Widgetized Section

Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone

Exclusive:Human Right Lawyer Lu Tingge:Every lawyer can make a difference

Posted by on 2022/07/09. Filed under Breaking News,China,Headline News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

In recent years, the Communist Party of China authorities have intensified their crackdown on human rights lawyers. They have warned and threatened law firms and individual lawyers, and lawyers have frequently been put under house arrest, or even detained and sentenced because of quarantine codes. Lu Tingge, a rights lawyer from Hebei who has represented 12 Hong Kong people sent to China, said judicial authorities had become unscrupulous in their knowledge of the law.

2015 “709 human rights lawyers capture” incident, China human rights lawyers further compressed space, the Chinese communist party authorities mass arrests, subpoena, criminal detention, and interviewed the people hundreds of lawyers, civil rights activists, petitioners and their families, the scope, as many as 23 provinces in 2016, the department of justice “lawyer management method”, Significantly increase the intensity of control and punishment of lawyers. Lu Tingge said many of the provisions of the law were anti-legal, and that the communist party’s crackdown on rights lawyers had intensified since then.

There is no way for the judicial authorities to appeal against “illegal” persecution of rights lawyers

Lu Tingge said more and more lawyers have had their licenses revoked in recent years, and he himself is now facing the problem. He is the only one left in his law firm, which had 20 lawyers. Other lawyers are leaving due to threats from the judicial authorities and the bar association, and the source of cases is also affected. In May last year, the law association filed an investigation against him on charges of making inappropriate remarks.

Because of the crackdown, the law firm has not conducted an annual inspection for two years, and his lawyer’s certificate has not been tested for three years, Mr.Lu said. According to the regulations, if a law firm does not carry out annual inspection, its bank account will be frozen, and work and business can not be carried out normally. Although the lawyer does not carry out annual inspection, it will not affect the practice status, “but in real judicial events, the public security law is to see this, without the annual inspection, it will be difficult”.

Although his practice was interfered by many parties, Lu Tingge did not give up his fight for democracy and rule of law. He continued to file a lawsuit against the judicial Bureau and the Bar Association for their illegal acts, but the case was never filed. He also filed a complaint against the court to the disciplinary and supervisory authorities and prosecutors, to no avail. Lu Tingge said, now living space of human rights lawyers has become more and more worse, into a “dead cycle”, in the face of the judicial authorities violate the rights of a human rights lawyer, although there are rights in legal channels, but the lawyer first need to protest or lawsuits to the relevant judicial departments, therefore, the rights of the result is often the aspirations of the justice department to ignore human rights lawyers.

There are more lawyers in similar circumstances, such as Tang Jitian, who was injured and Chang Weiping, who has been detained to this day. Tang Jitian, a lawyer, was taken away by the police in December 2021 when he was planning to attend an event held by the European Union Mission in Beijing. It has been six months since his “enforced disappearance”. In June this year, he suddenly fell on the toilet and landed on his head, showing symptoms such as coma coughing up blood, bleeding from the nose and mouth and concussion. The police still refuse to lift this illegal stabilisation measure.

Chang Wei flat lawyer with dissidents and lawyers in Xiamen in 2019, residential surveillance by the police after the party, after 10 days to obtain a guarantor pending trial, the following year in October, he was again on the Internet about previously suffered torture under residential surveillance, after last year by the authorities arrested on suspicion of “subversion”, Chang Wei’s wife said, now, more than 29 months often detained, The cases are moving at a snail’s pace.

Lu Tingge said, Tang, Chang’s situation, are the CCP revealed illegal information. ‘It is illegal for Chang’s case to exceed the sentence limit,’ Lu said. ‘It is inhumane that Tang’s house arrest and injuries should be treated immediately instead of being stabilized by the authorities.’

The Communist Party is using quarantine measures to intensify its crackdown on rights lawyers

Lu Tingge also said the Communist Party’s use of epidemic prevention measures to control society and citizens, especially those who protect their rights, may continue to increase. Lu Tinge said that the authorities have been abusing the epidemic prevention throughout, such as the Zhengzhou red-code incident, “without following the requirements of the epidemic prevention itself, but using the epidemic prevention to control society or citizens.”

In March this year, lawyer Wang Yu’s travel was disrupted when a “health code” message suggested “companions of time and space”. Even though Wang had not been to the area where the epidemic occurred and had taken a nucleic acid test as required by the authorities, relevant information on epidemic prevention had not disappeared. In mainland China, where people are required to show a “health code” to visit any place, his travel was repeatedly blocked.

This happened to 709 lawyer Xie Yang at the end of last year, when Xie Yang, who was representing citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, was stopped at the airport on his way to Shanghai when his health code suddenly turned red and showed him as a spacetime companion.

Lu Tinger expressed concern that misuse of quarantine measures could delay the end of the epidemic. “Although the epidemic may have done no harm, or should be over, it may not be over,” Lu said. In addition, even after the epidemic is over, the authorities may find other reasons to control society and citizens, which is terrible, especially to control rights groups.”

The business environment is severe, but we will still look forward to the arrival of a society ruled by law

Despite obstacles in his quest for justice for himself and others, Lu Tinge did not give up contributing to a free and law-based society. Lu said that although the space for rights protection is getting smaller and smaller now, from the perspective of lawyers, there is still room to fight. “We can only protect and fight within the limited space, expand the space for rights protection as a whole, and prevent further oppression and further compression of the space for lawyers. I think I can make a difference.”

Lu Tingge, who is experiencing a judicial crackdown, said that in the future, he will continue to complain to the higher procuratorial organs about the crackdown by the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Justice and the Municipal Bar Association. At the same time, because of the current travel is blocked by the epidemic, he will continue to go to various places to handle cases such as rights protection after the epidemic ends.

Lu Tingge also said that although the space for rights protection is reduced, on the other hand, more lawyers with conscience and a sense of justice will be encouraged to stand up. “If more people stand up for rights protection, the effect of protest will be better,” he said.

“How can more people protect their rights? Let’s influence lawyers with a sense of justice, even citizens, to participate in the process,” Lu Tinge said, expressing optimism about the future democracy and rule of law. “Each of us lawyers can make a difference. Don’t be pessimistic, don’t have a big sense of mission, I must do something, I must change something, as long as you make a little influence, a little contribution to the current of changing society or promoting society (progress), that’s ok.”

comments powered by Disqus