At least five law firms have received notices from China’s Ministry of Justice barring lawyers from representing the “12 Hong Kong people in Shenzhen” and those who have already done so must withdraw, Radio Television Hong Kong reported Wednesday (Oct. 28).
The 12 youths, who were involved in Hong Kong’s anti-send-away movement, were intercepted by Chinese Coast Guard on a speedboat en route to Taiwan in late August and formally arrested by mainland Chinese prosecutors.
The report said that five lawyers commissioned by the family went back to the Yantian case unit last Thursday and filed a lawsuit against the department after seeking to meet with their client without success. The lawyers have not yet received a response from the unit that received the complaint, but they did receive a verbal notification of the injunction from the local judicial bureau. The lawyer quoted the Judicial Bureau as saying that the injunction came from the State Ministry of Justice.
The 12 Hong Kong people arrested are between the ages of 16 and 30, including Lee Yu Hin, a member of the group “Hong Kong Stories” who was involved in last year’s anti-law amendment campaign. They are accused of allegedly crossing the border. Lee was arrested earlier on suspicion of violating Hong Kong’s version of the National Security Law and released on bail.
After the arrests, some of the family members of the 12 Hong Kong residents asked their lawyers to meet with them at the detention center, but were repeatedly denied access. The family members criticized the Chinese authorities for denying the arrested individuals the right to hire lawyers on the basis of the official appointment of lawyers.
The incident of the 12 Hong Kong people being intercepted by the Chinese Coast Guard came to light on August 27 when Hong Kong media reported the arrest. Hong Kong Police Commissioner Deng Bingqiang said at the time that he only learned of the incident through media reports, stressing that the incident “will not be a cross-border cooperative operation.
However, it was recently revealed by Hong Kong media that the Hong Kong police may have known about the 12 Hong Kong people’s plan to leave Hong Kong long before they were intercepted by the Chinese Coast Guard. According to a new poll released by the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion on October 16, more than half of the respondents in Hong Kong believe that the police knew about the departure plans of the 12 Hong Kong people beforehand.
Lu Siwei, a Chinese lawyer commissioned by the family of one of the 12 Hong Kong people, recently said that the case of the 12 Hong Kong people was originally very ordinary in nature, but in the context of history, it has become one of the most influential and controversial cases involving China and Hong Kong since the handover of sovereignty over Hong Kong. He believes that the case of the 12 Hong Kong people is not promising, given the fact that the Yantian District Prosecutor’s Office approved the 12 on September 30, reflecting that the Prosecutor’s Office believes there is enough evidence to show that the 12 committed a crime and are likely to be sentenced to a prison term, as well as China’s low innocence rate.
In recent days, rallies and demonstrations in support of the 12 have taken place in many parts of the world, including cities such as Taipei, London, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Recent Comments