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.'