Since the “709 Crackdown” eight years ago, many lawyers have completed their sentences and been released, including Lawyer Zhou Shifeng (who got the longest sentence) and Lawyer Wang Quanzhang (who was last to face trial). However the persecution of Chinese human rights lawyers has not ended. Instead, the authorities continue to surveil, harass, evict and even detain these lawyers. In other words, their release from prison does not mean freedom, the only difference for them is between living in a smaller or a bigger prison; serving the sentence alone or with their families.
Among the many examples, the persecution of lawyer Wang Quanzhang's family is among the most severe.
Among the first defence lawyers for Falun Gong practitioners
Wang Quanzhang was born in Rizhao City, Wulian County of Shandong Province in 1976. He graduated from the Law School of Shandong University in 2000, passed the judicial examination in 2003 and began practicing in 2007. Yet, he started defending others as a student, when the Chinese government launched a massive crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners in the late 1990s. Wang Quanzhang used his knowledge as a law student to provide legal aid to the Falun Gong practitioners who had been sentenced to "reeducation through labour”. However, his valiant efforts were not only unrewarded, but met with warnings from the police of Shandong Province.
During the time between his gradation and his legal practice, he had a stable job at the Shandong Provincial Library and spent his spare time teaching legal knowledge to farmers, particularly in the area of land rights. Whether a practising lawyer or not, he has never stopped his participation in promoting and defending civl and political rights. Gao Zhisheng, a well-known human rights lawyer in China, wrote an article to support the victims of the “709 Crackdown” and mentioned that Wang had started his defence of Falun Gong practitioners even earlier than himself, who started in 2004. Wang had proactively contacted Gao to discuss this issue. Despite the fact that Gao was a “sensitive figure” at the time, Wang still took the initiative to contact him, showing his particular bravery.
During his years of legal practice, Wang represented a vast number of Falun Gong practitioners and was often mistreated by the judges, physically assaulted by the police and under constant surveillance. Wang charged his clients a very low rate, reportedly telling them, “no matter how much I charge you, it seems too much, but in order to help more people, to sustain my work in rights protection and to support my family, I have to charge something. You just pay based on your capacity.”
In April 2013,Wang photographed some documents as a back-up before passing them to the Jingjiang City Court of Jiangsu Province, when suddenly the court security officers seized his phone. When he make a complaint to the judge, the judge ordered the guards to detain Wang. The next day, the court released a statement accusing Wang of “contempt of court” and sentenced him to an administrative detention of ten days. The incident triggered a joint-statement co-signed by about 140 lawyers across China, calling the All-China Lawyers Association and the Beijing Lawyers Association to step in, the court to publicize the video recording of incident and for the immediate release of Wang. Both local and international newspapers reported the case.
Wang was released two days later, yet, the court insisted its ruling was correct and refused to to publicise the video recording. Since then, he has been targetted in various forms: a judge in Heilongjiang Province slapped him, police vehicles tried to hit him in Tangshan City, detention and home searches were conducted by state security officers, his employer was forced to fire him from the law firm, to name just a few.
Article 37
In legal practice, a lawyer’s right of the person is inviolable.
A lawyer shall not be legally liable for the opinions he presents as an agent ad litem or defender in court, with the exception of the views he presents to endanger State security, maliciously slander another person, or seriously disrupt the court order.
Where a lawyer is, in accordance with law, detained or arrested because he is suspected of committing a crime when participating in litigation, the organ that detains or arrests him shall, within 24 hours after the execution of detention or arrest, have his family members, his law firm and the lawyers association to which he belongs informed of the fact.China’s Law on Lawyers
Wang’s story illustrates that while the Chinese government claims to rule the country according to law, it entirely ignores the laws it has passed.
Missing for over three years during the “709 Crackdown”
Since 2012, political propaganda in China has adopted the following discourse: “Americans, with “Internet freedom” as their slogan, through the use of rights lawyers, underground religion, dissidents, internet leaders, and disadvantaged social groups as the core forces, lay a foundation for changing China and undermining it.” The groups mentioned are also being referred to as the “New Five Black Categories” (xin hei wu lei). The “709 Crackdown” is not only a crackdown of human rights lawyers, it can also be seen as a massive crackdown of the representatives of the “New Five Black Elements”. The affected lawyers were representing groups and often became outspoken supports of certain causes, for example Hu Shigen was a representative of unregistered churches, Wu Gan was a dissident / cyber activist, Lawyer Zhai Yanmin was very vocal representing disadvantaged groups (petitioners), and Lawyer Li Heping also founded a NGO to fight against torture.
