Harder to Defend

Don't mess with Zhongnanhai, as the government cracks down on lawyers

It is troubling to read more than 100 people were detained by police on the mainland over the weekend, from human rights advocates to lawyers in an unprecedented crackdown that state media are calling a nationwide operation to smash a "criminal gang".

The People's Daily claims the operation launched by the Ministry of Public Security was to "smash a major criminal gang that had used the Beijing Fengrui law firm as a platform since July 2012 to draw attention to sensitive cases, seriously disturbing social order".

The article said the firm's director, lawyers and one of the lawyer's husbands were detained for "seriously violating the law", though the exact charge was not given.

It also claimed the group was "colluding with petitioners to disturb social order".

In the article it claimed high profile activist Wu Gan was "a key player" in stirring up a public outcry over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man, Xu Chunhe, by a policeman in Qingan, Heilongjiang in May, while the lawyers were accused of being involved.

"These lawyers publicly challenged the court... and mobilized troublemakers to rally petitioners... outside the court," the story said.

Teng Biao says the campaign mocks China's "rule of law"

As of yesterday evening, 106 people from 15 cities and provinces have been detained, summoned, questioned or were missing, according to Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group; 82 have been released.

However, of those released, at least three were taken away for a second time, says a lawyer who did not want to be named. Two were known to be released again.

Former human rights lawyer Teng Biao who is now a visiting fellow at Harvard Law School, says the Qingan incident was only a pretext to clampdown on rights activists and lawyers, who have been critical of the government over the years.

He said the crackdown made a mockery of the authorities' claim to "rule the country by law".

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch finds the latest development alarming, as it showed the Ministry of Public Security's interpretation of "disturbing public order" as ever expanding.

"That these lawyers are a 'major criminal gang' is a new and serious allegation, one that demonstrates the authorities' willingness to warp the law beyond all recognition," she said.

China has always claimed it has followed "rule of law", but the Party is consistently above the law. As a result, the rules keep changing to suit its goals.

On the outside the government claims it has a constitution, and a just legal system, but in reality it is becoming, as Richardson says, more and more warped.

Foreign companies have seen they are not able to do business on equal footing in China, and will get punished for corruption, even though every other firm has to grease a few palms to get things moving.

And for years we have seen activists forced to become silent, and now the next step is to detain their legal representatives, their lawyers, who will find it harder to defend clients because they themselves are on precarious ground.

This sends a frightening chill in the human rights activist community -- it forces them to either retreat or continue their work with the utmost courage. Either way we salute them for doing their best in such a difficult environment.

Post June 4 Notes

How many people does that look like to you in Victoria Park?

The candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on Wednesday marking the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown had a sharp increase in the number of mainlanders attending.

Organizers claim 180,000 were at the event, while police say 99,500. But when every football pitch was filled as well as the grassy areas and people were still queuing from the streets, then there must have been a lot of people there -- including me.

The Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, the organizers, said HK$1.8 million was raised this year, which was second to the record HK$2.3 million in 2012.

The large numbers of mainlanders attending was evidenced by the amount of renminbi placed in the donation boxes, equal to HK$40,000, a 60 percent increase from last year. There must have been some mainland visitors who also donated in Hong Kong dollars.

"From our fundraising work and observations, we believe there were many more mainland tourists attending the vigil than a year ago," said alliance vice-chairman Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong.

He said the largest donation came from someone who dropped an envelope containing 5,000 yuan into the collection box.

Tsoi explained the donations would pay for the HK$1 million to put on the vigil and then the rest for the alliance's operation costs and activities.

Interestingly the student-led Scholarism did some fundraising on Great George Street on the way to Victoria Park. It managed to raise HK$370,000 -- more than the HK$210,000 from last year and more than 10 times the HK$20,000 it raised in 2012.

The group also received about 8,000 yuan in donations. So while attendees of the vigil were there to remember the victims of June 4, they were also keen to support the group that is pushing for civil nominations (as opposed to public nominations) for the next chief executive election in 2017.

