng and the others are suspected of other serious crimes, and the case is still under investigation,\u201d it said, citing the police. The reports did not describe the specific crimes they are accused of.<\/p>\n

The reports came after many of the suspects had disappeared into police custody on Thursday and Friday. Over the same time, nearly 60 other lawyers and activists had also been detained or went out of contact, a sign that they may have been detained, said the Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a group in close contact with many activists. Some of the detainees were released after questioning by the police.<\/p>\n

Experts and rights advocates said the blast of state news media reports about Mr. Zhou and his colleagues appeared to be an aggressive attempt to discredit all rights lawyers and activists as greedy schemers who menace social order.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reflects the Xi Jinping approach \u2014 bold and neo-totalitarian \u2014 but then it also reflects the strength of the movement,\u201d said Eva Pils, a law scholar at Kings College London who studies China\u2019s broad movement of rights defense lawyers. \u201cThey see a need to delegitimize it, to officially declare the human rights lawyers enemies of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing a police investigation, the report said that Mr. Zhou had overseen a series of \u201csensitive cases,\u201d in which lawyers mobilized aggrieved citizens, fanned publicity over the Internet and used aggressive courtroom tactics. The lawyers wanted to enrich themselves and to undermine the party, said the report, which also cited purported confessions from one of the lawyers as well as two activists, including one employed by Mr. Zhou\u2019s law firm.<\/p>\n

From 2012, Mr. Zhou and his associates formed \u201ca major criminal gang that organized and planned creating an uproar in more than 40 sensitive cases and that serious disturbed social order,\u201d said the report.<\/p>\n

Apart from Mr. Zhou, the other suspects under criminal detention for further investigation included Wang Yu, Liu Sixin, Wang Quanzhang and Huang Liqun, all lawyers who worked at the Fengrui Law Firm alongside Mr. Zhou. Wang Yu\u2019s husband, Bao Longjun, who assisted her work, was also detained.<\/p>\n

The police earlier arrested Zhai Yanmin and Wu Gan \u2014 two activists who advised aggrieved citizens and helped publicize their demands through raucous campaigns. They are accused of working with Mr. Zhou and his colleagues to foment protests and controversy. Mr. Wu\u2019s protests included a mock funerary altar for a judge outside a court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe suggestion that these lawyers and activists are part of a \u2018major criminal gang\u2019 sets a new low,\u201d Sophie Richardson, the China director of Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization, said by email. \u201cIt\u2019s all the more ironic given the plethora of procedural violations by police in the last 48 hours. If anyone\u2019s conduct requires immediate, thorough scrutiny, it\u2019s the Ministry of Public Security\u2019s, not the lawyers.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

For detail please visit here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By CHRIS BUCKLEY JULY 11, 2015 CHONG KON … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,136],"tags":[1343,758,1350],"views":5059,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5376"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5379,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5376\/revisions\/5379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}