Lawyers plan to protest over murder convictions
Four lawyers plan to take to the streets of Beijing to protest against what they say is the wrongful conviction of four Hebei men in two murder cases if their application is approved by municipal public security authorities on Friday.
The protest, scheduled for Tuesday, will be the first protest by members of the legal profession to redress what they believe is an injustice in the judicial system.
The campaigners maintain the Hebei men were forced to confess to killing and robbing two taxi drivers in Chengde in 1994.
After ordering four reviews of the case, the Hebei Supreme People's Court finally upheld the death penalty decisions in March last year.
Evidence to support their allegations on the identities of the real murderers was filed with the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice in March, but the campaigners did not receive a response.
The Public Security Bureau in Beijing accepted the protest application last week after refusing to consider two previous applications from the legal activists.
In their application to the bureau, the campaigners said: 'We cannot bear the bureaucratic conduct, and we can only use such an intense expression to call people's attention to this case and get justice.'
One of the campaigners, Yao Yao , said that in the latest application, the group had altered the route of the planned protest march, bringing it in line with a government requirement that it should not pass through Beijing's inner-city Changan Avenue. They also agreed not to go near any government buildings.
Hebei relatives of the prisoners had already been excluded from the march because the Beijing security bureau can only accept applications from permanent residents of the capital.
In an open letter, Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications law tutor Xu Zhiyong said the march itself was not the campaigners' goal.
'Our goal is to rectify the wronged case ... and our ultimate goal is to propose that lawyers have the right to be present during interrogations of suspects.'
Dr Xu said the group also wanted legislation repealing the death penalty at the local level 'to promote the protection of human rights in the criminal justice system'.
Another participant, Lu Bao- xiang , a Beijing lawyer who has been representing the Hebei defendants for six years, said the group had failed to have the convictions overturned through every possible regular means. 'So we have to choose this way,' he said.
All protests must be approved by the bureau, but mainland media report that the only public demonstrations allowed are those opposing Japanese militarism and US hegemony.
The fourth campaigner is Teng Biao , from the China University of Politics and Law.
