China's blind activist lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, released from prison
| Beijing
Blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng was freed Thursday after four years in jail, to find the Chinese civil rights movement he helped pioneer weak, but lawyers still in the fight.
Mr. Chen, a self-taught 鈥渂arefoot lawyer,鈥� earned worldwide fame for calling attention to forced abortions and sterilizations as part of 颁丑颈苍补鈥檚 one-child policy, and for helping people seek legal redress for official injustices.
He and two like-minded lawyers were jailed, however, and the Chinese government has since cracked down hard on lawyers pursuing human rights or public interest litigation.
鈥淭here has been an overall setback in the rights protection movement鈥� in recent years says Stephanie Balme, a visiting law professor at Beijing鈥檚 Tsinghua University. 鈥淚t is much harder today to take any action on sensitive issues鈥� such as human rights, food safety, religious freedom, AIDS victims, and a range of other causes, she says.
鈥淚t is rare now that lawyers are jailed, like Chen Guangcheng, but government repression of human rights activists and lawyers is worse than four years ago and more common,鈥� says Jiang Tianyong, a former lawyer who was disbarred last year.
A generation of Chinese civil rights activists
Chen was a leader of the first generation of Chinese civil rights activists, encouraged by signs that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao wanted to widen avenues of legal redress for injustice so as to dampen popular discontent.
The government changed tack, however, and in 2006 Chen was arrested. A prominent human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was also jailed, as was another member of his firm Guo Feixiong, who had represented villagers alleging official corruption. Mr. Gao has now disappeared, and is believed to be in government hands. Mr. Guo remains in prison.
Last year the authorities 鈥渟hifted from individual repression of lawyers to collective punishment,鈥� says Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong based researcher for Human Rights Watch. Around 20 of the country鈥檚 most outspoken civil rights lawyers were threatened with the loss of their professional licenses.
Mr. Jiang was among them; he had successfully defended a Tibetan monk accused of concealing weapons. 鈥淲e took sensitive cases and we did not listen to the Beijing Judicial Bureau鈥檚 orders鈥� he says, explaining the trouble he ran into.
Punishment for lawyers
Eventually only Jiang and four others did not get their licenses renewed. But almost all of the rest were forced out of the law firms they had worked for, he says.
Instead of arresting lawyers, the government now restrains them in more subtle ways, explains Jiang. The authorities do not renew their licenses, communist party committees have been set up in law firms to keep a closer eye on them, and law firm partners are pressured to fire recalcitrant members of their firms.
Sometimes the authorities simply close law practices that do not bow to their demands. The Beijing-based An Hui firm that refused to sack Tang Jitian, a lawyer who lost his license last April after representing members of the outlawed Falun Gong religious movement, failed its annual government check and is no longer allowed to operate.
鈥淭hese are all very effective measures鈥� says Jiang. 鈥淏efore they would just warn us and if we weren鈥檛 afraid we鈥檇 take the case anyway. That鈥檚 not true any more.鈥�
Less room to maneuver
At the same time, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seeking to use the courts to advance their social causes 鈥渉ave less room for maneuver鈥� than they once did, says Prof. Balme.
They could be forgiven for feeling intimidated: Gongmeng, a prominent group with strong international support, was closed last year on tax grounds after taking up the cases of victims of poisoned milk powder. A well-known womens鈥� legal aid center was expelled from Peking University, its host for many years. And the head of Aizhixing, an NGO advocating AIDS patients鈥� rights, fled China earlier this year saying it had become impossible to work here.
鈥淭he landscape is much tougher for legal activists,鈥� says Mr. Bequelin. 鈥淏ut it is not dead. A new generation is coming up.鈥�
Ordinary citizens鈥� awareness of their rights is growing, adds Xu Zhiyong, the former head of Gongmeng, and 鈥渕ore lawyers are standing up to defend justice鈥� he says. 鈥淪ociety is making progress.鈥�
鈥淚f violations of peoples鈥� rights continue to be common, even if the government keeps repressing lawyers, new ones will join the group鈥� of rights activists, predicts Jiang. 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 seen many give up.鈥�
