A prominent Chinese lawyer was on Thursday sentenced to seven years in prison for subverting state powers, the third such ruling this week after the nation-wide crackdown on human rights activists.
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A Chinese activist has been jailed for more than seven years for subversion, the second person jailed in two days in a crackdown on legal activism.
Zhou pleaded guilty and told the court he won’t appeal the verdict, according to Xinhua.
On Tuesday, activist Zhai Yanmin was handed a suspended three-year jail term for organizing protests critical of the government. The firm was the main target of a nationwide crackdown that saw more than 300 human rights lawyers and associates detained beginning on the night of July 9, 2015.
“But a guard inside questioned our identity, and we answered as ‘citizens coming to audit the trial.’ He then demanded that we provide citizen IDs and once we produced them, he took us out of the court”, said Li.
Shigen, 61, was accused of leading an “underground organisation that masqueraded as a church” and attempting to “overthrow the government”, Brown said.
“He was part of a law firm that used to deal with pretty sensitive human rights cases, helping people who faced demolitions or land seizures, or even religious issues”.
Hu had been sentenced in 1994 to 20 years in prison on the now-abolished charge of counterrevolution in connection with his political activities, but was released in 2008 after his sentence was reduced.
Of them, at least 24 were formally charged with “subverting state powers, inciting subversion of state powers, and inciting provocation”, according to the South China Morning Post.
The trials are part of a pattern established under the administration of President Xi Jinping to use more sophisticated legal means to attack perceived opponents as it maintains pressure on activists and non-governmental organizations.
After founding Fengrui Law Firm in 2007, Zhou represented members of the illegal Falun Gong movement, artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei, and news assistant Zhang Miao.
A Chinese court in Tianjin, 60 miles south-east of Beijing, is this week rolling out a string of court sentences against rights activists and lawyers that observers claim have nearly zero credibility.
Zhou, 52, was a former director of Fengrui Law Firm which had defended victims of sexual abuse, dissident scholars, among others. Their actions were harshly denounced by the authorities as interference in the legal process. Two other activists, Hu Shigen and Zhai Yanmin, were also convicted in Tianjin this week under the same charge.
Some family members and lawyers have also been detained after seeking information.
“They’ve been actively wooing me, and want to use us to challenge court hearings and China’s entire judicial system, making trouble for the Chinese government”, he confessed, adding that these outside forces want to overturn the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
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Yuan Shanshan, the wife of detained Chinese lawyer Xie Yanyi, carries her child as she talks to a police officer while other plain clothes security personnel film journalists near the Tianjin court on Tuesday.
