The Chinese government has revoked the licenses of three human rights lawyers in the past month. Experts say this series of crackdowns shows that Beijing does not want anyone to challenge its system through sensitive cases, and that the space for human rights lawyers to operate is likely to continue to be reduced.
Deutsche Welle reported on February 5 that the Chinese government has intensified its crackdown on the rights lawyer community since 2021, with Lu Siwei and Ren Quanniu, who represented the “12 Hong Kong people” case, having their licenses revoked by the Sichuan and Henan provincial judicial departments as administrative sanctions, as well as the “709 arrests” case. The lawyer who represented Wang Quanzhang in the case after the “709 arrests”, Deng Xiangdong, also received a notice from the Shandong Provincial Department of Justice in late January that it planned to revoke his lawyer’s license for violating the relevant provisions of the Lawyers Law.
The notice shows that the Shandong Provincial Department of Justice has ruled that Deng Xiangdong has violated the provisions of the Law on Lawyers by disobeying the judge, interrupting the judge and the prosecutor, speaking without permission, and interfering with the court proceedings, and failing to correct the situation after repeated warnings from the court. He was convicted of violating the Law on Lawyers and had his license revoked.
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