Skip to content Skip to navigation

Access to Justice

Fifth Anniversary of 709 Crackdown: Updated Chart of Persecution of Lawyers and Legal and Rights Advocates
Five years ago, in July 2015, the Chinese authorities rounded up some 300 lawyers, legal advocates, and other rights activists in a campaign aimed at strangling rights defense work in China, including within the legal system. In what has come to be known as the 709 Crackdown, many were charged with...
July 9, 2020
Press Release
The Plight of Chinese Human Rights Lawyers
In this timely essay, Chen Jiangang, one of China’s well-known rights defense lawyers, tells the story of the campaign waged by the Chinese authorities over the past decade intended to crush the rights defense legal profession.
July 6, 2020
Citizens' Square
Chen Jiangang
Against Odds, Wuhan Citizen Files First COVID-19 Case Against Government Authorities
On June 10, Zhang Hai of Wuhan submitted a complaint to the Wuhan Municipal Intermediate People’s. Court in the first case filed by a Wuhan citizen against government authorities for concealing information about the new coronavirus. This concealment, he argues, led to his father’s death. Zhang...
June 10, 2020
Citizens' Square
Defending the Rights of Lawyer Yu Wensheng: A Chronology by His Wife, Xu Yan (Part 8)
On January 19, 2018, lawyer Yu Wensheng published a "Citizen’s Proposal to Amend the Constitution," with recommendations for deleting the "Preamble” to the Constitution and for other political reforms. He was criminally detained the following day, on suspicion of "obstructing official business" and...
June 8, 2020
Citizens' Square
Yu Wensheng
A Tribute to Xu Zhiyong: Rights Advocate and Public Intellectual
HRIC welcomes the 2020 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award bestowed on Xu Zhiyong, announced on June 4. The honoring and recognition of one of the most influential rights advocates in China today come as Xu is detained under “residential surveillance” in an undisclosed location and facing charges of...
June 5, 2020
Statement
Xu Zhiyong
Tell the Truth, Refuse to Forget, Lies Written in Ink Cannot Conceal the Facts Written in Blood On the 31st Anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre
[English translation by Human Rights in China] This year, 2020, is the 31st anniversary of the June Fourth massacre that took place in Beijing, China, in 1989. We will not forget the tragedy. That year, in peacetime, the Chinese government mobilized our nation’s military force—a force flaunted as "...
June 1, 2020
Press Release
Wang Quanzhang: Released from Prison but " Still Serving his Sentence"
Wang Quanzhang ( 王全璋) , a lawyer in custody since the “709” crackdown in 2015, was supposedly released from prison on April 5, 2020. But instead of being allowed to go home to Beijing, Wang was sent to Jinan ostensibly for a 14-day quarantine. But by April 23, he had still not been allowed to...
April 23, 2020
Citizens' Square
Li Wenzu
Where Is the Future —— On the 10th Anniversary of the Revocation of Tang Jitian and Liu Wei’s Lawyer’s Licenses
April 30, 2020 is the 10th anniversary of the revocation of Tang Jitian and Liu Wei's lawyer's licenses. In 2008, Tang Jitian and Liu Wei were among 35 lawyers who called for the direct elections of officers of the state-controlled Beijing Lawyers Association. In 2010, Tang and Liu’s lawyer...
April 30, 2020
Citizens' Square
Tang Jitian
Human Rights Concerns Regarding Article 23 Legislation: Background and Key Issues
Background After almost a century of colonial rule, the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 between the United Kingdom (UK) and The People’s Republic of China (PRC) paved the way for the return of Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997. It established a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) to be...
April 28, 2020
Issues Brief
China Human Rights Lawyers Group's Public Statement on Safeguarding the Legal Rights of Lawyer Liu Yingying
On April 2, 2020, the Zhengzhou Lawyers Association issued a disciplinary “warning” to lawyer Liu Yingying( 刘莹莹 ) for posting on her blog an article titled, “Today, family members lined up in a long queue to pick up their relatives’ ashes at the Hankou Funeral Home.“ The warning states that Liu is...
April 6, 2020
Citizens' Square

Pages

Subscribe to Access to Justice