Lu Siwei, who is facing revocation of his lawyer’s license for allegedly making inappropriate comments online, attended a hearing in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Wednesday (13). Sources at the scene said he was forcibly taken from his home to the Department of Justice for a hearing in the absence of public witnesses. The agent described the hearing as a political persecution.
Lu Siwei’s hearing was held at the Sichuan Provincial Department of Justice. A lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous, said authorities were heavily fortified on the perimeter and surrounded by police vehicles.
Lawyer: “There were police barriers at both ends of the road at the Hall of Justice. I also saw a large police car outside and seven or eight smaller ones. There were in fact not as many uniformed police officers as there were plainclothes, because whenever someone went by, there were people in plainclothes either stepping in or following or stalking, just a very strict guard.”
A number of rights lawyers, including Ren Quanniu, who was also entrusted by the families of the 12 Hong Kong people case, and Xu Yan, the wife of lawyer Yu Wensheng, arrived to observe the meeting and were surrounded and taken away by police.
Lawyers: “They clashed with the police who intercepted them, and some of them were taken away directly to the police station when they were involved in more violent conflicts. But the police did not give them water to drink at first, but now they say they have been provided with lunch.”
Sources at the scene said that Lu Siwei was forcibly taken from his home to the Hall of Justice by the authorities, and that his fellow agents also went through a lot of hustle and bustle to get in.
Lawyer: “Lu Siwei was taken directly from his home by his wife’s car to the Hall of Justice, where he was not allowed to have contact with other people. The two agents were intercepted outside, and after the resistance, the agents got in, but then the lawyers Xie Yang and Ren Quanniu, who were with the agents, were also taken away.”
The hearings were actually held behind closed doors
The consular staff of ten countries, including the U.S., Britain and Canada, tried unsuccessfully to sit in on the hearing.
Lawyer: “The U.S., Germany, Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Australia and Canada, they were forbidden to go in and were photographed going in. Then they left through an alley, and when they left there were seven or eight people following behind to see them off.”
After the hearing, the Department of Justice did not announce whether to revoke Lu Siwei’s law license. One of Lu Siwei’s representatives, Xie Yan Yi, believes that the whole arrangement is against the principle of fairness and openness.
Xie Yanyi: “The people who were placed in the audience were all insiders, so we entered the hearing process under closed circumstances, so the hearing process was illegal from the beginning. The so-called allegations cited by the investigators during the hearing, and the evidence that Lu Siwei’s lawyers broke the law and violated discipline, are all false and untenable.”
He condemned the authorities’ political persecution of Lu Siwei in the name of administrative punishment.
Xie Yanyi: “The Sichuan Provincial Department of Justice, as an administrative body, did not make an investigation and issued a notice of license suspension in a hurry and without verifying the relevant information. It should have at least conducted a preliminary investigation. It so hurriedly administrative punishment is only the form, in fact, behind the essence of illegal persecution”
According to the notice issued by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Justice, Lu Si-bit made inappropriate remarks online, “seriously damaging the image of the lawyer profession” and violating the Lawyer Law and the Lawyer Practice Management Measures. He believes that his involvement in the whirlpool is related to his acceptance of an assignment from the family of a Hong Kong resident suspected of smuggling people into the country.
Another lawyer, Ren Quanniu, who assisted the family of a Hong Kong resident, is also facing revocation of his license after being accused by authorities of violating lawyer rules while representing a cult. The hearing will be held next Tuesday.
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