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CHINA – HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS & ACTIVISTS, INCLUDING WOMEN, DETAINED OR DISAPPEARED – GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN
In this April 18, 2015 file photo, Chinese lawyer Wang Yu speaks during an interview in Beijing. China's state media on Tuesday, July 14, 2015 accused more than two dozen human rights attorneys rounded up in recent days, including Wang Yu, of being troublemakers intent on illegal activism as foreign governments and rights groups expressed growing concern over the arrests. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
By DIDI TANG, Associated Press –
July 14, 2015
BEIJING
(AP) — China's state media on Tuesday accused more than two dozen human rights
lawyers rounded up in recent days of being troublemakers intent on illegal
activism, as foreign governments and rights groups expressed growing concern
over the crackdown.
The human
rights watchdog Amnesty International said 25 human rights lawyers and civil
activists have been detained or have disappeared since last Thursday. Another
123 people — mostly lawyers and activists — have been warned not to speak out
or act on behalf of those detained, it said. Many of those warned were detained
briefly themselves.
The
crackdown targets Chinese lawyers who have joined with civil activists in
publicizing alleged unlawful practices by police and courts, drawing public
attention to unjust cases, disputing official descriptions of controversial
events and challenging authorities to follow the letter of the law.
Human
Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang said the human rights lawyers had helped
build a civil society in China over the past decade to hold authorities
accountable, and that the crackdown was part of a "methodological
dismantling" of that civil society since Chinese President Xi Jinping came
to power……..
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UN HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS SAY CHINA MUST END CRACKDOWN ON LAWYERS
& ACTIVISTS
By Tom Miles -
July 16, 2015
GENEVA
(Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators demanded an end to a Chinese
crackdown on lawyers on Thursday after more than 100 people were detained,
intimidated or went missing over the past week.
The five
independent experts said the crackdown may have broken the U.N. Declaration of
Human Rights, the U.N. Basic Principles of the Role of Lawyers and China's own
criminal procedures.
“Lawyers
should never have to suffer prosecution or any other kind of sanctions or
intimidation for discharging their professional duties,” they said in a
statement issued by the U.N. human rights office.
Citing the
need to buttress national security and stability, President Xi Jinping's
administration has tightened its control over civil society since 2012. Amnesty
International said 177 lawyers and activists had been detained or questioned by
Wednesday, including 31 still missing or in police custody.
The People's
Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said last Saturday that the Fengrui law
firm, several of whose lawyers have been detained, was a "major criminal
organization". The firm has been active in defending dissidents.
The detentions
and questionings come after a months-long campaign in state media to discredit
human rights activists for undermining national stability by using social
media.
China has also
been under fire for a new national security law that U.N. human rights chief
Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein said "leaves the door wide open to further
restrictions of the rights and freedoms of Chinese citizens". China said
he was interfering in its affairs.
The latest
crackdown targeted an "ever growing number" of law firm personnel and
human rights defenders, mostly involved with human rights cases representing
well known political dissidents, journalists and artists, the U.N. experts
said.
Those arrested
should be immediately released if there were no criminal charges against them,
the U.N. investigators said.
The five
experts hold mandates from the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate the
independence of judges and lawyers, the situation of human rights defenders,
freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and
association, and torture.
The European
Union and United States have also criticized China's "systematic"
detentions crackdown and called for the release of all those who had been
detained.
The U.N.
statement said the experts were in contact with Chinese authorities to
"clarify the issues in question".