The first sentences have being handed down to lawyers and activists
arrested as part of the “709 crackdown” on China’s community of human rights
lawyers and activists, their associates and family members.
On 4 August, Zhou Shifeng, founder of high-profile firm Fengrui, was
sentenced to seven years in prison for subversion, according to news reports.
Two other activists were also convicted and sentenced on the same charge
this week. Chinese activist Hu Shigen, a Christian from an unregistered church,
was reportedly sentenced to more than seven years in prison on 3 August. On 2 August,
lawyer Zhai Yanmin reportedly received a three-year suspended jail sentence after being convicted of
subversion. Zhai Yanmin is known for his political activism in the Tiananmen
Square protests in 1989.
On
1 August, lawyer Wang Yu, also from Fengrui law firm, was released on a bail
following a televised “confession” in which she appeared to renounce her human
rights work and criticize Zhou Shifeng. She was the first lawyer arrested on 9
July 2015, the date which gave rise to the phrase “709
crackdown”.
Following
her arrest, fellow lawyers signed an open letter supporting her, which is
believed to have been the pretext to the unprecedented crackdown on the legal
community in which over 300 lawyers, their colleagues and families have been
arrested, interrogated or disappeared at some point over the course of the year.
Many have now been released from prison, but over 20 remain in detention
and incommunicado. On 4 July, some prisoners’ wives protested outside the
detention centre, demanding to see their husbands. Seven lawyers’ wives also
issued a joint statement calling for the release of all the detainees, for the
monitoring and harassment of their families to stop, and for the rights of the
detainees and their families to be respected. Christian Solidarity
Worldwide.
