‘Depressed and unemployed’: China’s rights lawyers battle disbarment

Once a staunch defender of rights activists in court, Liu Zhengqing has sunk into a depression since being barred by Chinese authorities in January. “I have been unemployed at home,” the 55-year-old said, adding that it was especially hard to find work given his age. “I am totally dependent on savings.” Liu is one of at least a dozen Chinese rights lawyers to have their licences cancelled or revoked since last year in what activists say is an effective way for authorities to silence them without attracting as much attention as an arrest. “The ongoing disbarment continues to serve as an effective tactic by the Chinese government to further diminish the space for human rights advocacy,” said Yaqiu Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Disbarment is to deprive the livelihood of human rights lawyers and their families,” she said. In China, authorities can revoke a lawyer’s licence to punish behaviour such as bribing judges, but also ambiguous offences such as “seriously disrupting court order”. A licence can also be cancelled if a lawyer does not practise in a six-month period – which is not uncommon for rights lawyers who have been detained or arrested. The growing number of disbarred rights lawyers follows one of the largest clampdowns on China’s legal profession in the country’s recent history. A police sweep launched on July 9, 2015 saw more than 200 human rights lawyers and activists detained or questioned in a huge operation – later dubbed the “709 crackdown” – that rights groups said was unprecedented. But Chinese authorities have since changed their approach, said Xie Yang, a human rights lawyer who said he was tortured in police custody during his detention in that crackdown. Instead of detaining lawyers, “they will just revoke your licence”, he said. It was an effective method, he said. “A lot of people do not dare speak up.” Sui Muqing, another Chinese lawyer who was detained during the 709 crackdown, said the widespread disbarment over the past two years had been “an even better deterrent than arresting lawyers”. While most lawyers did not see themselves at risk of arrest, disbarment was something they all faced, he said. Human rights lawyer ‘safe’ after return from Hong Kong protests trip Though the role of rights lawyers is sometimes limited in China, they serve important functions beyond legal defence. Friends and family are not generally allowed to visit detained individuals before sentencing, but lawyers mostly are – making them a crucial link between those arrested and the outside world. Lawyers can also raise awareness of the case or share information with reporters. Wang said human rights lawyers sometimes had large followings on Chinese social media, which they used to connect with ordinary people to raise awareness of rights abuses in China. By removing human rights lawyers the government could appoint their own lawyers, who may be under pressure to “defend the interests of the government – not their clients”, she said. The silencing effect of disbarment can be seen in the case of Huang Qi, China’s first “cyber-dissident”, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in July. Huang, who ran a website that reported on sensitive topics including local corruption, lost two of his lawyers – Liu and Sui – before he went to trial. By the time he was sentenced, there was so little access to Huang that even his mother – who said she was prevented from leaving her house on the day of his trial – was not informed of the court’s decision. Overall, the aftermath of the 2015 police sweep has ushered in a period of more repressive policies towards legal representatives, several rights lawyers in China said. Rights lawyer’s wife fights on, still unsure of his whereabouts While some have had their licences revoked or cancelled, others remain in detention. Wang Quanzhang, who was charged with “subversion of state power” in 2016, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in January. And like other activists and dissidents in China, some lawyers remain under surveillance or face ongoing restrictions even after they are released from detention. Jiang Tianyong, who took on high-profile cases including those of Tibetan protesters, was “still under house arrest” after he served his jail sentence in March his wife wrote on Twitter. “You can tell that they are becoming increasingly strict in their control,” said one Chinese rights lawyer, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. In the aftermath of the 709 crackdown, Chinese authorities could repress lawyers for making critical comments online – even on topics such as industrial accidents, not just human rights, he said. “In reality, you make such comments because you hope the country will become better,” he said. But now, “you cannot speak at all”.