Against the law: Crackdown on China’s human rights lawyers deepens (excerpt)

• Author: Chinalawdigest

In February 2009, when China’s human rights record was assessed for the first time under the UN Universal Periodic Review, many concerns were raised on China’s legal and judicial system’s compliance with international human rights standards, and the effects of controls on lawyers on the protection of human rights. In response, in April 2009 China released a National Human Rights Action Plan for 2009 to 2010 that purported to address some of these concerns.

During 2009-2010, when the Plan was to be implemented, the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party acted at both national and local levels to further control and restrict the operation of lawyers taking on human rights and other cases that challenge official policies and practices. In addition, the authorities at all levels seemed increasingly willing to violate lawyer’s human rights, resorting to intimidation, harassment, detention and punishment often in violation of Chinese law itself.

Jiang Tianyong, a lawyer mentioned in this report, said that in the past, the authorities had sought to maintain some deniability, with violent attacks on lawyers generally being carried out by hired thugs or plainclothes police. Increasingly, he noted, this is no longer the case, as officers in uniform, court police, and others clearly acting in an official capacity are openly involved.

This reality, and the pattern of abuse of lawyers and obstruction of their work described in this report, raises the question of whether the Chinese government is now retreating from its 30-year project of building the rule of law and the related task of instituting effective protections for human rights. Both domestically and internationally, China has made a number of binding commitments to these goals. It signed the International Covenant on Civil and...