Chinese
human rights lawyers arrested during a recent crackdown have pleaded guilty to
a range of offences including inciting disorder, the country’s main Communist
Party newspaper reported on Sunday.
Nine
lawyers and four other staff members at the Fengrui legal firm have been
charged with disrupting trial proceedings and violating court rules. Zhou
Shifeng, the director of the firm, has pleaded guilty, the People’s Dailyreported.
Nearly
200 lawyers and activists have been detained or questioned during a campaign
launched by public security bureaus this month, with the Communist Party
maintaining a zero-tolerance approach to dissent.
Human
rights group Amnesty International called the crackdown “unprecedented” and
said on Thursday 31 of those detained remained in custody.
The
People’s Daily accused the group from the Fengrui firm of orchestrating
protests outside courts to help secure favourable verdicts for clients. The
Xinhua state news agency, in a separate report on Sunday, described such
behaviour as “very close to blackmailing”.
The
People’s Daily said many of the suspects had admitted to hyping up and
politicising ordinary legal cases in order to attract international attention.
“Many
of the criminal suspects have confirmed that the Fengrui legal firm pursued
sensitive cases, and if they were not sensitive or prominent enough, they would
think of ways to stir them up,” the People’s Daily said.
Reuters
could not reach Zhou or other lawyers with the Fengrui firm on Sunday.
The
Fengrui law firm has represented several high profile clients such as the
ethnic Uighur dissident Ilham Tohti and Zhang Miao, a news assistant at German
newspaper Die Zeit who was recently detained for more than six months.
The
People’s Daily, the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party, said police
were recently ordered to smash a “criminal gang” of lawyers accused of using
the Beijing-based Fengrui as a platform to “stir up public disorder”.
Among
those arrested were the prominent human rights lawyer Wang Yu and Wu Gan, a former
employee of Fengrui who blogs on human rights and free speech issues.
Wang
has previously defended Li Tingting, a prominent rights activist, as well as Cao Shunli , an activist who
died in detention after being denied medical treatment.
State
media said preliminary police investigations had shown that since July 2012,
the lawyers “plotted to hype up more than 40 legal cases, seriously interfering
with normal judicial activities and disrupting social order”.
It
also accused the lawyers of disseminating attacks on the Communist Party and
the Chinese government and bringing discredit to the judicial system.
Photo:
Chinese rights lawyer Wang Yu (left) and Zhou Shifeng are among the lawyers and
activists being held in recent government crackdown. Photos: AFP, Weibo
South
China Morning Post - Reuters in Beijing
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