The Law Society is to take part in a ‘mass intervention’ to protest at the maltreatment of human rights lawyers in China, after an Amnesty International report published last week revealed that the Beijing government has intensified its clampdown on their work.
The report said the government is tightening its control over lawyers by carrying out state violence when other forms of pressure have failed to end a lawyer’s human rights activities.
Lawyers are being threatened with ‘suspension, disbarment and even criminal punishment’ for taking up sensitive cases, the report claimed.
It said some have been placed under surveillance, while others have become victims of forced disappearances.
Just a few hundred of China’s 204,000 lawyers risk taking up human rights work because of this constant harassment, the report added.
A Law Society spokesman said it was taking part in a ‘mass intervention’ through which a range of human rights groups will send letters of protest to the Chinese government, including Amnesty International.
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