As a result, Beijing Fengrui Law Firm (the law firm who employed Wang since 2014 and many other prominent human rights lawyers, such its founder Zhou Shifeng, Wang Yu, Liu Xiaoyuan, Li Yuhan and etc) was raided.
While other lawyers were questioned or detained in the days following 5th July of 2015, Wang Quanzhang went missing on 3rd August. Wang’s wife, Li Wenzu, without knowing his whereabouts, instructed some lawyers to visit several detention centres to look for Wang. On 10th August, they arrived at Hexi Detention Centre of Tianjin City, where the guards told them “Wang is suspected of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles”, “inciting subversion of state power”, and therefore he is not allowed to meet with lawyers”. Such an approach completely violates China’s law on lawyers, which stipulates that when a lawyer is detained, the authorities need to notify the family members. It was not until 8 January 2016 that Wang’s family finally received a detention notice, informing them that Wang was detained by the Tianjin Municipal Public Security Bureau on suspicion of “subverting state power” and kept in Tianjin No. 2 Detention Center.
Since early August 2015, Wang has been out of touch with the outside world for almost three years. Though Wang’s family employed Cheng Hai and Yu Wensheng as Wang’s lawyers, the authorities kept denying them access to Wang, claiming that Wang had dismissed these two lawyers and appointed two government lawyers to represent him, without informing his family. Lawyer Cheng and Lawyer Yu were surveilled, followed by officers, and their driving licenses and identity cards were routinely checked throughout this time. Wang’s family was cut off from water supply and electricity, and evicted from their flat. Subsequently, Cheng and Yu condemned the lawyers associations in Tianjin, Beijing and at the national levels, Beijing’s Justice Bureau and the Ministry of Justice for failing to protect the rights and interests of lawyers. The state had contravened rights such as Lawyer Wang's personal freedom and the right to appoint lawyers; their own rights to defend their client; and a state-level impingement on the rights of other lawyers by appointing official lawyers to Wang.
As a response to their condemnation, Lawyer Yu Wensheng’s licence was revoked and he was detained in 2016. The business licence for Cheng Hai's law firm was revoked in February 2018. Given the shrinking space for China’s rights lawyers, Cheng Hai couldn't find a position in another law firm within half a year, meaning his lawyer's license was forcibly revoked and has never been returned. Since 2015, Li Wenzu has hired seven lawyers, but they have all withdrawn, had their licences revoked, been arrested and under intense suppression and threats. In China, performing the basic role of a lawyer means running great risks.
"Diabetes", torture and cancelled-appeal
Almost three years later, Lawyer Liu Weiguo, who was appointed to Wang by the authorities, finally met Wang on 12th July 2018. Liu told Li Wenzu after the meeting that Wang seemed very frightened and did not dare to speak loudly. He often moved his lips without making sounds, so Liu was unable to understand what Wang Quanzhang was saying.
Yet, Wang did tell Lawyer Liu Weiguo that he had insisted to have Lawyer Cheng Hai and his wife Li Wenzu as his defenders, but the authorities declined his request. According to Wang Quanzhang’s after his release in 2020, once he had learned that the lawyers who represented him were suspended from practice or detained, he did not want to implicate other lawyers and made this request instead. Chinese law allows “the defendant to have the right to hire relatives and friends as defenders”, but the court kept finding excuses to disqualify his relatives and breached the legal requirements.
On 26th December 2018, Wang’s case was finally heard in Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court. The court ruled out an open trial because it involved “state secrets”. On that day, plainclothes political security guards, security guards from the housing estate and unknown persons went into Wang’s flat to prevent his wife from going to Tianjin to attend the trial. A month later, the court convicted Wang of "subversion of state power" and sentenced him to four years and six months in prison and the deprivation of political rights for five years.
