Chinese lawyer suspended after posting videos of alleged police torture
- Zhou Ze gets one-year suspension for disclosing evidence from a financial crime case in which he represented another lawyer
- He plans to appeal and says there was no restriction on releasing the material because it was from a first instance hearing that had concluded
A Chinese lawyer has been suspended for a year after he posted videos on social media that allegedly showed police using torture to extract confessions from witnesses and a defendant he was representing.
The justice bureau in Beijing’s Chaoyang district on Thursday handed down the suspension to Zhou Ze, 51, for breaking a government regulation on lawyers’ conduct.
Zhou, who has been practising law since 2003, said he would appeal the ruling.
It comes as scores of lawyers in mainland China – some of whom have taken on politically sensitive cases – face pressure from the authorities to drop cases or risk losing their licences.
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Zhou’s suspension was handed down after a one-day hearing on Tuesday. The justice bureau heard Zhou’s defence for disclosing the evidence from a financial crime case on Weibo last year, when he was representing another lawyer, Lu Xiansan, but all of his arguments were rejected.