Lawyer of detainee arrested at sea calls on prosecutors to grant access to his client, investigate ‘false claims’ by security officers
- Lawyer Ren Quanniu says in a letter to prosecutors that he believes security officials may be lying when they say his client has other representation
- The family of another detainee has also called on the international community to help their lawyer secure access to their son
A lawyer seeking to represent one of the 12 Hongkongers detained on mainland China after reportedly trying to flee to Taiwan has called on Chinese prosecutors to investigate local security officers for allegedly making false claims and depriving his client of his right to a legal defence.
Human rights lawyer Ren Quanniu, who is based in Zhengzhou in Henan province, lodged his grievance with the Yantian People’s Procuratorate in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Friday after police officers from a detention centre there prevented him from meeting his client, 29-year-old Wong Wai-yin, according to a mainland source with direct knowledge of the matter. Ren, like other lawyers involved in the case, had already faced pressure to drop Wong as a client.
One of the very few mainland lawyers insisting on representing the detained Hongkongers, Ren raised his objection just hours after the family of another suspect, Andy Li, similarly appealed to Chinese authorities to allow their loved one to meet the counsel they hired.
In his letter, which was seen by the Post, Ren called for the suspects to be returned to the city, and argued that Hong Kong residents should not be covered under the offence of crossing the border illegally, which the 12 were accused of when they were arrested at sea by the China Coast Guard last month.
“To safeguard the basic human rights of the suspect, and the implementation of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle in accordance with the law … I request the authorities to extradite the case to Hong Kong,” he wrote.
Ren also visited the detention centre on Friday requesting to see Wong, but was told by officers that his client was already represented by two unnamed defenders – similar to what other lawyers involved in the case have been told previously.
He lodged his complaint to the People’s Procuratorate of the district in the afternoon, requesting it investigate what he said could be false claims by officers from the local public security bureau.