After four years of struggle, Wang’s wife Li Wenzu, their seven-year-old son and Wang's sister were finally allowed to visit Wang in prison in late June 2019. In her eyes, he acted rather strangely and irritated, looked emaciated and old, but he claimed he was doing well in prison. She described him as a “programmed wooden puppet” and was deeply worried about his mental state. Since his detention, Wang has been forced to take medicine for diabetes, although he was never diagnosed with diabetes. He was worryingly diagnosed in prison, and it is unclear what effects the medicines would have. In the following visits, Li also found that Wang had lost several teeth and his health had been deteriorating.
After serving his sentence and being released in April 2020, Wang was interviewed by a Japanese news agency and could finally disclose the torture and violence he had experienced during interrogation and detention. He was locked in a cell of about 20 square meters, was monitored by two armed police 24 hours a day, and was not allowed to turn over while sleeping. He was asked to stand with his hands up for 15 hours. Once he put his hands down, he was loudly scolded as a "traitor", which made him too weak to stand for a few minutes. He was also slapped repeatedly for hours.
He also found the legal procedure chaotic. The authorities first charged him with "picking quarrels and provoking troubles", which later changed to "inciting subversion of state power", and then “upgraded” to "subversion of state power".
During the trial, he questioned why the judge did not conduct the trial in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, but was violently pushed to the ground by seven or eight court guards. He felt himself being treated as an animal in an abattoir, instead of a human being standing trial. When he tried to appeal, a Political and Legal Affairs Commission official threatened to extend his sentence by eight years. "What happened to me proves that [the judicial procedure in China] is sloppy. It is the police, prosecutors and court authorities who violate the law.” commented Wang.
A man’s sentence becomes a family’s curse
Since Wang's forced disappearance and detention, Li Wenzu, who used not to care about politics, has been defending her husband’s rights. Together with other human rights lawyers' wives, she visited Tianjin judicial bureau numerous times, holding placards to demand access to her husband, but was repeatedly threatened and harassed by the police. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited China in May 2018, she met with Li and Xu Yan (the wife of Lawyer Yu Wensheng). Li urged Merkel to help her confirm whether Wang was still alive, and to demand the authorities to allow lawyers employed by the family to meet with Wang. It is believed that her efforts helped Wang finally see a lawyer in July 2018.
However, the ordeal of Wang and Li did not stop after Wang’s release. Years of surveillance and harassment from the authorities make it difficult for the family to lead a normal life. On so-called “sensitive days”, such as “709 Crackdown" Memorial Day, Human Rights Day, Europe Day and US Constitution Day, the policemen would show up in front of their flat to prevent them from going out. Their freedom of expression and political rights have also been violated. "I want to file a civil lawsuit now. It is very difficult to file a lawsuit and get it accepted. Not only have I been deprived of political rights, but I have also been deprived of the right to litigate. My freedom of speech on social media is restricted. I didn't know much about it when I was first released. I wrote some articles on my WeChat account - simply a legal analysis regarding the "Legislative Law". Later, I found my WeChat account was permanently deleted, citing that I had spread rumours. My Weibo [a social media platform in China] account was also deleted as my followers increased. I think they are trying to eliminate our voice and influence.” Wang described.
Their son's right to education has also been eliminated. Public schools are unwilling to accept him, so he can only go to a private school, which is subjected to constant control and suppressed by the government. He cannot go to school without fear and frequent disturbances. He has witnessed his mother being confronted by the political security officers and often has nightmares featuring his mother being taken away. His birthday wish was that no more police officers would appear in front of his flat. All these indicate that he has been living in fear.
Since April 2023, the Wang family has encountered a new round of harassment. In order to “save some trouble”, the Beijing police forced them to leave their jurisdiction and move back to Shandong province, including allowing the landlord to use illegal means to evict them, such as cutting off water supply and electricity in an effort to force Wang to terminate the rental contract. The family wanted to stay in Beijing, because they wanted their son to go to school in a familiar environment; they are also worried that returning to Shandong would only mean returning to a bigger prison, in exchange for more surveillance and less attention.
Despite visits from the French President, the President of European Commission and the German Foreign Minister in the first half of 2023, the Chinese government picked this time to restart a new round of suppression of human rights lawyers. While Wang’s family was being forced to relocate, Lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife Xu Yan were detained by the authorities for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after being invited to an event in the German embassy; legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and Lawyer Ding Jiaxi were convicted with extremely long prison sentences. All these gestures gives the signal that China welcomes the European Union to talk about business, but it is not going to discuss human rights. Instead, it further tightens up the space for human rights lawyers.