In the most striking example, authorities detained more than 200 people a year ago during the so-called “709 crackdown” – named after the July 9th date of the roundup – including lawyers who took on civil rights cases considered sensitive by China’s ruling Communist party.
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Xia Lin was sentenced Thursday by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court, almost two years after being detained. “We believe this sort of sentence goes against our own views”, Xia’s lawyer Ding Xikui told reporters outside the Beijing Number 2 intermediate court.
“The result is unacceptable because according to legal process, Xia Lin is not guilty”.
He also represented fellow human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who was detained after a private seminar discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, while in 2009 he successfully defended a hotel worker who killed a local government official who had tried to rape her. “He has chose to appeal the court decision and we will file the appeal in the next few days”, Wang said. Guo, who supported pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, had been arrested for “provoking troubles”.
Since July past year, hundreds of lawyers and activists have been detained in what rights groups are calling the “709 Crackdown”, and many are still in custody.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has overseen a tightening of controls on civil society since assuming power in 2012, closing avenues for legal activism that had opened up in recent years. He was accused of defaulting on that debt, but no convincing evidence was provided, they said.
“This was just borrowing and lending among people”, Ding said. Mrs Lin had not been allowed to visit him during his detention.
It is unclear whether the charges against Xia had anything to do with the cases he defended, but the court verdict made no mention of any of the politically sensitive cases mentioned above. “The verdict was lighter than the original charge, as the court reduced the amount from over 10 million yuan down to 4.8 million yuan”, Mr Wang said.
Frances Eve, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Xia’s sentence was “very harsh”.
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“I was detained because of Occupy Central, and Xia Lin chose to stand up at the most risky time, when the atmosphere was the most intense”, he said in a telephone interview.
