Lu Siwei, a Chinese lawyer who represented 12 Hong Kong youths who absconded from Taiwan, has been barred from leaving the country after his license was revoked in retaliation by Chinese authorities earlier this year, according to the South China Morning Post on Sunday.
He was invited to attend an academic conference in the United States, but was stopped by police on the 8th when he was about to take a flight from Shanghai and banned from leaving the country for “endangering national security interests,” the news said.
He was scheduled to take Delta flight DL288 from Shanghai Pudong Airport to Seattle to attend an academic event related to the Humphrey Program, but was detained by airport security personnel and banned from using his cell phone for two hours and restricted from using his personal freedom.
He stressed that although the program is funded by the U.S. State Department, the program itself covers many fields and he does not speak on sensitive topics.
He is believed to have been banned from Hong Kong early last year when he was preparing to attend a legal seminar there, and is believed to have been banned again in connection with his appointment late last year to represent one of the families of the 12 Hong Kong people, even though Chinese authorities never allowed him to enforce his right to counsel, claiming instead that his client “has appointed another lawyer.
In January, Lu’s lawyer’s license was revoked by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Justice on charges that he had “repeatedly made inappropriate comments on the Internet, over a long period of time and with a large number of posts.
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