Civic nominations are where candidates must have a certain number of signatures to be put on the ballot whereas public nominations means anyone could be on the ballot regardless if they are going to get any viable votes or not.

Parties like the Labour Party, Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood and the Democratic Party aren't supporting Scholarism's proposal, but even in North America there are no public nominations.

In any event, we found out that human rights lawyer Teng Biao is a visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His contract ends in a few months and then he will go to the United States to take part in another visiting program.

He said that the mainland authorities had contacted him by phone a week ago warning him not to attend Wednesday's vigil. "They did not specify what consequences there would be, but they said they would be serious," he said.

Of the event, Teng said he was moved by the huge turnout. "It is the first time in my life that I have seen so many people attending a political event."

Lighting Candles 25 Years On

The Goddess of Democracy before the vigil began

I just came back from the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park to mark the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Organizers say over 180,000 attended, while police say 99,500...

Unlike last year when we had a torrential downpour halfway through, tonight there were clear skies though quite hot and humid.

Makeshift memorial for Li Wangyang below

However, no one seemed to complain as they filed into the football pitches, the earliest ones coming at 5.30pm. YTSL, two other friends and I arrived after 6pm and sat pretty much in the same area as last year, to the right of the temporary memorial tombstone.

It also had a small picture of Li Wangyang the human rights activist who was found hanged in a hospital room and authorities claimed he had committed suicide. The Goddess of Democracy was also there, and she seemed to have welcomed the LGBT community with a rainbow tied around her wrist as well as a blue ribbon for press freedom and editor Kevin Lau Chun-to.

As a result this candlelight vigil gains more significance each year.

When it was finally 8pm participants were invited to light candles and begin the ceremony that included paying respects to the dead as many of their names were read out, laying a wreath at the makeshift tombstone and singing the same songs, over and over.

There was a recording from the Tiananmen Mothers, thanking us in Hong Kong for remembering the victims, as well as from several of the student leaders from 1989 such as Wang Dan, Wu'er Kaixi, Wang Juntao and Lv Jinghua.

Raising candles to remember the dead

Perhaps the surprise of the evening was seeing human rights lawyer Teng Biao come on stage to speak. He has defended the rights of HIV victims, Tibetan freedom fighters, signed Charter 08 and counselled blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng.

I thought someone like him would probably be under house arrest or whisked away by the authorities for an impromptu "holiday", but here he was in Hong Kong telling the crowd that the Chinese government continued its crackdown on dissidents and those who defended human rights.

"But as Hong Kong people say: 'You can't kill us all'," he chanted and the audience echoed Teng. He then urged people to join the Occupy Central movement in the pursuit of democratic reform. He became more worked up and emotional, probably because he was so thrilled to be able to say whatever he wanted in Hong Kong!

Teng later told local media he hoped one day the freedom to protest would happen in China, but that many human rights activists had sacrificed their lives to pursue this right.

He also added the authorities are not just cracking down on activists for stability, but cleansing as well, showing the deep insecurities of the government when it comes to its authoritarian grip over the country. "June 4 cannot be rehabilitated until China becomes a democracy," he said.

The last part of the ceremony became more political as Lee Cheuk-yan, organizer of the event and chairman of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China gave a speech.

Organizers say over 180,000 attended tonight's vigil

He equated what the students did 25 years ago to the Occupy Central movement, and how Hong Kong people must stand up and defend the right to have a say in the process of determining what form universal suffrage will have in the city.

However will people turn up on July 1 to literally occupy the streets in Central will happen or not is another matter, but it seemed telling that as he was trying to rally people to show up less than a month from now, the crowds were dispersing the park.

For me today was also a reminder of what Tiananmen Square was like five years ago when I tried to mark the 20th anniversary. It was completely cordoned off and the public couldn't even cross the road to get to the square. Security was crawling everywhere so there wasn't anything we could do except stand there for a bit and then leave.

Today is also the first anniversary of my friend Diao Ying's death. I was thinking about how she diligently finished her work and then got home, climbed to the roof of the apartment building and jumped.

I still don't know exactly why she did that, but miss her terribly and can only hope that she is in a better place.