{"id":6406,"date":"2016-01-19T14:54:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T19:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=6406"},"modified":"2016-01-19T14:54:51","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T19:54:51","slug":"china-pulls-lawyers-and-activists-into-a-dark-zone-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/china-pulls-lawyers-and-activists-into-a-dark-zone-of-fear","title":{"rendered":"China pulls lawyers and activists into a dark zone of fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Editorial Board<\/strong> January 18 at 6:32 PM<\/p>\n

\"Human<\/a>

Human rights lawyer Wang Yu talks during an interview with Reuters in Beijing in 2014. (Kim Kyung-Hoon\/Reuters)<\/p><\/div>\n

FOR ALL the semblance of a judicial system, with lawyers, judges and prosecutors, China\u2019s courts remain a tool of a party-state that sees itself as above the law. People can be detained for months \u2014 they simply disappear \u2014 and only later formally charged or tried. In China, detention means being sucked into the vortex of arbitrary rule.<\/p>\n

In recent years, some lawyers and activists in China attempted, with extraordinary bravery, to navigate this system and work within it. Known as the rights defense movement, the lawyers demanded that authorities follow China\u2019s own laws and rules. They worked in a sort of legal gray zone, tolerated \u2014 despite the party-state\u2019s intolerance of dissent \u2014 because they handled individual cases and did not seem to threaten the regime.<\/p>\n

Now, these attorneys are being dispatched to oblivion. After rounding up or questioning 293 of them last summer, and detaining some for as long as six months, China has begun to issue formal charges of subverting state power, which can carry a sentence of life in prison. The charges are akin to saying the lawyers are trying to undermine the regime. Among those who have been accused in recent days are human rights lawyer Wang Yu and several others from the Fengrui law firm in Beijing who were part of the rights defense movement. Ms. Wang was detained in July and has not been heard from since, but lawyers said a notice from the police about the charges had been sent to her mother. Her husband, Bao Longjun, is also detained and facing charges.<\/p>\n

Wielding the charge of state subversion marks a dark turn of events in China. In some cases in recent years, individual activists were accused of inciting state subversion, a lesser charge. It was leveled against Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo , who is serving an 11-year prison term for advocating greater freedom of expression and democracy, among other things. In other cases, activists and dissidents were rounded up on lesser charges of provoking trouble or creating public disorder.<\/p>\n

President Xi Jinping is now well into a campaign to crush independent voices in China. Recently, four labor activists were detained, and China\u2019s security apparatus appears to be behind the disappearance of five booksellers in Hong Kong in recent months. The booksellers had been peddling tomes critical of Mr. Xi. When they vanished, a chill immediately descended on their publishing house, which announced it would not bring out a forthcoming volume on him.<\/p>\n

The charge against the lawyers, subverting state power, is absurd. The lawyers were simply advising clients how to defend themselves under China\u2019s laws; their intentions were pragmatic and relatively modest. But it is now clear they touched a very sensitive nerve, and China\u2019s rulers reacted harshly. The gray zone is being turned into a twilight zone of fear, a message to anyone that they can be taken away in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

Source: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/chinas-widening-zone-of-fear\/2016\/01\/18\/e6a9c72a-ba63-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Editorial Board January 18 at 6:32 PM … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6379,"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":[1467,625,1292],"views":5568,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6407,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions\/6407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}