Beijing, July 17: Beijing officials shut down a legal research centre led by activist lawyers on Friday, while China revoked the licenses of more than 50 lawyers, many known for their human rights cases.
The moves appear to be a new government push to oversee Chinese activist lawyers, who run the risk of being detained, harassed, attacked and threatened with disbarment for their work. China is also preparing for the communist state’s 60th anniversary on October 01 — a particularly sensitive period when dissent is not tolerated.
About 20 officials from Beijing’s Civil Affairs Bureau showed up on Friday morning at the offices of the Gongmeng rights group’s legal research centre and confiscated computers and other equipment, said office manager Tian Qizhuang. They also questioned researchers and other employees on the nature of their work.
“They said the research centre was not properly registered,” Tian said. “We didn’t want to resist them, but what they are doing violates the law. … Shutting us down is the same as shutting down Gongmeng.”
Xu Zhiyong, one of Gongmeng’s lawyers, said the legal centre was a department of Gongmeng, which has proper registration.
Xu said the centre does legal research on public welfare and offers legal aid. Most recently, lawyers from Gongmeng represented parents whose children got sick in a widespread scandal involving milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.
The legal centre’s shutdown came two days after Beijing’s tax bureau fined the group CNY 1.4 million (USD 200,000) because it said the group had not paid taxes.
Xu said there had been only a delay and that the full amount had been paid.
“We made a small mistake, but it was not serious. The tax bureau levied the heaviest fine to us. It’s not fair,” he said.
Neither the tax bureau nor the civil affairs bureau responded to faxed questions regarding the shutdown.
In addition, the licenses of 53 lawyers in Beijing have been cancelled, effectively banning them from working.
A notice posted last week on the Beijing Justice Bureau’s Web site said the lawyers had been penalized because they did not pass an assessment by their firms or failed to register with the bureau.
The notice gave no details besides a list of names, including Jiang Tianyong, who recently defended a Tibetan Buddhist cleric against charges of concealing weapons in an area of China where anti-government protests occurred.
–Agencies