Lawyers on the wrong side of the bars?
This week in China dozens of human rights lawyers have been detained as the government suspects that they have swayed court decisions, faked protested and disrupted public order. The lawyers targeted were mostly human rights lawyers who have worked on freedom of speech cases and judicial review. The Ministry of Public Security accused a group led by the Beijing-based Fengrui Law Firm, of illegally hiring protesters and swaying court decisions in the name of "defending justice and public interests". It also accused the lawyers of presenting a legitimate police shooting at a railway station as a murder conspiracy. These detentions are being seen as a consequence of China's national security law which critics say disproportionately protects the government's power.President Xi Jinping has been using his power to detain hundreds of thousands of officials in recent times and there has been a media push to discredit human rights lawyers by using their personal information to defame them.
The Chinese Dream Sham
All of this has happened in the midst of a 'Chinese Dream' to combat legal and official corruption and a campaign to uphold the image that China respects the rule of law. However as many of you will know the rule of law centres around the transparency of law and the ability of courts to review decisions with the help of barristers in order to ensure that public authorities are not abusing their power. What is happening in China however appears to be the exact opposite. This is made even more worrying by the fact that as Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the detention of activists and lawyers was not in response to “any kind of perceivable threat.”
The role of public opinion
William Nee, from Amnesty International, said Fengrui’s effectiveness in highlighting cases of injustice worried the government. “We’ve seen cases where public opinion seems to have been mobilised and I think they are worried because they don’t want to lose their grip on public opinion.” Protests outside courts by activists had unnerved the government, he added. This further suggests that these detentions are not lawful and are in fact a political move to prevent the public opinion from swaying towards the opinion of human rights lawyers in China that public authority corruption is rife and powers are being abused.
For more information see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-33502955
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e39a987c-27d6-11e5-8db8-c033edba8a6e.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/china-targets-lawyers-in-new-human-rights-crackdown
